I'm helping a buddy with his game. I don't normally work on DMD games. I think I'm in the right neighborhood with finding a solution to the problem, but haven't found it yet.

His game has trouble getting to the X-wing multiball. When you shoot the drop targets, and now you try to send the ball up the ramp into the laser cannon. The magnet in the cannon works, and diverts the ball to the X-wing shot. Now we get to the problems...

Many times, the magnet will not pull the ball, though sporadically it will. If it does divert the ball to the X-wing fighter, sometimes the two middle drop targets will not get kicked down. Most of the times, you need to flip the flippers or something to get the X-wing motor to turn the shooter.

In checking out the game, all of these functions come from the J7 plug on the solenoid board. I inspected the board and found a crack on the solder between the board and the capacitor which supplies power for the J7 plug (repaired). I have 21 vdc at all of the coils which are not behaving, and the 21 volts is present and stable (calls for 20vdc in the manual). I've checked the coils for resistance, and all of them seem to have the appropriate level. I have continuity on all of the wires going back to the board.

I'm missing something somewhere. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

Oh! I forgot to add that these functions also will not always happen in test mode...

Bump.

Seeing this guy again today. Are all of the grounds on that driver board connected to each other? This game is missing the center screw which appears to be connected to one leg of a bridge rectifier. I don't have everything in front of me at this moment, but if all of the grounds on that board are not tied together, it's possible that the missing screw could be a source of the power problem...

Anyone have any other thoughts?