Do you know if your game has had the ground mods done? They can act weird before they’ve been upgraded.

Spring break has that auto multiball from the start, right? Could it be a menu option to turn that on or off?

Grounding mods are a good idea.

I don't know what you mean by "both locations". Spring Break launches all balls from the shooter lane.

Does it fire balls from the outhole into the trough correctly?

You can try grounding a tab on the relevant transistor on the driver board. If this makes the shooter lane kicker fire, then there's a path from the driver board to the non-banded side of the diode on the shooter lane coil. If this doesn't work, there is a break in the wiring somewhere, and you might be able to find it with continuity checking and a multimeter.

You can also try grounding the non-banded side of the diode on the coil. If this works, you've got power, although it sounds like you've already tried that.

Having a manual, and knowing which transistors have step-up transistors in your game, is a big help!

zerorob Did you by chance figure out what the problem was? I restored my spring break before I moved and was working fine but is now having the same exact issue you are describing. I even swapped for a ni-wumpf driver board just to check and still the neither coils will work. I have all ground mods done, new caps, etc. This is now the last thing holding out to make this machine perfect.

There is a driver board under the playfield that drives coils. There could be a ground problem there. On pinwiki it explains that Gottlieb repurposed some lamp outputs to drive under playfield transistors which drive the solenoids. I attached a pic of what they look like. I had a similar problem and it ended up being the driver under the playfield. My problem was the ball gate coil was not working. It would not release a ball to the shooter lane. Hopefully this helps.

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Ever resolve this?
If it is just the main launch and the "upper" pf kicker that aren't working.. check yo' fuses!
They are on the same fuse, and are the only two things on that fuse..

I know this because I one time tried to use a beefier solenoid on the launch kicker only to blow through a couple fuses.

Hey all,

My newborn is finally sleeping through the night, so back to the Spring Break! I actually got my new transistors in yesterday and soldered them up tonight. The fault lights are now off on the NiWumpf driver board. I Went ahead and replaced all 4 transistors since they all looked all and the wiring all looked like cold solder anyway. However, the damn thing still won’t shoot!

I can now see on the NiWumpf that both of the solinoids are trying to fire. They blink like they are trying to launch to ball but won’t. The only remaining light on the driver board to address looks to be E10, but I have no idea what they goes to.

I hate to resurect a zombie thread, but I also hate threads to problems that go unresolved. Any other suggestions?

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I took a second look at the manual and figured I’d check the resistor banks next. Figured it’s a long shot, but what the hell. Almost all of the resistors had extreme cold solder joints and the resistors wiggled freely. I reflowed solder on all of them hoping this would do it. Sure enough, it did not. Still back to square 1.

Can anyone think of anything else in line that I would need to check?

After the new transistors it looks like the driver board is without error and working as designed. Resistors have been reflowed/set. Before I did the transistors I installed new solinoids and diodes on both of the shooter lanes. Not sure where to go from here.

Here’s where I’m at now. I checked the fuses yet again to make sure I’m not crazy. I put a brand new 2A sloblo, started the game up, ball launched like it should! I was crazy excited then a gutter ball. Go to shoot ball 2, nothing happens.

Check under the table and the fuse is blown now. I checked everything out one last time, and tried again. Same thing, blew another fuse.

mr2xbass bbrian170 any words of wisdom? I feel like I’m near the end of the tunnel, but keep hitting setbacks.

Ok, I’ve done it and the machine is working again. Here is what I have learned from this experience in case anyone else runs into this issue.

1) check the transistors under the playfield for the shooter solinoids. This was the first thing that fixed the issue for me and removed the error lights on my driver board.

2) my resistor board that held the resistors also used for these solinoids contained extremely cold/cracked solder joints. Reflow solder on these across the board.

3) I replaced both the solinoids and diodes for the shooter lanes, although this was not required and didn’t resolve my issue, still worth checking as they can burn out.

4) just get new fuses and make sure they are exactly the model/spec required by manual(this should be a given anyway). I ordered a pack of brand new 2A Slo Blo fuses which finally fixed everything.

I did swap new bridge rectifiers through this process but they didn’t do anything new other than look shiny.

Thank you everyone through this process, and I am glad to fonally close out this thread. I hope it helps others who run into this down the line too.