In the words of Hans Gruber, "The code please".

I agree that cancelling an order over this issue is unnecessary. I will say that this is the 3rd instance I have heard of this plastic "fence" breaking from an airball. Spooky might want to take another look at that part and beef it up. One operator I know had that plastic break within the first week on Ultraman.

I have run into this issue recently as well, and my game is on location. Here is what you might try: When this occurs, open the coin door and go into the stuck switch test. This test should show all the trough switches that are currently active. They will be numbered 1-7, switch 1 is an opto at the front of the trough, switches 2-7 are microswitches. If the game sees all the balls, then each trough switch should show up in that test. In my case, switch 1 is not always seeing the ball. Thankfully, this problem doesn't happen very often, but when it does if I slide the game back and forth to get the balls moving around in the trough the game will usually see the ball. During the game the trough works fine so not sure why this only seems to happen at game start, and only on an occasional basis.

I didn't have time the other day to take the trough off and troubleshoot that switch yet, but I am going back on Friday to see what needs to be done. I wish Spooky could code the game so that if the game sees trough switch 7 closed, then all the balls must be in the trough and the game could start. I'm sure it can't be as simple as that, but I wish it could be fixed that way.

My lower playfield GI went out, too. As it turned out, there was a connector unplugged a couple of lamps away that knocked out two insert lamps and the GI string. I had to follow the wires to find it. Plugged it back in and was good to go. AJ provided the suggestion and it was right on target. So, it could be a bad GI string or an unplugged connector somewhere down the line.

That shield is a pain to replace. I replaced mine a couple of months ago and discovered that you really don't need any fasteners to hold the shield in place under the upper playfield, just the exposed post on the left by the hedge. The fit is so tight at the posts that the shield isn't going anywhere, and is probably the reason why it snapped there in the first place. That shield hasn't come close to popping off or breaking in well over 1000 plays since the replacement, so maybe allowing it to flex a bit has kept it from snapping. A stronger piece would be a plus, the OEM piece is flimsy.

Only issue with your proposed machine screw solution is just getting access to those fasteners buried underneath both of those playfields. It is pretty tight under there.

I posted about this earlier in the thread, but you really don't need anything holding that protector down under the Sanitarium playfield. It isn't going anywhere and if it isn't so tight it won't be as apt to break either. I have a couple thousand plays on the replacement drop target shield and even though it is so flimsy it is holding up fine.

Well, as far as board for board it is really pretty close. A Pinotaur has I think 42? connections on it, around the same number as on the WPC driver board. Most of the connections in the earlier pic are obscured by the wire harness. What makes the Pinotaur challenging to remove and replace for servicing is that many of the connections are in one quadrant of the board, and packed in tight. There are no keying plugs on the connectors either and quite a few of them are identical. Replacing a Pinotaur is almost as much fun as replacing the driver board in the head of a Banzai Run, almost.

To clarify, this current issue has nothing to do with the previous Pinotaur replacements, which were due to two different coils--the dump coil for the left ramp and the extra ball knockdown coil, locking on in two separate incidents within about a one month period. In both cases those were simple transistor failures and if I would have had the skills and equipment for surface mount soldering, I could have replaced those transistors and reinstalled the boards. Those Pinotaurs still look brand new.

This current issue with a huge scorch mark and a blown transistor on the Pinotaur looks like a hard short to me. I haven't seen the game since this happened and am just as curious as everyone else as to what would caused the problem. Spooky has been very supportive in the past and I expect they will help out with this issue as well.

Your servo fuse is on the far right, a 3 amp fuse, this fuse is located just above your 5v fuse on the bottom right of the board.

Those three unlit fuses are your solenoid fuses and will not light up green unless you are playing a game, or in solenoid test. Not sure why Spooky does it this way, but there you have it.

Aren't there more than that? There are six connections on the Pinotaur but only five come to mind for me, three hedges, two inlane ball lifters. Does the topper run through that circuit?

That's it! Six places to check when that fuse blows, hedges, lifters and diverter.