My second thread on pinside - first was to intro the fact that I just bought my first table and it is an RFM.
Spending my first weekend with it, and I'm getting the hang of inspecting it. Read the f'ing manual and ran the game's excellent diagnostics. There are a handful of lights out and switches that won't fire. I think those should be easy, but there are a few things that are a little more serious.
The Drop Target is disabled. The switch that is part of the assembly is missing along with the connector wires and socket.
The Light and dome on top of the popper are both missing. I'm not sure what bulb goes in there as I can't seem to figure it out from the manual, but I think I found the dome.
I think someone started harvesting parts from this machine as the components went bad. I suspect the opto trans or receiver is out on the popper and one of the coils is out on the drop. I guess I'll learn something new there as I investigate what is wrong with those.
Light column 4b is out. This is a light string on the biggest lamp pcb plate. I get continuity between all the individual lights, but not back to the razor clip where this line is supposed to be connected to the rest of the machine. It's like the clip for this line has somehow been disconnected from the line in the PCB - weird. Nothing really looks scorched or damaged on the board. It could be a defect of some kind in the PCB. I think I might need to resort to connecting a wire from the last light in the string to the razor clamp or post.
So how do you guys work on these? Replacing lights and switches with the playfield vertical might be easy but soldering a wire to a PCB is going to test my ability (and patience) if I don't have a flat surface. I guess I'll have to disconnect the playfield completely, pull it out and lay it on its side?