Hi and thanks for reading.... below is a post I made a few weeks ago with an update following. I would appreciate any help you can provide.

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Hi, I recently purchased my first pinball machine, which has been super fun. It was a Christmas present for the family and was stored at my friends house for about a month. During that time it worked flawlessly. It is now at my house and I, like many others have at one point or another, am experiencing glove related issues. It started with the awful noise coming from the X-axis. After changing out the X-nut I was excited to give it a go, unfortunately the noise was still present. I assume it is the gearbox although I did find 2 bad areas on the X-screw itself. I consider myself mechanically inclined and actually looked forward to cleaning up the gearboxes and if necessary changing the X-screw. But now I am having issues that baffle me....no fear of mechanical items but intimidated by electrical. I can test and solder but the thought of reflowing a board is scary. I have read every post I can find (there are a ton) but am looking for advice on where to start. Some background on the issues:

Self test passes
Home test seems to work as the hand goes to the home position

If I run the home test multiple times back to back I get some movement (max of 7) mainly in the X, is this normal?
Also in the home test screen there are 4 points of data X and Y home and X and Y position. Each of these has the "check boxes next to them"...when I ran the test multiple times in a row the X-home box never was checked and the X position had 3 different results for 3 tests, no boxes checked, one box checked and both boxes checked. Any idea what this means? I tested the X switch and it appears to work as expected.

When I move to manual flipper motion the hand moves in all directions...other than a noisy X, this appears to function normal.

The auto-run test is strange to me. Ball one is caught, the hand moves out and towards the matrix, but drops the ball on the playfield near the front corner of the matrix. Is this normal? After dropping the ball it returns home. The 2nd ball is caught and the glove moves only in the y direction dropping the ball on the playfield. The hand does not reset, but does catch the 3rd ball and once again moves straight out dropping the ball on the playfield. It once again does not reset but catches the 4th ball moves out in Y and drops it. It misses the next ball because it is too far out in the Y direction.

When I play the game starts off thinking the hand is functional. The first ball that is captured the hand starts to move fine then gets slow and the hand stops working.

Testing or resetting the factory presets seems to wake it back up for a brief period.

Other points:

During testing I once got a message that said cooling which would not allow me to do anything. I have not been able to find any information on this.
I have blown the F111 fuse now twice

I was hoping the mechanical maintenance would resolve my issues but am no longer confident. I don't want to pull it apart and not have it work when it goes back together. I am looking for advice on what electrical items I should check and possibly how to go about checking them. Even if I could narrow it down to a board or switch I would be happy.

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide.
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Above is what I posted in the JM owners section a week or so ago, unfortunately I haven't received and replies. I have continued to try and narrow the issue down without success. The situation is about the same although the only new thing I've noticed is the frequency of video mode. With the hand inoperable, Crazy Bob's triggers a matrix award. The award has been video mode the last 10 times.

Today out of pure frustration, I ordered a bunch of new parts to execute a near full rebuild of the glove assembly. I am somewhat kicking myself now as I am not typically someone who throws parts at a problem (I also spent more than I would like to admit).

I ordered:

2 opto boards
2 opto wheels
dual relay motor driver
wiring harness
2 sub mini switches
2 diodes for the mini switches
magnet with lead
X-screw
X-nut
Y-nut
couplings and spiders

I plan to install these new parts along with cleaning and re-lubricating the gearboxes. Is it possible this approach won't rectify my problems? Is there anything else you would recommend I address with the assembly torn down? Like I said I really hate throwing parts at a problem without a solid idea of what is broken, but I reached the both the end of my wits and electronic capability. Anything you would recommend I check before tearing the assembly apart?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the reply, it makes sense. The home loscation is set by the switch position and all other positions are programmed number of turns in the x and y direction. I could see if the x and/or y nuts were slipping that the system would get confused thinking the glove was somewhere it wasn’t. What is still baffling me is when I first play the game, the glove goes thru startup and appears to work fine. It will catch the ball without isssue and then move to drop it on the playfield and drops it fine. It then gets “stuck” extended in the y direction and disables the itself. Any idea what would prevent the glove from going home after it executes a move and a drop?