Leetonia, OH
Hello
I am Jeff. I am newly registered and enjoy the challenges of EM pins: fixing, playing and maintaining them. Have been lurking a while, figured it was time because I have brought a Swinger back to life, but all is not well. That and it will be fun interacting with you fellow pinheads.
My first quandary. Generally, when a 1 player game is started, the player is served 2 balls per turn, for a total of 10 balls, usually. Sometimes it delivers the 1st and 2nd ball correctly, then on the 3rd ball it will start doling out 2 balls per turn. When a 2nd ball per turn happens, the P1 light goes out, but the 2nd Player light does not illuminate. Also both balls on each turn score on the P1 reel. One can get a superb score this way... cough..
When a 2 player game is initiated, the machine works properly.
Well, did work properly, which brings me to the 2nd quandary: Now on most occasions, when a ball drains, the trough switch energizes the Center moving target Bonus lights and the ball just sits in the trough with the game functional, waiting for the Center target to be hit. If you manually trip the Center target the game resets and the ball is kicked out.
With the playfield up, you can watch the trough switch energize the Step Up relay, which turns on the Center target lights, but no other actions happen until the Center target is tripped.
And finally, last night a couple Operator friends stopped over and I asked them to check the game out with me. Well they noticed what looked to be hacked in jumpers on some of the relays, both in the cabinet and under the playfield, and they snipped them. Suffice to say, that did not fix it ..as I think those jumpers are meant to be there..
Some other info, I have cleaned all switches with a flexstone, some twice. I have cleaned all the stepper units and lubed the rivet sides with Teflon Gel Lube. The game had a toasty Lock coil that I replaced and I rebuilt the chime unit. Also interesting to note, I found that these two issues were exacerbated by incorrect wire placements. Example, the outer chime had 2 hot wires soldered to it's coil - it was the middle coil's hot wire - and the result was a fried outer coil that welded the plunger inside it. But before that happened, that over powered coil broke the rear loop of the chime box.. The other issue, with the lock coil, was that the 2 orange/blk tracer wires were soldered onto the top tab of the switch were the 2 blk/orange tracer wires reside, instead of on the bottom tab where they belonged. I followed the schematic to find that snafu. Why someone would do these mods is beyond me, but has me wondering if the current issues are caused by faulty soldering escapades? Unfortunately I am not too proficient with schematics ..yet.
I appreciate wealth of information on these forums and hope that I can get this game operating correctly - and "meet" some cool peeps on the way. Thanx!
