I'm really bad about consistently maintaining a repair log, so I thought maybe doing it here would add some extra motivation and accountability. Been operating games since 2014, starting with two, and peaking at 27 simultaneously. Currently at 16. Where possible, I might be able to start adding total number of plays along with the repairs, to offer an idea of how often this stuff happens, and how long it takes for certain parts to go bad. For now, I don't have that info, but I'll try to record it going forward.

Edit: Feel free to join in and ask for questions/clarifications/tips. I'll try to point out places where I don't really know what I'm doing, or where I need clarification. Help me out or correct me when I'm wrong. I'm hoping that anyone who has a lot of different games will learn a lot from reading through these. As you know, most things you learn how to fix on a pinball machine will help you diagnose and address future fixes on other machines.

9/23/19, in my basement

Congo: replaced upper left flipper coil. It began fluttering at a pinball show in June and I suspected a broken winding. I was able to solder it and fix the issue, but it cropped up again months later. So this time I replaced it.

BSD: Mist MB wasn't working and game was eventually wouldn't start at all due to missing balls. I was pretty sure it was the emitter opto for the Mist Ball (which lives in the "home" on the right side along the Mist track). That thing is nearly impossible to reach! I spent about 2 hours taking the game apart, putting in the new opto, testing it, and eventually discovering...the wire to the coil that controls the gate for the "home" on the right side had come off. This ended up being a 2 minute fix. Sigh. The main issue here was that I didn't totally understand how the Mist mech works, and I wrongly assumed it was the emitter. (It's confusing because the game has a switch to know when the ball is in the left side "home", but it doesn't have the same on the right side...and instead relies on the opto beam that goes all the way across the playfield...and just assumes?)

AFM: top pop was weak and I wasn't getting enough action particularly during super pops. Adjusted two of the pops. One needed the switch to me more tightly gapped. Other needed a slight adjustment to center the spoon under the pointy thing that comes down off the pop bumper skirt so that it would register equally no matter which side of the skirt was hit. The result was a lot more pops action and a lot more times where the pops would kick the ball up through the right rollover lane, and then have it fall back through. Bonus is now way more valuable!

AFM: Replaced all non-post rubbers. Many of the rubbers were visibly cracking. I just didn't have enough rubber posts, and they seem bouncy enough as it is.

AFM: Added gray foam pads to the back of all targets. I noticed a few targets without any, but then as I went through I noticed that none of them had any residue from old ones...so I'm wondering if maybe this game came without foam from the factory? The game doesn't play all that differently with the foam, though I figure this is probably better long term for damage to the targets?

AFM: I had to remove the center ramp to get at some of the rubbers in the pop bumper area and discovered that two of the lane guide plastics had been swapped (those red things that divide the rollover lanes). Two of them are one sided, and one of them is two sided. The center one was a one sided one, which meant that there was a gap for the ball to kind of roll underneath it from one side. This didn't really affect anything, but I swapped them anyway. The ball does feed a bit more cleanly and quickly through the right rollover lane now. TODO: two of the guides were cracked, and I used some super glue to help stabilize them a little. I should order new ones to have on hand when these eventually break all the way through.

AFM: Finished LED lighting kit for Comet Pinball. Used frosted sunlight throughout! Most of the GI was colored before and now it looks nice and bright and honors the original artwork. I did use green flex flashers behind the MAR and AN target banks, because it's a cool effect when the MARTIAN attack sequence starts up. Spent a lot of time figuring out which was the best color to use for the "blues". This era of machine uses inserts that look blue, but the incandescent bulbs behind them make them present as more of a Teal color. I replaced the blue LEDs that were in there with our Cyan (which we're about to rename...probably to Teal) and this looks nearly identical to the coloring when using incandescents.

AFM: TODO GI connector in backbox looks crispy. GI is all fine and working now, and having LEDs will help keep this from degrading further, but it's still possible that this will bite me down the road, so it might make sense to preemptively put on a new connector (Molex, of course).

AFM: TODO first insert on left orbit is flakey. I "fixed" it by re-stuffing the wires into the back of the IDC connector, but then it unfixed itself. Probably replace with Molex, or maybe one of the header pins has a cold solder joint.

9/24, office location

AC/DC: Got a report that it was sometime kicking out two bulbs. I had a friend reseat the connectors to the opto boards in the trough. Problem seems to have gone away. TODO: Upgrade those connectors from IDC to Molex.

9/25/19, barcade location

Paragon: game wouldn't boot. Replaced a blown fuse. Game boots and plays! (This surprised me. More modern games wouldn't just not boot from a blown fuse...except the main fuse).

Paragon: later in the night, a player said I should look at the left flipper. Game was frozen. Same fuse had blown again. Left flipper wouldn't move smoothly through the coil, because the coil had overheated and melted. The EOS wasn't being fully triggered by a flip, so the coil wasn't switching from high power to low power at the end of a flip. So, cradling a ball would just burn up the coil. Replaced the coil and the fuse, and adjusted the EOS stack. Fixed!

Paragon: now the upper left flipper was only doing one quick flip and dropping down immediately. Looked at EOS again. One of the two switches was barely changing state, if at all, at the end of a flip. Adjusted that and now the upper flipper works great. TODO: check up on the EOS in a few days to make sure it has stayed the way I left it. I don't have any backup flipper coils for this machine anymore. Order one.

Stern Star Trek: right flipper would not change modes. EOS actuator had broken off (a common occurrence on modern Sterns). Replaced it. All good. (Modern games switch flipper coil power from high to low with software, meaning that if your EOS wasn't changing state at the end of a flip, as was the case with mine, the coil won't burn up).

JP2: Right flipper would give just a little bit when in the up position and hit with a moving ball. Replaced coil stop. I've now replaced all three flipper coil stops within the first 1000 plays.

JP2: Board 9a isn't working at all, which means that 20 or so inserts in the upper left of the playfield aren't working. I tried swapping Node board 8 and 9, and changed the dip switch settings. Problem persisted. 9a was getting 5v at all four connectors in and out. I removed the connector between 9 and 9A and tested with a multimeter. It showed continuity from one end to the other on all pins of the connector. Stern is mailing me a new 9a board.

JP2: Removed slingshot posts and did a homemade repair for chipping/pooling (only present on the bottom, where the star posts live). It was pretty easy: leather repair tool that heats up is used to press down gently on the playfield and smooth out the lumps. Cover with a circle of mylar. Cover with a plastic washer. Put star posts back on and tighten everything up.

JP2: Upgraded shooter rod spring from green to orange as suggested in some threads by people whose full plunge wouldn't always make it all the way around.

DP: game had 6 credits on it and a ball in the shooter lane. Auto-plunge was stuck in the extended position. The coil stop, which is built into the auto-plunge assembly bracket, had blown out. Replaced the coil sleeve and plunger (which had mushroomed at the tip, causing lots of drag). It works now even without the coil stop. Stern is sending a new bracket.

Seawitch: pops were super lethargic. Adjusted switches on two of the three, narrowing the gaps on the switches, and readjusting the switches (by loosening the bracket and then tightening it in a slightly different position) so that the spoon is centered (thus causing it to be equally sensitive on all points of the skirt). I was putting this off and should have done it weeks ago. Took like 15 minutes and the game is much more fun now.

9/25/19, barcade location, continued

WCS: Replaced buy-in button with a whole new button assembly. I've been having a hard time with start (and buy-in) buttons on 90s bally williams games. I pop the switch out to replace the incandescent bulb, and I'm not able to get it back into place. It's like I'm breaking them just by taking them off? Open to suggestions. This has happened 3 or 4 times now.

Batman, Dark Knight: screwed down the center ramp a little tighter as it had began to lift. This is a game I keep playing with the ramp because if I tighten it too much, the flap starts to curl upwards, and clips the ball slightly as it goes up the ramp. So, I leave the screws a bit loose, but then they get too loose over time. What's the fix?

Batman, Dark Knight: report of left flipper being a little weird. Investigate. TODO: I probably want to rebuild the flippers. They've always seemed that they travel a bit too high, like they're pointing up at the sky.

IMDN: replaced white Titan rubber on upper left flipper with standard black one. The black one sends the ball more where you'd expect (into the drops) if holding the upper flipper as a ball travels over it.

IMDN: installed Pharaoh Blinder Kit from Mezel Mods. Wanted to test pcb lights from different vendors.

Mousin' Around: Failed installation of Soren ROM. Friend who gave me the chip didn't realize it requires two different ROMs. Will re-attempt next week.

9/26/19, office location

Tron: cleaned and replaced slingshot rubbers

Tron: right singshots not firing. Switches didn't work in switch test. Discovered diode on one of the switches had come loose on one side. Easy re-soldering job fixed the problem.

Tron: TODO order new screw for top post of right slingshot. Mine broke and there wasn't enough excess to fit a nut on, which caused the plastic to break. Currently no plastic on the right slingshot. Hurry!

Tron: TODO get a quieter disc motor. I previously tried spraying some lubrication into the motor but it didn't help. The volume is required to be really low at the office, and all you can hear is the grinding motor while you play.

TWD: cleaned. Didn't initially notice because it was in a dark corner and that game has a lot of splatter to the artwork, but wow was it dirty. Over 6k+ plays in 5 months, though I believe I had cleaned it at some point during that span.

AC/DC: cleaned and replaced slingshot rubbers

9/26/19, home

GB: Ever since having it at the office location, the Slimer motor has been grinding and squealing. (I think it's because the game never got turned off for 3 months. Since then, I've got timers set up on the sockets so the games go off at night and back on in the morning). As it does that, inserts and flashers all over the game were flickering slightly. Replaced the motor, which was a shocking $70 from Pinball Life (and $140 from Marco). Slimer moves great now, doesn't screech, and the lights don't flicker anymore.

GB: Installed 1.16 code.

9/30/19, home

TSPP: cleaned playfield and many of the rubbers with Simple Green.

TSPP: Lower pop bumper not working. Wires looked fine, but upon further inspection, it wasn't connected at all (you just couldn't tell because it had plastic tubing around it. Soldered wire back in place. Also lessened the gaps on all pops switches to make them more sensitive.

QUESTION TSPP: Garage issues. When this was on location, I'd occasionally see the garage door not raising up all the way. You could always just cradle a ball and eventually the door would time out, then close. When you flipped the ball, it would re-open and always go all the way up. This issue has happened a few years ago, and I ended up replacing the long plunger used to hold the door up. This fixed the issue. Presumably because the tip was worn?

So now I'm wondering, is this just the same fix again? In coil test mode, the door was going all the way up every time I tested it.

QUESTION Paragon: I've always had massive flipper hop coming down the right inlane. Someone recently described to me how if the ball guide is sitting too high, then it won't be hitting the ball at it's thickest point. The ball will be somewhat "under" the ball guide, and then pop up when it hits the flipper. I was able to push the guide down a little bit, but not far enough.

Would the fix be to remove the guide, drill the hole a little deeper, and reinstall? I'm a little nervous to do that. And what kind of glue should I use when re-installing the ball guide?