A few weeks ago my left hand side Sandman opto went out on my Stern Spiderman (2007ish run).

I started digging into replacing it, removing parts for access etc (which as usual seemed harder than it should have been ).

I finally had access to the opto, and regretfully unscrewed it and fished it out. It looked like it would be one of those "hope and a prayer" replacement jobs, ad the metal the opto was screwed to was upside down (relative to my access) and super close to one of the pop bumpers.

Anyways seemingly an hour later I had magically levitated the new one into place, against all odds, science, and expectations and screwed it in. And lucky for me it worked! I spent a few extra minutes making sure the opto wires would stay clear of the pop bumper, one of the bad opto's wires had "mysteriously" become disconnected .

I replaced the left hand side Sandman opto just for the heck of it at that point, in less than 5 minutes. Yay?

That left me wondering, what is the hardest opto you have had to replace in terms of time/effort/luck required?

The Sandman assembly clearly was meant to be done before it was installed into the game, but uninstalling the assembly seems like a big ask for replacing a single opto. I might be wrong about that, if so I am sure I will hear about it.

I realize I should have probably taken a picture how hard it was to position the right Sandman opto, but instead here is a pic of my ultimate ball jam on LoTR, a game known for quirky ball jams...

your multiball is OVER

If this game was on location, it would be ROCKED to unjam these balls...

Ouch, that sounds like how the SM opto was set up; lets disassemble half the game to change a 2 dollar part that will for sure "burn out" (the opto "bulb") eventually...

Yeah, I can see cutting them some slack given they were setting up from scratch. And given the candidates from Williams so far .