I've got a Phantom that sat in storage for a few years and now it's got a couple of problems that I'm hoping someone here can help with. The problems I'm working on are:

- There's a fuse on the flipper board that blows anytime I activate the left flipper.
- After the first ball drains a new ball is not ejected.

For the flipper problem I've looked for mechanical problems and don't see any, but I'm not sure how to test the individual components on the flipper board.

I've tried a number of things for the ball eject problem. Here's what I know:
- In the Active Switch test the only switches that are listed are the Organ Closed (which makes sense), Left VUK 1, and the 3 ball trough switches.
- The edge switch test shows correct behavior for the shooter lane switch, the ball trough switches, and the outhole switch
- When the first ball drains it correctly triggers the solenoid to move the ball to the ball trough

I've reflowed the solder on all of the ball trough switch connections (although I'm not certain I got them all full melted). I haven't seen anything else that fails. All of the other diagnostics look ok to me.

Have any of you seen anything like these? Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Don

Thanks, Mike. I'll check the flipper diode and transistor over the weekend.

I think the drain switch is ok. It registers off until I press it in the switch test. In game play when the ball drains the solenoid fires to move it from the drain to the ball trough. Each of the ball trough switches tests ok in the switch test using my finger or a ball. The problem is that instead of ejecting a ball to the shooting lane it goes into ball search mode. When the game starts the first ball is ejected fine. Are there ways the ball trough switches can be bad that don't show up in these tests?

Some progress. I tested the transistors on the flipper board as you suggested and identified the TIP32C and TIP36C that controlled the left flipper were both bad. It took a few days for parts to arrive, but I've replaced those now and the flipper is working again.

I've tested the diodes and switches for the ball trough, shooter lane, and ball drain. Everything passes all the tests I can find. If there's really nothing else that would explain this behavior I think the next step is to replace them just assuming that the tests aren't detecting the problem.

Right. The first ball is ejected to the shooter lane when the game starts. Once I play a ball and it drains the ball moves from the ball drain to the trough. At that point the game delays a few seconds then goes into ball search.

Finally got back to this and found the solution. The key problem was the Left VUK 1 switch being stuck. Apparently the software interpreted that as meaning that a ball was in the VUK so it wouldn't launch a new ball. Once that was resolved the machine is working fine.

Thanks for your help!