I am bringing my IJ back to life after storage for ~10 years. I had acid damage on the CPU board and have just replaced with a new board. The game fires up and works "almost" perfectly. The mini-playfield goes through test and passes, but it kicks to the extreme right. I've manually tested it and it indicates it works (goes far right and thinks center is left). I can move it far left by repeatedly pushing the manual test to the left. Switches indicate they are reading. It just doesn't want to center.

I've taken the mini-playfield out, cleaned the optic board/sensors, but here's where I may have screwed up. While apart and having the do-dad arm (that goes between the optics to indicate right/left) off the shaft, I ran the test. When everything completed or stopped, the shaft on the motor did not stop with the flat side of the shaft pointing up. I (and please don't hate me) manually, with my hand, rotated the shaft to the correct orientation. I fear I have screwed something up but I would have thought there would be logic to figure out "center" when the do-dad was on and positioned between the optics.

Any and all suggestions are welcomed.

Thanks, Bud.

I've tried to leave it "centered" by going into the test mode and pushing the left direction until it is centered. Once I come out of test mode the playfield repositions itself far right. I shouldn't say this, but I've also forced it to center with my hands but it won't stay there either. When the game is powered on you can see the playfield shutter to the right, and very quickly kick left (to about center position), and then positions back far right. It's frustrating.

(type the www. just before this link to see it. I'm too new to the forum to be able to post links yet)

I've tried to take a video of the symptoms - see the link above. You can see that the playfield will go to the extreme right but only go to the neutral position for left. I'm now wondering if I have a problem with the opto board itself?

I've pulled the motor out of the gear housing (not sure if I'm supposed to do that or not - but frustration is starting to kick in) and centered the pf. I put the motor back in and it immediately kicks to the far right upon power on. I took the little do-dad arm off to see what the motor would do without the opto. It turns about a 1/4 of a turn and stops. Rinse and repeat (meaning when in the con't test mode it turns a 1/4 turn and stops. I put the do-dad arm back on when the flat side of the shaft was up and it was positioned between the left/right optos. Exit test mode and whammy, hard right. I'm about ready to start throwing parts at it.

Any other ideas?

Thanks.

The mech is pretty simple. The motor shaft (gear) inserts into the larger gear housing from the back side. Out the front of the larger gear housing is the shaft that the do-dad arm (for the opto) and the playfield attaches to. The shaft has a flat side that should rest - in neutral position - facing up. The set screws for the do-dad and the playfield screw down to that. The collar for the do-dad and the playfield are made to fit on only one way. In other words if the set screw is loosened, the shaft will not rotate freely in the collar.

Based on my limited knowledge here, it seems that the opto isn't reading and sending the right signal to turn on the motor and turn it off in the neutral position. Almost seems it's not working correctly or the "logic" isn't functioning correctly.

Thanks. Bud

All too often when someone finds the solution to their problem they never close/conclude their post. This makes it difficult for people that search for a post on the same subject, to understand what one solution might be. So with that in mind, I'm posting my solution to my problem. Turns out I had a bad moto opto board for the Path of Adventure. This is the board that the do-dad (interrupter) uses to indicate when the mini playfield hits the end of travel (right or left). I don't know which opto on the board was bad, but I assume it was the bottom one (indicating left). Part number A-16657 - $29 from Marco. Now onto finishing shopping the machine. Woo hoo.

Thank you to everyone that responded with suggestions. I truly appreciate the input.
Bud