Nice; sounded like a stuck transistor. At least that is one item that is so obvious when locked on it probably won't burn out.

Imagine if that happened on a location game? I wonder if a fuse would blow before the motor shook the game apart or melted?

To keep this "gambit only" shaker story thread alive a while longer I will tell my shaker motor story. One of my first pin repairs on my first machine. I was super new to the hobby.

It was an Earthshaker, and the shaker motor stopped working. I did some research and people suggested the motor brushes, and that a certain car part number was a replacement. So I ordered that, and the parts were not identical after all.

So then I found some identical replacements online and the shaker motor worked! For 1/2 of a game.

I found this confusing; but decided to try and replace the transistor next. With the crappy tools I had on hand at the time (and my low level skills) just doing that simple thing was "hard". But I got it done! I plugged everything back in and the shaker motor worked.... for a game or so.

????

I then ordered a whole new shaker motor, installed it, and.... it worked for a game or two.

I finally went into the backbox, found the connector that runs to the shaker motor, and it was very obviously burned up. So I replaced that, and the header PINs. I don't think I had ever done that before either.

All told, this took the span of ~2 years. In between waiting for parts and giving up on before coming back to it.

And I learned an important lesson: It is always a connector issue, except in the rare times it isn't . Anyways I learned to start with the "mechanical" stuff even when it seems to be an electrical problem. Doh!