Revenge From Mars
Bally, 1999All of a sudden my RFM's stroke of luck solenoid keeps firing. When in switch test there is permanent machine gunning of that opto in the trough which stops when the solenoid pin is pushed up or i break the beam. In play, this causes all sorts of eratic behaviour. Any thoughts what might suddenly have caused this or how to fix?
I am actually troubleshooting something similar right now. I don't know the answer, but I was going to try switching the Optos with others on the board and see if that could eliminate some troubleshooting for me. In my case the eject sound effect kept playing about 10x after the ball was ejected.
While troubleshooting, I caused some problems elsewhere and I won't get back to this right away. Still very interested in what you find out.
Edit - your description of a "permanent machine gunning" sounds like the correct operation of the switch to me. It is normally closed and when something obstructs it like the popper arm or your finger it is opened which triggers the playfield action and sounds.
So for me, the problem is that the sound plays a bunch of times after the ball is ejected, the actual solenoid does not fire multiple times. All I had to do was play the game with the glass off to reveal that this is happening because the plunger does not go down immediately after ejecting the ball. If I push the plunger down (takes a light tap) then the sound stops. I'll clean up the solenoid and see if that helps - may have to replace the coil.
Just in case anyone else ever looks into this issue I solved it, and it wasn't dirty opto's, wiring related to the opto or the opto board. It was a standup target (specifically centre target 1 to the left of centre and right of the martian target) which had a short circuit. Although this switch was somewhere totally different on the machine due to the relationship with this opto and diodes and closed switches and witchcraft, caused the Right Popper Opto to misbehave. Found the solution on a site about Pinball 2000 technical issues (seemed someone had encountered exactly this before and called Williams who knew about the issue and the solution) - source http://www.pinball2000.de/
Stroke of Luck Opto:
(john.butler RGP 18.7.2000)
> Well the RFM I bought could not make it all the way through the party
> without having a problem. Guess that is what I get for not having time to
> shop it first. The kickout on the right side no longer detects a ball in
> the hole, so you have to wait for ball search to discover it.... Opto problem????
Possibility 1:
Forget the opto, I bet you it is OK.
I have a RFM and have experienced this problem. My original thought was
that my optos were bad. I swapped them with known good optos (which you can
borrow from your machine) and they tested good in every location except that
particular kickout. My problem was with a switch located just next to that
switch. Go into your switch test, (remove your balls, it makes things
easier) and look for a green square located next to that switch and repair
it.I bet you your problem will be corrected. This repair came directly from
Williams. He was very sure of this, so I bet you he has seen this problem
before.
If you want to E-Mail me your phone number, I'll stand in front of my
machine and try to walk you thru it.
Good Luck (Harry Williamson)
Possibility 2:
.... btw, it's probably not the opto.
more than likely the left-hand red target on the back-center shot (behind
the flip ramp) is shorted, replace w/new and you should be ok.
(Jonathan Deitch)
This is the same problem like noted above. Jonathan was right, this was the
problem..
So just in case anyone needs this again in 10 years, Ive written it down too.
Had the same problem, but it was not the target.
So, if these hints don´t work.
Try this also.
Under the PF is a board, be sure all is 100% connected.
In my pin one connector was not pressed closely and that produced the same issues.
After pressing all of the connectors my pin plays fine.
Hey @darthsinex ,
I dig up that thread as I'm struggling with a similar issue.
I had both Stroke of Luck and Right Popper (right next to it) that kept firing. Managed to fix the first one (a disconnected cable in the back of the playfield), but I can't have the other one quiet (and responsive when needed in game).
I have one question : when u realized John's suggestion was the good one, was that switch faulty on the Switch Test ?
(I'm asking that because everything seems ok on my side... 
)
Thanks in advance
J
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Chertsey
Dallas, TX
Kaiserslautern
Loriol-sur-drôme