I just picked up a FunHouse yesterday. Loved this game ever since I was a kid. This one is in really nice shape. Playfield was swapped out at least 8+ years ago and is a Diamond Plate version currently. No real wear spots or areas and not much in the way of insert fading or colours bleeding. The Rudy head is in nice condition as well and the scoreboards are good. Circuit boards in the backbox are all original and don't have any obvious damage on them.

I do have a couple odd issues going on and I thought I would see what others might suggest for where to look to get them sorted out.

1.) the game is frequently starting an additional game in the middle of a game. Not a reset like where it blacks out from a poor power supply. This is as if someone pressed the START button while you were playing. Seems like if that phantom start button press happens while the game is still on ball 1, it adds another player, up to four. It doesn't really miss a beat while you're playing, but will do the sound effect for the new player and you can see the 00 in the next slot.

If it gets the imaginary start signal during ball 2 or ball 3, it ends your game entirely and starts a new game at ball 1. And you're still playing the whole time, but of course anything you had earned is lost. So getting multiball is very tough at the moment. And it's a nuisance when it keeps doing this.

I think it is related to these new games starting midgame, but at times it will forget if there are already balls locked, like if you shoot a ball into the hideout area, it will kick them both out and you can play both even though it's not actually in a multiball mode.

So this makes playing it weird, lol.

2.) I have noticed that I am getting phantom hits on Rudy's mouth and they are coming from when you hit the "P" stand-up target that spells STEP. And it's consistent. You can even get it to do that during switch test mode. Hit the P and the majority of the time it registers a Rudy hit. So somehow there is a cross-up or cross-over in that signal or wiring or something odd. Not sure what.

3.) My RED flashers are stuck on all the time. These are the three sets of flasher lights for red, blue and white. Blue and white seem to work fine, but the red ones light up all the time regardless of mode and regardless actually even if the game is in the test mode.

The game came to me without those bulbs installed, so I put brand new 906 flasher incandescents and they stayed on. And got hot, so I took them out again until I figure it out.

4.) Going around the left side Gangway doesn't always register. It does occasionally, but not all the times you would expect it to. This is likely a rollover switch back there not quite working correctly, but wanted to mention here in case it is related.

5.) Rudy's eyelids don't always open. They seem to close when they're supposed to, but the open coil doesn't always do its job. Left and right eyes moving appears to work, even though sometimes it will be trying to move them while the eye lids are closed and it honestly sounds louder than I would expect it to, like something is clicking or binding.

I would imagine this is just a mechanical issue and not really electrical like the others but again, I wanted to mention it here as well in case it is all related. I have not dove into the Rudy head yet to look and see what is going on under there.

I have some other little things I'm working on, but they're independent and typical. Rubber rings, flipper rubber replacement, quite a few bulbs are incandescent and I'm going to put in LED's, etc.

I can share pics of my boards or anything else you might want to see to have ideas on what is going on here, or to rule things out. I did not see any battery damage on the board even though one of the three batteries in it was leaking. Bizarre too as they are 2025 expiry dates on them. It did not appear to leak or drip down below the lip of the plastic battery holder and so I cleaned up the contacts and put brand new batteries in yesterday. It keeps the time and date and there is no credit dot error right now.

Thanks a lot for the help!!

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So the start button issue did turn out to be the actual start button switch being bad. I had a spare one (the red version) that I was going to put in my Getaway, but figured I would see if it made a difference and it did. Haven't had a single game restart or start over since and have played around 10 games.

The P is also no longer registering Rudy hits. I got under and pried apart just slightly anything on that switch that might be touching a neighbor. Did the same up top where the wire pair going to the gangway bulb looked like they could have been getting pinched. Disconnected and reconnected the opto pair running down to the little circuit board as well. Not sure if moving any of that was what mattered, but it's no longer doing it anymore. Intermittent, fun.

I also found a loose bulb in the little triangular area in the upper left and it had fallen into the pass through hole that the little stem/arm for that gangway/orbit switch connects with. It was blocking the stem from moving easily. I saw it when I was looking at bulbs to change and poked it out of the way. I still need to get the plastics removed above it to access, but at least I know that is what caused the intermittent gangway/no gangway.

I haven't gotten any further with the red flashers yet.

I'm about to look for a how-to video on opening up Rudy's head and have a look at the eye lids opening coil.

A new one from this afternoon is sometimes the sound effects get all weird where they either stop entirely or get out of sequence with what is happening. And then they start again or sometimes they don't. I am thinking it is ribbon cable related so I'm going to check that next as well.

I don't know who Dranos is. Guy I bought my game from was Doug in London.

I'll see about taking another picture of the batteries. I replaced them yesterday after seeing that the farthest right one was leaking. It did not appear to be dripping down onto the board, but who knows. I would like to get those relocated, definitely.

Is that red flashers transistor located below the batteries? I haven't got a set of the drawings yet to look it up and trace it out. I can put a multimeter on the suspect one and see how the continuity looks.

Thanks. I can see on the power board drawing where it is located. I'll give it a closer inspection.

That P switch does have a diode. It might have been pushed over onto the tab next to it and I pushed it back the other way to provide some daylight between. Not sure if that was what helped resolve the issue, but it isn't registering Rudy hits with the P anymore.

Thanks man, I will. Lucky more than anything. I was sipping my coffee on Thursday morning and cruising the Internet when I happened to check Kijiji. No alerts or anything, just dumb luck. I messaged him 6 minutes after the ad went up. He did the righteous thing and let me come to see it before entertaining any of the other gazillion people that messaged him about it. Classy move on his part and I'm thankful it's in my living room now.

Is the game supposed to release any locked balls at the end of the game? So that all three balls are in the trough to start a new game?

Mine doesn’t do this. If you end your game with one or two balls locked up top, they stay there even after the new game starts.

Just wasn’t sure how it was meant to be. My Getaway and WPT release any locked balls when a game ends. Thought maybe Funhouse would do the same?

Worth mentioning perhaps is that if you cycle the power with balls locked, it shoots them out prior to letting you start a new game.

So it is behaving unusually then?

I was looking at those switches from underneath. They are all mounted in the same bracket and come out as a set of three. Harder to see how the balls are sitting on them from above as I think the whole ramp assembly needs to come out to see them and move the balls around with your finger.

You got a pic of what a known good set of switches look like underneath? Diodes on each switch should be there from the sounds of things?

So I'm thinking it is behaving as intended... because when you lock a ball and they are already all in the lock area, it gives you a warning of "watch out for the hidden hideaway" because that's about to be where the ball comes from and not into the plunger area. So that message tells me it's fine. Si?

I realized I don't have the plastic cover that goes over the ramp switches on the right side. Seems like it's there to prevent airborne balls from getting stuck.

I have a line on the plastic piece itself, but had some questions on the fasteners and posts used with it. I think I know what the star posts are (three of them each with two rubber rings) but that single slim post I'm not sure about. Not sure why it is there or what it's purpose is or what it rests on (or does it just hang from above like the star posts do)?

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Thanks a lot for the confirmation. Much appreciated!