Hi Pinside.

I recently refurbished a Shadow and clearcoated the playfield. I also washed the entire playfield harness Vid sytle. After reassembling everything all the switches and mechs work fine but I am fighting an issue with the Battlefield single drop target.

When I boot the machine up the 3 amp fuse connected to the magnet and drop down solenoid immediately burns up. The drop down solenoid also gets rather hot. When I unplug the Battlefield drop (and up) solenoids and boot the machine the magnet works fine without blowing the fuse. I have been testing with both slow blow and regular fuses. With the slow blow fuses the solenoid will drop the target one time before burning up. The regular fuses go immediately.

I also completely replaced the fliptronics 2 board because the original had some iffy transistor replacements. These tests are using a new Rottendog Fliptronics 2 board. The drop down solenoid is also brand new as the last one burnt up. The only other fix I have tried is replacing the spring on the Drop Down arm with a weaker one so the solenoid doesn't have to pull as hard.

I am not sure what else to try here. The problem seems to be the Orange-Grey wire that drives the solenoid. It doesn't power any other devices in the machine as far as I can tell.

If you have any recommendations please let me know. I am one working solenoid away from my grail pin working here.

Thanks

Thanks for the advice so far. I checked all over the playfield and found no obvious shorts. The drop down coil is getting insanely hot. I have isolated the problem to this particular solenoid. The Wires that drive it are Orange-Grey and Red-Grey. The magnet that shares the Red-Grey wire is working fine when the fuse is intact.

Here's an update on my issue.

I couldnt find any shorts anywhere on the playfield. The circuit that this coil is on also doesnt seem to have any diodes

I isolated the drop down coil in a number of ways to diagnose the problem. In short, the fuse only blows when the drop down coil is hooked up. the coil immediatley heats up when the machine is turned on and pops the fuse. I have tried removing it from the drop target bracket and letting it hang in the machine separate from the bracket just in case there was a short there. Same blown fuse. I have clipped the wires on the drop down solenoid and plugged in the molex that powers both the drop up and drop down solenoids and the fuse doesnt blow and the drop up solenoid works fine. I have unplugged the drop down and drop up solenoids and plugged in the magnet only and the fuse doesn't blow.

There is one solenoid running from the Orange-Grey wire. The Drop down solenoid
There are only 2 solenoid running from the Red-Grey Wire. the Magnet and the Drop down
The drop down solenoid is run from Orange-Grey and Red-Grey from the fliptronics 2 board

My drop down solenoid doesn't have a diode installed on it and from the manual it looks like its not supposed to.

I have also tried reversing the wires on the drop down solenoid and it still heats up and pops a fuse.

Hope this info helps diagnose a little further

I just replaced the entire board

You mean on the power driver board? I might have misinterpreted your post. I replaced the fliptronics board

I can't see how the power driver board would be the issue. the drive wires are not on it. Unfortunately when I replaced the fliptronics board the exact same problem persisted

The transistor is Q7 on the Fliptornics board. It looks totally normal currently. My electronically minded friend is coming over to help me test it shortly

I am talking about Battlefield single drop target down. It is the Single drop solenoid down. I just checked the new board and Q5 was indeed damaged. I replaced it and the fuse blew again except slower than last time

I was wrong about Q7 btw it is Q5. This is my third drop down coil I have bought from Marco. There is some useful information in this thread but it hasnt exactly solved my problem

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-shadow-problem-with-drop-target-to-enter-battlefield

36 Single Drop Down. I have removed the Fliptonics board and Q5 is testing just fine after booting the machine up and still blowing fuses

Q7 is testing fine as well. Im so confused by this. As far as I understand the game does a sequence of events to test the target upon boot up:

If drop switch closed fire drop up solenoid
If drop switch opens Fire drop down solenoid to test drop down switch
Would the game just keep sending current to the solenoid normally and blow a fuse if it doesnt sense the switch registering? I would assume it would try to fire the solenoid a few times and give up if not. The current drop down solenoid doesnt appear to be visually burnt but it has gotten hot before.

Are there other components worth testing on the fliptonics board? diodes, resistors, stuff like that?

Everything seems fine. Do you have any idea what the resistance should be on the coil itself? Perhaps the burnt transistor burnt the coil which is now popping the fuse. This could be the keystone cops of pinball failures. I can't find anywhere where there would be a short.