I’d appreciate it. I’m getting a pinbot ready for the bar and I may just pull the Scorpion back to my house for a breakdown.

I’m having another problem now. The drop targets won’t reset inside of one ball. They reset after you drain, but not until then. Any ideas? I am guessing some switch is stuck?

That's a classic and very typical problem with the horseshoe targets used in this and many other games made around that time,. The contacts more than likely have to be cleaned and adjusted. You have to disassemble them from the underside of the playfield.

To expand: Prior to each ball, the machine fires each drop target coil automatically to ensure they are all up at the beginning of the ball. Each target drop in the bank is wired in series. The machine knows when a target drops because the drop causes a connection to be made as the drop slides over the horseshoe shaped contact on each drop's pcb. If the contacts are dirty or don't make solid contact, they wont register. Thus the need to clean and readjust them.

Start a game with the glass off and then drop each target in the bank with your finger. As each drops, the machine will make a noise from the speaker. Those that don't cause a noise are the ones that need to be checked.

..... And if you end up needing to replace any of the drop target PCBs or just want to get new ones for reliability, read this topic:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/excellent-replacement-boards-for-williams-system-3-6-drop-targets

Absolutely excellent information...and you were completely correct! I cleaned the contacts with paper and they all came back working just fine. I need to disassemble the game and do a full clean. I'm thinking of putting two other games in the bar, then bringing this one home for a through cleaning.

Thank you for the help!!

Hi
Just join the club
Pickup a non worker a few weeks ago.
Missing the back glass tho
Slowly been fixing the boards and now it's up and running.

20180603_215826 (resized).jpg

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4eGpJj7HefwUkdVeENVSmpjcUxjQXMxWmw5MFhkaUI4WWZN/view?usp=drivesdk

I had someone ask for a manual so here's a link to one a few people helped put together for me

Welcome to the club. Hope you can find a backglass!

There must be too few of these for Pinside to predict costs. Any idea what the current value of a player's condition Scorpion project with some board work needed? I'm capable of doing the board work. It boots, but apparently there are a couple of blown coils and some switch matrix issues.

I haven't ever played Scorpion and am considering a straight trade for it for a player's condition, working Stern Stars. Any opinions?

Under a grand.

I missed one on CL a few weeks ago for $700 with a good blackglass but one display out, and JamesKOC got one last Dec for $800 that 100% worked but had the yellow in the backglass peeling a bit.

No one ever played these when they were new, so generally the playfields are in pretty good condition.

Thanks! It may be comparable in value to Stern Stars then, so a straight trade doesn't sound out of line on my end. It sounds like Scorpion may actually be worth hundreds more than I have into Stars at the moment.

I may be joining this club soon!

How did this game not become as popular as Gorgar or Firepower? I tend to think the game is fantastic! I like this other games too, but I am always amazed that this wasn’t a big production run.

After I swap mine out of my friends bar I think I am going to pay someone to restore the back glass. I want this game to be around forever.

In the business back in the day, "Space Invaders" and "Middle Earth," were the only wide-bodies that were successful. The rest of them kinda tanked, (on location). By the time "Scorpion" came out, ops in my area were avoiding wide-body games, ("Superman" was a mild exception). I packed it in about a month before Embryon was released so I don't know how that one did.

My take was, (on this era of wide-bodies): Too much playfield and not enough action. The ball did too much silent rolling, scoring obstacles were spread too far apart. Scorpion probably fared a little better as the playfield is actually divided into 2, keeping the ball moving and scoring.

Personally, I'd much rather keep and fix the "Scorpion" than trade it for a "Stars." I thought that game was on the lame side, (but that's me).

"Paragon" is an interesting example of a game collectors rate highly despite earning below average amounts on commercial location, (I know it's a graphic delight). Any others?

Oops...I clicked on this thread thinking it was something else...with all the Rock Music themed pins these days I thought someone might considering that great German Rock band "the Scorpions".

I concur on vids price assessment. One that lit up and looked to be in decent shape but didn't play recently sold on Ebay for about 650. I bought mine last year, fully working but with a touched up backglass for 750.

It plays MUCH faster than other wide body machines of that era.

I’m no expert, but the speed of this game doesn’t feel “wide body” to me. I understand your comments, but is is a bummer that this game never got its due.

Was very lucky got a Backglass from a top guy in NewZealand by the name of Steve.
Have to say it's one good looking glass!
Drop in new LEDs displays too.

20180619_080212 (resized).jpg

20180619_080954 (resized).jpg

Amazing you found one.....and a beauty at that. Those things are seriously hard to come by.

All the stars lined up for Madal on this one. I had that Scorpion Backglass in my Firepower for the last 12 years or so. An Aussie who was in NZ for Pincade saw it and then saw Madal's wanted ad, put 1 and 1 together, messaged me and the sale/shipping to Madal was on.

I'm really glad it now lives in a real Scorpion. It was always funny when people would walk up to my "Scorpion" and say, wow Scorpion is just like Firepower. Not many people have seen a Scorpion, I certainly have never seen one in person.

So now I just have to finish off my Firepower restoration so I can install the new Firepower backglass I bought about 10 years ago.

That's an awesome story. Honestly, probably one of the few backglasses for this that was still just floating around somewhere.....no one repros them (even as a translite) that I've ever been able to find. I've probably seen a Scorpion pop up for sale somewhere maybe 4 times in the past 3 years and 2 of those, the backglass was missing.

Now get to that Firepower!

This was my first pin. I regret selling it. My backglass was crap, but it was such a fun game.

Hell, if it is that easy, I’ll take one too!

Ok. I finally looked over the schematics and the physical GI wiring for the backbox. The GI wiring is REALLY simple on this machine. I'm going to add a few posts with pics to explain it better.

First, you have 2 6.3v wire leads coming from the transformer to supply the power. One runs through a relay (to control the lights on/off during multi-ball) but ultimately, that is irrelevant for this problem. They terminate at the fuse block below the power supply.

IMG_20180620_112033386 (resized).jpg

One transformer lead is soldered to the bottom of the solder lug at the far left of the fuse block. The other is soldered to the bottom of the left-most fuse clip. This is the 6.3v GI Fuse.

Now, for this power to make it to the GI to light the lamps is very simple. It passes over separate yellow/white-yellow wire pairs directly. One pair goes to the playfield, one pair goes to the coin door, and 2 pairs go the the GI lights in the backbox.

The key here is that all 4 white-yellow wires are soldered to the top of the solder lug and all 4 yellow wires are soldered to the top of the left most fuse clip. If the fuse is blown/missing, you will have no GI on any of the 3 locations. So in your case the fuse isn't the issue.

If you trace the white-yellow pairs that go to the GI, they end up in the following connector, which then runs to the backbox light/display board:

IMG_20180620_112050590 (resized).jpg

Here's a picture of the back of the light board. Notice the 2 yellow/white-yellow pairs that connect to the light chain (right and left sides of the picture).

IMG_20180620_112108655 (resized).jpg

That's all there is to it. Since ONLY your backbox lighting is dim, but the lighting or the playfield is fine, this means your issue is really simple: the fuse is good and the 6. 3v to and through the fuse slips and lug should also be good. What is not good is somewhere in the wiring chain between the top of the solder lug and the top of the left most fuse clip.

Verify all 4 wires are soldered correctly to both the lug and fuse clip and you don't have any loose wires or cracked or cold solder joints. If all good here, you should be able to test with a multimeter between all the test points to verify you are getting the proper power through each test point: lugs/fuse clips, connector, and the chain on the light board. You have a bad/burnt/damaged connector or wire, or bad solder on the fuse lug or fuse clip somewhere in this chain. Hope that helps.

This is incredibly helpful! Thank you so much! I will get over to the bar and take a look. I am prepping a Pinbot and Firepower to take its place for a while. Then I can bring it back to my house and deep clean it. I’ll keep you posted .

No problem. If I ever make it back to Phoenix, you can pay me back with a beer in the bar you have it in

Hell yes! I love this idea.

the pics early in this thread should be added to the "other" thread.

My poor scorpion, since the day I bought it. Rainbow hell.

IMG_20180624_104058115 (resized).jpg

But not anymore. It's not quite as bright as the pictures make it out to be since I took it in the dark, but much better lit and the muti-ball light show on this thing is now seriously amazing.

IMG_20180624_124435503 (resized).jpg

Can someone take a picture of underside of the playfield showing the upper right flipper assembly? Here's mine....and I can pretty much guarantee this isn't right.......the stop for the plunger is definitely wrong (it's a reversed coil stop!) and I'm thinking the EOS switch and the entire bracket is also not correct at the very least.....

IMG_20180625_111921635 (resized).jpg

SORRY.... Apparently, I don't know my right from left. I meant the upper LEFT flipper assembly.

I now own what is supposed to be a working project Scorpion in ok shape. I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to fire it up and start troubleshooting.

I could use a left slingshot plastic if anyone has any leads. Mine is in 3 pieces.

Welcome to the club. Damn......you just missed a used but complete plastic set on eBay the other day. Sold for $48 bucks after shipping. I was kicking myself for not buying it.

I have a backglass (wallhanger) and nice populated playfield incl plastics available. Would prefer for someone to purchase the lot though.

20180624_131655 (resized).jpg

20180624_131838 (resized).jpg

The lot as in all plastics or the lot as in BG, PF and all plastics?

I meant the lot as in the BG, PF, and plastics together.

So I ended up metering the whole line and every light. I didn’t find any power issue. What I did find is that when I changed the LED to a brand new LED, the new one was 10x brighter!

I’ve been buying my LEDs from Comit Pinball. Does anyone know of issues where these dim over time?

the white ones don't. Which is all you should be buying for the most part anyway.

I posted about just LEDs and people said they do dim, but I think I am having some other kind of problem. Idk. I’ll keep everyone posted if I solve it.

Just picked my scorpion up but it's missing the transformer could anyone tell me what number transformer it takes? I have a spare gorgar transformer hopefully it's the same.

I know I am late to the party, but is this lot still available?

This lot of course.

The parts are still around. Pm sent.

There is a guy in Phoenix who had a backglass listed really inexpensive. It didn't look like it was in great condition, but it is better than nothing for the price. I don't know what kind of expense shipping would be, but I could inquire with him if you're interested. I could pick it up and ship it. PM me if you want me to ask if it is still available.