I’m in for an LE. The CE is just too pricey.

After many months of trouble-free game play, the left flipper on my black pearl is stuck up. It goes up immediately upon switching the power supply on. If I pull the interlock on the coin door it goes down after 1.5-2 seconds; I presume a capacitor somewhere is draining. Coil test for up and hold don't do anything. I haven't measured the voltage at the coil terminals yet because getting in there is difficult.

I've loosened the ship from the playfield but haven't yet fully removed it so that I could take a few pictures to look for a frayed wire, or something obviously shorting the contacts on the coil. I don't see anything. It is an interesting choice to use wire tires under there with wires that are constantly being slightly pulled and pushed. It's entirely possible I'm just not seeing it and I'm going to have to take the ship completely off (I'm dreading this).

I searched this thread for "black pearl flipper" and read many posts, but none thus far match my issue.

I'd appreciate any pointers to threads/posts with similar issues, and thoughts on how to proceed.

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Thanks all!

I haven’t, but the flipper goes up immediately upon turning on the power, and the other left flippers don’t. I think both these things rule out the switch.

It looks like there is one massive I/O board, and if I’m looking at the right part the transistor is surface mounted. I can solder, but this will be a pain.

Thanks to Lloyd (LTG) and others here, I successfully determined that the cause of the left flipper on my Black Pearl being constantly energized and in the up position was a transistor. Specifically, Q407, IRL540N, JJP part 130-0000-0T. A few YouTube videos on how to desolder thru-hole components and $2 for a replacement and I’m back up and running.

Thanks again. Hopefully this helps someone else some day.
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