Well, under a week in, and I already have the exact same identical issue that I did back in 2012.

So, I was putting LEDs in the underside of JM, and I played a game. The ball got stuck on the diverter near the hand, so I waited for the machine to find the ball. That was when I noticed that hand went over to the matrix and STAYED over the matrix; it never came back on its own until later in the game.

Then the dreaded problem began. The ball started a mode, and the glove missed the ball. You could see it pop up and down up and down up and down, but the hand looked to be off center from where it was trying to catch the ball. Then I saw the credit dot appear mid-game.

"Ball in hand F5 Error" - that looks awfully familiar (2012).

I manually tripped the switch in the magnet, and the dot went away. Figured "whew" that was close, and for a bit the hand behaved - until it started missing the ball again. And something else I've noticed, when the hand goes forward to drop the ball into the pop bumpers, it DOES NOT return back to the starting position.

Now it's a bit of a crapshoot as to what the hand is going to do. I've noticed when it self-calibrates, the hand will zig zag back and forth left to right 7 or 8 times before it seems to just quit trying, and other times it'll get right into position, but then there's an issue every game I play.

Help . I don't really know what to do to diagnose this behavior. In the relative little bit of searching I've done, I haven't seen anyone else say they have this problem.

I'll continue updating this thread accordingly as more problems/issues occur as right now the hand is all over the place with errors.

So the hand is failing the "home" test in the hand test mode. It is also not aligning properly to catch any ball whether it be ball locks or mode starts.

Resoldered the connections at the switch underneath the prop glove. No improvement. Still troubleshooting

Ok, so the ball in hand error is coming up only when the hand misses catching the ball. The big main errors that I think are the real problems are now coming up:

Y-No Progress
Y-Home Switch Error

These seem like they would screw with the hand trying to re-center itself. Anyone ever have these errors before?

It seems like now every time I boot the game, the hand goes back and forth back and forth back and forth really quickly a good 5-8 times before it just gives up

So, I believe this is what you are referring to by the Y-Home Switch.

20150203_211011.jpg

The glove motor is toggling this as it should. I verified it by checking that the switch was being triggered on the DMD. 7 rows and 4 columns down (basically the bottom left switch on the screen is the Y-home switch). The switch feels solid and steady too; it isn't moving at all.

20150203_211109.jpg

I took a quick video of what is happening with my GoPro. Unfortunately, a 4 minute video will take the rest of the night to upload, so it'll be here on this thread tomorrow morning.

What the video provides is simply one case of what the glove is doing. Sometimes it lines up right and grabs the ball, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I can get a ball or 2 to the matrix, and then the glove says "nope, no more of that" and goes into "fail" mode. Sometimes the glove is too far back, sometimes too far forward, and sometimes it actually does catch the ball.

Behavior is all over the wall - Y-No Progress error, Y home switch error, X home switch error, X-No Progress : any of those errors in nearly any combination.

Yeesh ._.

Kporter I just read your two most recent posts. I will try those things first thing when I get home from work tomorrow! You've been feeding me lots of suggestions and idea - thank you!

Here's the video I promised. This is primarily the behavior I am seeing displayed.

I have also noticed when the hand DOES catch the ball and place it in the pop bumpers, the hand does not return to the starting position. It just hangs over the pops.

So, there are 4 optos that help control the hand on the X and Y axis. On the switch matrix near the very end of the manual, are these switches 74 through 77? I plan on checking the driver motor PCB as well as the PCBs for the X and Y axis on the glove for broken solder joints.

Off to work now. I'll be back later tonight to continue discussing this!

Which PCB? The X/Y PCBs or the board underneath the PF?

I am taking out the dual relay motor driver board first and re-soldering all the pins.

I just got done playing nearly a full game with zero errors, but at the start of ball 3, the glove went nuts again. Such a shame, it played great to the point I was able to get all 3 balls in the cybermatrix. It's like the game was good cold, but once it warmed up things went nuts. Hopefully, that is pointing to cold solder joints.

KPorter, I was able to twist the x-axis by hand and got both optos to activate. For the y-axis, I couldn't make the gear shaft turn by hand, it looks like that is driven by the motor...? To test those, I unplugged the wiring harness from the PCB and plugged it back in, and I heard 2 beeps in sequence and saw both the optos light up on the DMD display of the switch matrix. So I am strongly assuming all 4 optos are good.

This may be a premature victory, but I think I got it.

It came down to this right here (so far):

I took my dual motor driver board out and re-heated every solder joint, then placed a small drop of flux on each joint, and then applied a new drop of solder on each joint. Re-installed the board, and the glove caught the ball 9 out of 10 times. The 10th time the ball just barely missed the magnet I guess, and the ball fell out. The game showed a credit dot, but by the time I got to diagnostics to view the error, it was gone (note that the hand re-calibrated itself after the game ended by itself).

I think the main mechanism (read-nut and y-nut) will need to be replaced in the near future, and I have some Rock N Roll Super Web Grease on the way that Blondie7575 suggested when he rebuilt his hand mechanism. I will be repacking the motors with new grease, replacing the X and Y nut, and applying the RnR Grease on both the X and Y threaded shafts when it comes time to rebuild the whole assembly like he did.

I'll keep everyone updated as to if this fix is temporary or permanent.

That's it. You and I are getting a drink together at the Ohio Pinball Show. That made me smile .

Is this the mod that Mudflaps did on the thread you directed me to earlier when I was being "sarcastic" ?

Yep, you and me. One drink a piece, and I am buying.

In fact, one drink for everyone that helped. You make it to the Ohio show, and I'll buy you a drink. Cutoff is at this post, so anyone above this post that helped, find me at the show and we drink!

So here's a picture of my dual driver board after I had re-soldered about half the connections. I forgot to take a final picture, so yeah, sorry about that:

20150204_172357.jpg

Like I said, I heated up every individual connection, then applied a small amount of solder flux, and then placed a drop of new solder on each connection to ensure each connection was solid with fresh solder.

I really, REALLY hope this helps someone else down the road. I know this error was quite daunting for me, and it was pretty much the exact same identical problem I was having back in 2012 with my 1st JM.

Thank you for everyone that helped and contributed. You guys are awesome.

You aren't kidding. This error was pretty much the exact, same identical one I had back in 2012, and I never figured that one out. so when I saw this one do it in under a week of ownership, I almost went and played in interstate traffic.

I've played about 10 games so far and have only had the glove miss the ball that one time. So far, so good.