Hello Pinsiders,

I’ve been working on my first EM pinball Skylab and can’t get it to play correctly. Here’s where I’m at.

Turn the machine on
Press the left flipper and the light comes on
Lock relay engages

Sometimes pressing the start button does nothing and I have to manually latch the game over relay to get things moving.

Other times I get lucky and pressing the start button engages the coin relay, which in turn engages the reset relay, game relay, game over relay, and score motor. A credit will decrease and the score reels reset.

However, even when that happens, the outhole will not kick the ball to the shooter lane and the score motor will run endlessly until I manually pick up the ball and put it in the play field.

After the ball drains into the outhole, the score motor again runs endlessly and the “balls to play” does not count down and remains at 5 balls unless I manually engage the ball index relay and the outhole relay.

I’ve had a friend with 30+ years experience with jukeboxes and 7+ years experience with pins look at it and together we haven’t been able to figure it out.

All contacts have been burnished, relay leafs adjusted, all steppers and score reels were disassembled and cleaned, fuses checked. We installed a new chime box which sounds beautiful and works perfectly when the ball is in play (after I manually lift it out of the outhole and place it in the play field). I’ve tested the outhole by engaging the outhole relay manually and the solenoid works.

I am completely stumped. I’ve spent hours looking at this and can’t figure it out. I’m going to upload several pics starting with the score motor. I can’t help but think it has something to do with the contacts on that.

This is my first EM, it’s a true piece of art, I really want to get it running again.

Thank you in advance!

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More pics

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And finally. I hate to just spam a bunch of pics on here. I’m hoping the answer has been staring at me the entire time.

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currieddog MarkG HowardR
Thank you, I worked on tracing back the problem like you guys recommended last night.

Thanks dhutton no the outhole relay doesn’t pulse or engage with each revolution of the score motor. I’ve always had to manually engage the outhole until...

I noticed last night that the bonus relay was pulsing with each revolution when the outhole switch was triggered.

I went ahead and manually pushed the white plastic plate of the bonus relay over further while it was pulsing and to my surprise the outhole relay engaged and the outhole solenoid fired!! Everything appeared to work as it should. However it would only work when I manually pressed the bonus relay.

I took pictures of the bonus relay. I don’t see any obvious issues with the coil, leafs or contacts, but I have to think there’s something wrong with one of those components if the bonus relay is pulsing with the score motor but doesn’t engage the outhole relay unless I move the white plastic piece of the bonus relay over further while it’s pulsing.

Before I do anything further I wanted to check back with all of you.

Thank you!

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Duly noted, sorry for all the pics, I will leave the pic posting to the experts

Resolved!!

Just needed to adjust the EOS stroke on the advance unit stepper and one of the contacts on the bonus relay. After that everything worked except the game over and match lights. It took a while but I figured out the “ball to play” stepper was missing a washer. Once I replaced that everything started working.

Thank you everyone for your time and help!