I have a gottlieb world series that has an intermittent problem with correctly counting the number of balls for a game at startup.

For example, if I have it set to be a 5 ball game, occasionally it will start a game but go to 10 balls (World Series is an add-a-ball game). If I set it to be a 3 ball game, occasionally it will start a game but will go to 4 balls.

There are times when I can cycle the game on and off 50, 60, 70 times and it goes to the correct number but just when I think it's right, it'll start with the incorrect number of balls. It seems to happen more often the first time you turn the game on but can happen at any time.

I don't do my own repairs but the guy I use has looked at it a couple of times and whenever he tweaks something, it seems to be better, but always returns. In other words, it seems like he hasn't yet found the magic combination that's occasionally causing this issue.

I come to you, EM gurus, for ideas on what could be causing this to happen. When it's wrong, it's consistently wrong. In other words, when set to 3 ball, it goes to 4 and when it's set to 5 it goes to 10, never any other number.

Originally, the problem being addressed was that after the game went to game over, it would kick the ball out to the shooter lane one last time, even though the game was over. While that problem is gone, the intermittent ball count issue has replaced it.

So, anyone have thoughts on what could be causing this? I appreciate any thoughts you might have.

Dave

Well, my repair guy was just over again taking another look at things...he thinks he got it this time. Apparently, even though the schematic doesn't really show it, the G relay (reset relay I believe) was causing the score motor to go through an extra cycle, intermittently, which would cause an extra ball, or extra 5 balls, to be added to the ball count.

One thing I had noticed is that the problem seemed to be happening more often on a cold, first game, startup. This seemed to be part of the problem as the reset relay involves some mechanical movement to it and it seemed like something was "sticking" the first couple of games and then after that it would work correctly. He did some work on that relay and it seems to have solved the problem.

This was a very odd, and very intermittent problem but figured I'd document it here, just in case anyone else ever has this issue.

Dave