Lethal Weapon 3
Data East, 1992So randomly yesterday, the ball launcher on my LW3 just stopped working. I went into the tests and the switch works fine. The coil doesn’t work about 80 percent of the time, but once in a while if you test it it will work. I tried the test today and once it fired, it actually started to smoke a little. Is it a bad coil? Not sure if I want to mess with it anymore as I don’t want to screw anything else up. It’s a shame the game is unplayable without it.
Quoted from mrossman5:So randomly yesterday, the ball launcher on my LW3 just stopped working. I went into the tests and the switch works fine. The coil doesn’t work about 80 percent of the time, but once in a while if you test it it will work. I tried the test today and once it fired, it actually started to smoke a little. Is it a bad coil? Not sure if I want to mess with it anymore as I don’t want to screw anything else up. It’s a shame the game is unplayable without it.
If the coil started to smoke at the launcher mech, I start by disassembling the launch mechanism and checking the coil. You can check the coil resistance (should be around 4.5 ohms) my guess is the paper wrapper or plastic has melted to cause the smoke. See if the coil sleeve will slide out. Most likely it was dirty or worn and that caused a domino effect of the coil failing.
Quoted from wayout440:If the coil started to smoke at the launcher mech, I start by disassembling the launch mechanism and checking the coil. You can check the coil resistance (should be around 4.5 ohms) my guess is the paper wrapper or plastic has melted to cause the smoke. See if the coil sleeve will slide out. Most likely it was dirty or worn and that caused a domino effect of the coil failing.
Thank you for the advice. After closer inspection, it turns out that it is just a cable that broke off 
Quoted from wayout440:Well, I'm glad you found that, what about the origin of the smoke?
Not sure, I assumed that the cable was just hanging on to the coil, so it made a very poor connection. I saw a spark fly down too when I tested it, so it is a possible a spark just burnt a little of the wrapper, however I’m not sure.
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Warren, PA