Just got a Solar Ride SS last week in decent player's condition. First machine. I know that System 1's can be a pain to work on, but it is such an experience to not have to go out to play pinball.

Side questions: Where is the volume knob on the sound board on this thing? Will anyone ever bother to reproduce the playfield for this game? I feel like the artwork is spectacular. Granted, the gameplay is one dimensional, but it is fun to rack up a huge bonus and cash it in.

Thanks! Some of this older tech is confusing me. I was looking for a more modern potentiometer and it is a flat blue saucer almost ha! I am enjoying working on the machine. I wish I knew more about electronics, but I think this might help me learn a bit.

Does anyone have an idea as to why the star rollovers on my Solar Ride will work sometimes and sometimes they either don't work/register or they take a game to start working?

This game is in pretty good shape, but it does have the original MPU with a battery pack so I am curious as to what might be causing this? For the record, it's not just one that won't register it is all of them. So when one doesn't work, the rest aren't working either.

Any help is appreciated. I reseated and checked the edge connectors around the whole MPU. I will also note that the MPU ground mod has not been done (yet, I am working on my soldering skills before attempting it).

One of the switches looks like it has white stuff all over it and it's sticky. I'm guessing that is wax. How would I clean the wax off?

Here's something new: The rollovers work flawlessly when I have the playfield up, but as soon as I put it down or shortly after hitting the pops they cease working. Could this still just be a gunky switch issue? Or could it be something different?

Everything else except the stars work. I did install LEDs yesterday and had to move some stuff around. I just noticed that all of the solder joints on the star switches look like they are dirty/rusty/corroded or something (I'm guessing due to age).

I also noticed that two of the pop bumpers' bottom leaf switches were missing/broken off? That also seems like an issue. I spotted the one complete pop bumper was firing then the switch was staying closed so I adjusted it.

It's also worth noting here that it doesn't happen when just the pops fire. Sometimes they register while the playfield is down, but nothing has fired yet. As soon as I start a game and a few coils fire to set up the game, then the rollovers stop working.

I got this game for a decent price so I can put some money back into it and I don't think it'll leave my collection (of 1) any time soon.

I did a switch test. Playfield up, switches register. Playfield down, switches do not register. Every other switch registers during the test including the ones mentioned above. I am thinking I need to do some resoldering under the playfield as some of these connections look really poor. I also readjusted the rollover switches to make sure nothing was leaving them closed and still very inconsistent with whether or not they would work.

Any suggestions or solutions? You guys are saving my life here. I am new to the whole pinball and electronics game. I learned how to read wire diagrams and circuit diagrams, but getting under there and figuring it out is a whole different ball game.

The leaf switches on two of the pops on my Solar ride are missing the bottom leaf. Do I need to take apart the whole assembly to replace them or can I just replace the switch and spoon assembly separately?

I am new to this whole pinball maintenance and restoring thing, but I think the pops are causing odd behavior with my rollover switches. Any advice is appreciated.

LynnInDenver What is happening is sometimes when I power the game on the rollover switches just don't work. I do the Sys 1 "test" where you press a switch and see a flicker in the displays and when I first power the game on sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. The switches on the rollovers are solid as far as I can tell and are not shorting the line.

When I start a game and I trigger the pops the rollovers generally work for the time that the game is on. It's never just one rollover switch that doesn't work, it's all of them.

The only thing I have found so far is related to the pops and then I noticed that the switches for them were broken. I honestly don't know if this could fix the problem, but either way those switches need replacing.

LynnInDenver It's just the star rollovers. None of the other other switches you mentioned are affected. I checked this a while ago while the star rollovers weren't working and the switches for the outlanes and inlanes worked fine. Basically everything still works and scores as usual where the stars will just not.

I'll check to the kickout holes next. Do you have any resources on switch matrices and how they work? I watched a video about how the machine sends signals, but I could use some more reading to really understand.