Those playfield solenoids probably aren't working because the fuse on the bottom of the playfield near the Flippers is blown.

In solenoid test, are solenoids 02, 03 and 06 activating? (make sure J1 is reconnected to the rectifier board, and leave fuse F5 out for now)

If not, grab your multi-meter, and set it to DC voltage.
Put the black meter lead on a ground point and red meter lead on each side of that 1A playfield fuse. Do you measure 43V on each side of the fuse?
If you then put the red meter lead on TP5 of the rectifier board do you also measure 43V there ?

So the playfield does have solenoid power. The power to each solenoid (yellow wire) is daisy chained from one solenoid to the next. You will notice all except one solenoid will have two yellow wires soldered on one of the solenoid lugs. Since the two solenoids at the kicker below the flippers are working, they are most likely at the start of the solenoid power daisy chain. It is most likely a yellow wire has come off one of these solenoids leaving no power to the remaining playfield solenoids. Any chance you can post some clear pictures of the two solenoids on this kicker mechanism?

Power to the playfield goes first to the flippers and 1 amp fuse. After the playfield fuse it probably goes to the two kicker solenoids since they are closest to the fuse. From there my guess it will go to either the outhole solenoid or slingshots since they are next closest to the kicker. A yellow wire must have come off one of these solenoids breaking the daisy chain. You'll have to inspect the yellow wire on all the solenoids looking for one that's loose or broken off.

The knocker is in the bottom of the cabinet. The flipper enable relay is in the back box on the solenoid driver board. The coin lockout is on the coin door - these three are separately wired directly from the rectifier board and are not daisy chained off the playfield.

[EDIT] Actually, doesn't this game have two playfield fuses? One fuse for the kicker assembly and another fuse for the remaining playfield solenoids?

Looking at the schematics, there are two playfield fuses. One fuse with a white wire goes to the two kicker solenoids (your working playfield solenoids), another fuse with a yellow wire coming off it feeds the remaining playfield solenoids (the ones that aren't working).
Have you checked that the second fuse with the yellow wire is good and are you getting 43 volts on both sides of it?

sounds like the brown input wire to the main playfield coils is broken. You are correct the game has 2 playfield fuses. One is for the up down kicker assembly, the other fuse is for the rest of the coils. The kicker coils are powered from one of the fuses with a white wire coming off the fuse holder. The rest of the coils which are not working are fed by a yellow wire coming off the other fuse holder. Both fuse holders share the same input brown wire. If the brown wire measures 43v at one fuse and 0 at the other the wire is broken somewhere in-between.

Borrowed the following picture from Atari_Daze recent Silverball Mania resto thread:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/polishing-up-a-silverball-mania

The two playfield fuses are connected together with the brown solenoid power wires circled in pink below. This brown power wire then goes directly to the flipper solenoids.
If the top fuse with the yellow wire has 5 volts on both sides you have a bad connection in that circled spot where the brown wires connect to the fuses.

Click the image to zoom in:

Are your fuses hooked up like this or differently?

SilverBallMania_PF_Fuses2.jpg

That's funny Quench I wanted to post a pic of those fuse holders for this yesterday but had already moved all my images off my phone, which is all I had access to at the time.
Glad I could help!

OP, consider replacing the fuse holders on your machine as one of mine, which was original, had broken.

Good point. I usually replace mine too because the clips on the old fuse holders get loose and tend to snap off.

Did the fuse blow the moment you powered on the machine, or about 7 seconds after power-up when the game usually begins attract mode and plays the welcome melody?

Your problem could be a shorted diode on a solenoid, a diode soldered backwards on a solenoid (diodes are directional), a diode missing or leg broken off a solenoid, a shorted driver transistor on the solenoid driver board, or other.
Diodes have a silver band on one side - check every solenoid and make sure the banded side of the diodes are soldered to the solenoid lug that has the yellow power wire. See the picture below: Also found a closeup picture of the two playfield fuses for reference.

Are you using slow blow 1 amp fuses? Fast blow 1 amp fuses are not suitable for this circuit and will blow on first solenoid activation.

Remove the J5 connector from the solenoid driver board. This will disconnect most of the playfield solenoids except for the outhole solenoid. Replace the 1 amp slow blow fuse and see if it blows again on powerup - if it does, take note of when.

Both pictures courtesy of Atari_Daze recent Silverball Mania resto thread again

Show power wire connected to solenoid oriented to banded side of the diode
Closeup view of Silverball Mania playfield fuses

That yellow wire is shorted somewhere or a bad coil. Closely examine it as it runs around the playfield. If worse comes to worse narrow it down by unsoldering at each coil it stops at. Try to narrow down where the short or bad coil is.

To properly test diodes on a solenoid, you need to disconnect one side of the diode off the solenoid otherwise the solenoid winding will adversely affect the diode reading..
Having said that, without disconnecting the diode you can check if it has shorted.
Set your multimeter to ohm resistance mode on the lowest scale.
With the machine OFF, put your meter leads on each side of a solenoid lugs. If you measure near zero ohms, the diode is likely shorted. If you measure around 11 ohms (which is the typical solenoid resistance of the solenoids on your machine), the diodes *might* be ok. Do this on each playfield solenoid. Remember there is also the outhole solenoid hidden under the apron.

With your multimeter still on low scale ohms resistance mode and machine OFF, if you put one meter lead on the machines metal side rail (ground) and the other meter lead on the yellow wire at the fuse holder, what resistance do you read?

It was a 100 pack on ebay from China. They are a crappy type though (good enough while you're fault find this), but they will be weeks away in transit and I want to keep momentum up here. Any chance of you find a cheap source locally? Remember they need to be slow blow type.

Alternatively you might be better off building circuit breaker fuses so you can just reset them when they trip - see here:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/push-button-resetting-circuit-breakers
You probably need 0.75 amp circuit breaker for the solenoids, and 10 or 15 amp circuit breaker for the GI lamps.

Otherwise if you can get pictures happening we might be able to spot the issue fairly quickly.

Try digi-key for breakers.
I have these I use for trouble shooting.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/polishing-up-a-silverball-mania/page/6#post-4171746

Screenshot_20180213-105513 (resized).png

Circuit breakers don't come with fuse attachments - the idea is that you have to solder them to a blown fuse so you have a way to connect them to the game. Worst case you could just use alligator clips.

When you took these measurements, how did you have your multimeter set?
I presume the reading you got on the yellow side of this left slingshot was the same reading as the yellow connection on the other solenoids? i.e. it was the other side of the solenoid (where you mention 4V) that gave you a different reading compared to other solenoids?

If you check the link in the post, it would have taken you to this image.

c6b59bcbdbc525e57d90c8a41ff6442aef6e8495 (resized).jpg

Great, thanks for clarifying.

Cool, that's what they all should be measuring.

Ok, it could be a shorted driver transistor on the Solenoid Driver Board (SDB) or maybe somehow that lead is shorted to the lamp GI which is why the 20amp fuse is blowing.

Can you please perform the following with the machine OFF:
Set your meter to low ohms mode and hookup the black lead to the ground strap or the GND test point on the SDB.
If you put the red meter lead on the metal tabs of the following SDB driver transistors, what resistance do you measure?
Q4 (Outhole Kicker) =
Q8 (Right Pop Bumper) =
Q13 (Left Pop Bumper) =
Q14 (Center Pop Bumper) =
Q9 (Left Slingshot) =
Q10 (Right Slingshot) =

Then disconnect connector J5 from the SDB and measure the resistance of that other wire on the left slingshot again and report the reading.

BTW the "other" wire on the left slingshot should be orange with red bands. Confirm this is its color and not brown.

So before J5 was disconnected, on the left slingshot solenoid you measured 15 ohms on the yellow wire and 4 ohms on the orange-brown wire to ground. After you disconnected J5 from the SDB you now measured 0 ohms on both those wires to ground of that left slingshot solenoid??
What do you measure on both wires of the right slingshot solenoid when SDB J5 is disconnected ?

Again with J5 disconnected, can you re-measure the resistance at transistor Q9 (black meter lead on ground, red meter lead on the metal tab of Q9)?

Sounds like Q9 is shorted. It's probably causing the left slingshot to lock on when you power on the game resulting in that 1amp playfield fuse consistently blowing.

1) When you say 0 amps, do you mean zero reading or do you mean no reading?
2) Can you clarify how you're measuring this?
3) What meter lead are you putting where?
4) When you put the meter lead on the solenoid lugs does the meter display change? What number does it change from and go to?

I need to understand if this is a misreading of the meter of if there's a dead short we still need to track down.

Understood. A reading of zero and a reading of no change are polls apart with resistance

You mentioned with J5 disconnected from the SDB that the Q9 transistor metal tab resistance to ground was 4 ohms.
Do the same resistance check with some other SDB transistor metal tabs such as Q8, Q10, Q13 and Q14. You should either get very high resistance readings or the meter may not respond at all. If this is the case it confirms transistor Q9 is shorted and needs to be replaced.

Q3 is for the Knocker and Q19 is for the Coin Lockout coil. Both of these are in the cabinet wiring and come from connector J2 on the SDB which you've still got connected. The readings for these two are good.

Replace Q9. Your readings indicate it's shorted.

After you replace transistor Q9 (it is a TIP102 model transistor - make sure it goes in the same way as the other transistors), reconnect J5 on the SDB and measure the resistance on both lugs of the left slingshot solenoid and also the right slingshot solenoid and report the readings. Note, we are not ready to switch the machine on yet.

Cool.
BTW, transistor Q15 drives the flipper enable relay on the SDB which is hard wired so that's why you're getting a reading on that one - we've accounted for the three transistors currently giving you readings. You have no readings on the other transistors because of the blown/missing fuse on the playfield. So far so good.

Can you please install a good fuse into the playfield fuse holder but *don't* switch on the machine. Install all connectors on the SDB including J5.

With the machine off, re-measure the resistance on the metal tabs of the following transistors. What do you get for each?

Q4 (Outhole Kicker) =
Q8 (Right Pop Bumper) =
Q13 (Left Pop Bumper) =
Q14 (Center Pop Bumper) =
Q9 (Left Slingshot) =
Q10 (Right Slingshot) =
Q12 (Up Kicker Coil) =
Q11 (Kick and Down Coil) =

Ok, by "0" to mean zero ohms right? (i.e. you don't mean no reading)?

If it's zero ohms:
Remove the 1 amp slow blow fuse and remeasure just the left and right slingshots again.
Then remove the 20 amp GI fuse from the rectifier board (so both fuses are removed). Remeasure just the left and right slingshots again.
Then install the 1 amp slow blow fuse only (leave the 20 amp fuse out) and remeasure just the left and right slingshots again.

We're trying to determine if the short is on the solenoid power line is to ground or the G.I circuit.

Hi, can I please get you to clarify what you mean by "0" again. Is it zero ohms or meter didn't respond?
If it's zero ohms, your readings are bad news and there's still short circuits to track down.
If it's no meter response, your readings are good news. In this case, please use "NR" (No Response) to indicate this reading. Stating "0" as a resistance measurement means a short circuit which is the complete opposite resistance reading to the meter not responding.

In resistance mode when you put the two meter probes together, your meter will show 0 or very close to it, indicating a short circuit.

Yes that's much clearer, thanks

Ok, your readings are good so far.

I'd like to check some things on the Solenoid Driver Board before we power up. Just want to avoid unnecessarily blowing another fuse.

You replaced transistor Q9 on the SDB. Just above it there's a diode marked as CR9. Can you do a resistance check across this diode? i.e. red meter lead on one side of the diode, black meter lead on the other side of the diode and measure it. Then swap the leads around and measure again. Note if the diode leads are tarnished black make sure you get good contact with the meter leads otherwise you might not get a reading (i.e. just clean/scrape away some of the tarnish).

Now, if you remember how to test diodes by setting your meter to diode mode (I gave you details about doing this some time ago), test the diode in diode mode on your meter.

Post the results of the meter readings across that diode both in resistance mode and diode mode - also the readings when you swap the meter leads around.

Lastly, next to diode CR9 there is a resistor called R26. Does it look burnt in any way? Can you still see the color bands around it (the colors indicate its resistance value). Compare the way it looks against the resistors next to the other diodes along the same row of diodes/resistors.

[EDIT] The tests I've mentioned to do on diode CR9, do the same on diode CR8 and diode CR10 so you have something to compare to.

You're using a Fluke meter right? The readings are in the vicinity of my Fluke meter so they're probably ok.

I know you're probably getting excited to power it up - please bear with me for the moment.

Have you sourced any spare fuses yet?

Disconnect connector J5 from the SDB.
Remove the F5 20 amp fuse that's blowing from the rectifier board.
Install a good 1 amp slow blow fuse in the playfield.
Power on the machine keeping an eye on that 1 amp fuse, if it blows (it shouldn't) tell me exactly when after powerup (immediately of after 7 seconds)

Set your multi-meter to read DC voltage.
Black meter lead on a ground point.
With the red meter lead, measure the voltage on both sides of the F5 fuse clips on the rectifier board. Report both the results.

Now this time set your multi-meter to read AC voltage.
Black meter lead on a ground point.
With the red meter lead, measure the voltage on both sides of the F5 fuse clips on the rectifier board. Report both the results.

These tests will tell me if the circuit downstream from the 20 amp fuse is shorted to some other power rail (we hope not).

These DC readings are good. You should not measure any DC voltages at this particular fuse. The G.I. circuit only has AC voltage.

The lower clips 7 VAC is good, but the 31.4 VAC on the upper clip is BAD. The expected reading should be near 0 VAC on the upper clip so we need to find out what the story is.

Between the time that F5 wasn't blowing and when it started bowing, what changed?

Leave F5 removed, can you remeasure the F5 upper clip again in AC voltage mode just to reconfirm that 31.4 VAC reading?

That 31.4 VAC reading kinda tells me the issue is on the rectifier board, but lets eliminate everything downstream that we can first.

Next with the machine OFF, disconnect J1 and J3 from the rectifier board - these will disconnect the playfield and backbox respectively. Leave fuse F5 removed, power ON and remeasure the AC voltages on both sides of the F5 fuse clips again and report the results.