(Topic ID: 315398)

Mata Hari flippers sometimes not working

By Kharag

1 year ago



Topic Stats

  • 7 posts
  • 4 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 1 year ago by Kharag
  • No one calls this topic a favorite

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#1 1 year ago

Hello everyone,
I have a Mata Hari here that normally works pretty great, but sometimes the flipper just stop working and then a few seconds later they work again before stopping again. Usally just restarting the machine fixes the problem and I can keep playing for a few hours without a problem.
I also noticed when this problem occurs I can hear a clicking sound probably coming from the backbox(?), but I'm not sure if that's related.

Lastly I have to say I'm a complete newbie to pinball repairs and don't even know where to start looking, as this issue doesn't occur every time.
Maybe some of you have an idea what this could be and where I should look to fix it.

~Kharag

#2 1 year ago

The clicking you hear is the flipper relay on the solenoid driver board. Is the game resetting when this issue occurs? Either way you probably need to rebuild the connectors going from the mpu to the solenoid driver board. If the problem still occurs after that we can dive into what might be going on with the mpu.

#3 1 year ago

There is a jumper wire going to pin 25 of the J3 connector on the solenoid driver board, top right corner of the backbox. This jumper often gets loose or the pins it connects to lose their solder connectivity. Resoldering the pins and cleaning and tightening the jumper itself will fix this problem.

#4 1 year ago
Quoted from Xenon75:

The clicking you hear is the flipper relay on the solenoid driver board. Is the game resetting when this issue occurs? Either way you probably need to rebuild the connectors going from the mpu to the solenoid driver board. If the problem still occurs after that we can dive into what might be going on with the mpu.

Yeah, one time it also reseted itself, but normaly it does not. Will that make any difference?
Alright thank you, I will check the connectors and if the issue persists, I will report back.

#5 1 year ago
Quoted from BigAl56:

There is a jumper wire going to pin 25 of the J3 connector on the solenoid driver board, top right corner of the backbox. This jumper often gets loose or the pins it connects to lose their solder connectivity. Resoldering the pins and cleaning and tightening the jumper itself will fix this problem.

Thank you as well! This definitely helps me and gets me an idea what I should do next. I will check all that on the connector.

#6 1 year ago

Dry joints are very common as a pinball ages, and Mata Hari is 40+ years old.

The flipper relay is a cube with a clear cover on it, to the left of the soldenoid driver board which is on the top right hand side of the backbox.

It is possible that there is at least one 'dry joint' causing this issue.

Looking at the back of the solenoid driver board, the solder side, where the 8 pins are for the flipper relay, two of them are slightly further away from the other six. Can you post a clear picture of this area?

A dry joint is where solder has cracked away from the pin.
It may look okay but it is not.

3 weeks later
#7 1 year ago

Redoing the connectors seemed to have solved the problem for now. But I guess reflowing all the solder joints would make sense and I plan on doing that some time in the future.
Thanks to everyone for their help!!

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