Your rocket target coils aren't firing.
So it's counting *up*, thinking you're really good and knocking them all back down again.

Find out why your coils aren't firing.

I'd start with fuses. Check the one on the underside of the playfield first. Run test mode, and see if ANY are firing. If some are, then that will help narrow down what it can be if not a fuse. I'm guess it's the fuse.

HOWEVER, that doesn't explain why your outhole kicker keeps firing. (It looks like it is in the video?)

Stuck switch ??

If any of the playfield coils (other than the flippers) work, then it's not the fuse under the playfield. I'm going to guess it's a stuck closed switch at the outhole.

At first I had thought it might be the bug in the Meteor code where, when a ball drains, the bonus countdown is repeated 256 times. But it doesn't appear to be that issue in this case. Check the outhole switch to make sure there is a gap with the ball removed.

Maybe there's a signal issue and it's firing the outhole instead of one of the drop banks?

Yeah - that was going to be another thought of mine - that there's a mad connection between the MPU and SDB boards, where not all signals are getting through.. Would want to check the plugs up in the backbox.. cracked solder joints, etc.

Though, I thought that only some of the coils went through the fuse on the under side of the playfield - I don't have my schematics at work here, so i can't verify that?

I think it's everything but the flippers? Don't have my schematics either though

I don't think it's the outhole switch since it would increment ball count and end the game. I'm also leaning towards a MPU J4 to SDB J4 continuity issue especially since the right sling fires when the pop bumper is hit.

Specifically, MPU J4 pin 1 is not connected all the way through to solenoid driver board J4 pin 3.

It's not counting bonus down, it's scoring the rocket value (per target down) and incrementing the rocket value. Since all three targets are down and can't be reset they score again and again. The game doesn't know they don't reset so it thinks all 3 were knocked down again. So you get rocket value x3 and three bonus increments. Doesn't take long to max out at 7.

See post #13 for the fix.

To confirm:
Dropping all #1 targets = outhole fires
Dropping all #2 targets = 2nd Meteor E target fires
Hit pop bumper = Right sling fires
Hit left sling = Bank #3 resets
Win a game (knocker) = Meteor bank resets

What he said.

But don't overlook a bad, or weak solder joint that still looks good. I had a similar problem with my Seawitch. It turned out to be a bad connection with the yellow coil wire at drop target #1. The soldered connection looked good, but moving the wire around would make the connection come and go. But just the weight of the wire would render the connection point to lose continuity.

Probably the signal is not getting from the pin on the mpu to the pin on the driver board. So yes, check for bad solder joints, replace the pins, check continuity, etc. It could also be a problem on the boards but a connector issue is most likely.

Open your back box.

There are three circuit boards looking straight at you.

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Part #1

The board at you upper left is the MPU. You have four connectors that plug into the MPU.

Each connection point on the MPU is labled in several ways.

1) It will tell you which connector you are looking at by using small white numbers and letters. J-4 is the lower left connector on the MPU.

2) It will tell you how many pins are on the connector. J-4 has 19 pins on the connector

3) It will tell you the direction of the pin numbers. On the MPU J-4, Pin #1 is at the top of the connector and pin #19 is at the bottom.

4) All of your connector plugs will have a pin hole that is not being used and a small key/plug is inserted into that empty hole. That small plug prevents you from removing the connector and then screwing up by installing it backwards. You will see a small mark on the the MPU board that tells you where the small key/plug is located. On the MPU J-4, the key is located at pin #14.

So he is telling you the first item you look for is MPU connector J-4 pin #1 is your start point.

The Meteor schematics do not tell you the color of the wire but it is a red wire with white bands painted on.
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Part #2

1) The SDU, or Solenoid Driver Board, is located at the upper right side of the back box. Look at the labeling and it will tell you this.

2) On the SDU, the J-4 connector is located at the lower right hand side of the board. It is marked and labeled just like the MPU connectors.

3) While on the MPU the J-4 connector is located in the lower LEFT corner of the board, on the SDU the J-4 connector is located at the lower RIGHT hand side of the board.

4) the SDU J-4 connector is labeled for 12 pins. Pin #1 is at the top. The key plug is located at pin #2.

5) He is telling you that you need to locate SDU J-4 pin #3.

On SDU J 4, pin #1 location is an open hole. It is not used. Pin #2 is an open hole because this is where the key is located. The first pin that has any wiring is pin #3 and that wire is color Red with White bands.

He is telling you are having trouble with your connection along the red/white banded wire between MPU J 4, pin #1 and SDU J-4 pin #3.

If you CAREFULLY cut some tie wraps you will be able to follow the red/white wire all the way across the back box.

Nice write-up!

One more thing, if you're going to use a multimeter to test continuity you can't simply jab the probes into the connector housing. Doing that will probably read good because you're just testing the wire from end to end, not the connectors. The wire itself is probably fine.

The female pins inside the connector get brittle and break, therefore not making contact with the male pins on the board. To test is properly you have to test from the solder joint on the back of the MPU to the solder joint on the back of the SDB. Assuming, of course, that the solder joints are good.

It's easier just to pop the wires out of the connector housings, cut the old pins off and crimp on new ones. To make the game bulletproof you really need to repin ALL of the connectors in the machine, but the worst offenders are MPU J4 and all of the connectors on the rectifier board.

You can buy .100 pins (needed for your issue), .156 trifurcon pins (for the rectifier), header strips and the crimping tool from GPE.
www.greatplainselectronics.com

That's where I would start, but you'll need .100 pins for this.

You usual don't need to replace the housings... Not much to 'go bad' with them vs the pins.

If you are talking about the headers you don't need to use one continuous piece header. If it's say, 20 pins, you can use two 10 pin headers. Just make sure they are straight in line with each other, once soldered in, or it makes it hard to get the connector housings inserted.

Most of the earlier games still use regular molex connectors. Later in the 80s they switch to IDC but my Meteor, at least, had molex in it. You could replace just the one pin, but if that does fix the problem, I'd replace the rest of them.

You may need to clean the mech. Do they fall down part way, or just stay completely up? Is it only the first few targets you hit? Do they fall down fine when the game drops them itself? All of mine fall down if you breathe on them

I took all my mechs apart and cleaned them when I got new targets from pinball resource. They drop like sweat soft butter now.

Check the back plate of the mech. These early Stern mechs tend to oxidize.....bad. The oxidation acts like sandpaper and prevents the targets from falling. Try removing the oxidation and see if that helps. Also, the rod that goes through all the pivot arms oxidizes and can cause binding. Polishing this should be part of your cleaning process.

Define 'easily'. The meteor drop bank is at least on a connector so you can pull the whole unit out. The problem is that the assembly has a drop coil for each target so there's a lot in the bank. There are screws that you remove to disassemble, but don't lose any springs. It can be tricky to get back together. I made a spring hook tool from a paperclip to help lift and reattach the springs to the drops once the unit is together.