Lantern battery. Model railroad or race car transformer ( set voltage low ).

LTG : )

Testing sockets on the bench might identify some hard failures, but intermittent sockets might not reveal themselves until they get jostled by the vibrations of a playing game. No harm in testing ahead of time but you might find more issues once the game is back together and working.

/Mark

Stick your finger in it....

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I wired up an extra gottlieb transformer, with appropriate fuses, to some wires and alligator clips. I also put a socket on the board, similar to what TheLaw did. It got me 95% of the way there on my williams woodrail. There will always be some sockets that will try your patience.

Good luck,
Dave

You can judge a socket by just twisting the base or the tab. If loose they is bad...

Which is the case with about 75 percent of Gottlieb sockets. Especially those on those bars. Awful.

I use a lantern battery

I use a good ole 9volt battery goes on smoke detectors, etc. Gottliebs are better then Bally that is for sure.

...No means

I already had this,
Power Probe running off my adjustable power supply to test 6v & 12v bulbs, flashers, Led's.
and have also used & tested mech units in the machine or bench testing mechs & electric motors/gearbox's after rebuilds
you can trigger pulse the supply for accurate testing.

this is something similar on ebay.

ebay.com link: Automotive Power Probe Digital Multi Tester 6v 12v 24V 4 Professional Mechanics

If your having to go through all that trouble to make some sort of testing rig then I'd just replace them and that way there are no second guesses, and once it's done you'll be good for a life time. To replace a socket with the bulb is about $1

John

Just a thought, but if you supply 6 volts to a lamp socket, is it possible that the voltage will reach the transformer, which would step the voltage up to 120? I’m wondering if the power switch was turned on, would there be 120v at the wall plug?

Wallwart transformers have 2 windings, primary (120v) and secondary

The two do not meet internally

Trying to process how splicing a wall plug is more work than replacing 20+ sockets

I test all the lamp circuits while the playfield is still on the rotisserie

Much easier to troubleshoot bad sockets/bulbs/wires while outside of the game

That is true, but then if your already taking them out of the game and hooking them up on a jig of some sort then why not just replace them? Old lamp sockets are just to finicky, especially the Bally ones as we all know. Williams on the other hand I never have a problem. I'd just rather not deal with sockets that you get working and put the playfield down and the lock down bar on it's out again. Once you get into the rhythm of replacing them they go pretty fast. For $1 each you'll never have to mess with it again.
John

Excellent point. If you apply 6 volts AC to a light socket that is connected directly to the game's transformer (a GI light socket for example) you can get 120 volts on the other transformer winding and at the wall plug.

A transformer is a pretty simple device. It's just some coil windings and an iron core that magnetically couples them all together. Usually 120 volts AC is applied to the primary winding which is stepped down to safer voltages used in the game (e.g. 25 or 50 volts and 6 volts) that appear on the secondary windings.

If instead you applied 6 volts AC to the 6 volt lugs of the transformer it would step it up to 120 volts on the primary winding and 25 or 50 volts on the other secondary winding too. Since the transformer is just coils of wire there is nothing that enforces the direction of the energy transfer so it works in both directions.

Note that there wouldn't be much current available at the generated 120 volts but the voltage would be there.

I actually tried this out after reading your question. I tied the 6 volt lugs of a Gottlieb transformer to the 6 volt lugs of a Bally transformer and sent 120 volts into the primary winding of the Gottlieb transformer. I got 120 volts on the Bally primary winding and 50 volts on the other Bally secondary winding.

/Mark

I see the confusion now...No you're not removing anything.
To test the strings all is takes is plug and bare wire/alligator clips.

The wood block in my pic is for testing bulbs, and us a separate device.

I use the transformer and alligator clip rig.

Also, most of the time I run around and solder all the playfield lights shut. I get out my dremel and clean up all the tits, then I hit the interface between the socket body and the base. After that I whip out my big iron - I think it is 45 watts and hit them all. Maybe takes me 20 minutes. Then, no flickering on assembly.

$5 6v battery
Got it over a year ago and has helped me with several projects so far

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