My Surf Champ is now operational, but none of the playfield objects (slingshots, spinner) which are supposed to score 10 points, will score at all. (The slingshots work, they just won't score.)

When I start a game, I can hear a buzzing coming from the backbox. It appears to be coming from one of the player 1 score reels. I recently had someone else power up and start a game and noticed that the N relay (the 10 point relay) in the backbox immediately energizes. The 10 point score reel will move one or two positions, with an accompanying chime, and then stops. It will not score 10 points when anything is hit.

I decided to try it in two player mode, and when the first player's ball drains, and scoring switches to the second player, the player 1 score stops buzzing and the player 2 score reel then begins buzzing. When the ball drains and scoring switches back to player 1, so does the buzzing.

The game is new to me, and I have not cleaned the score reel switches. Could that be the source of the buzzing? Or is the energized N relay causing the score reel to vibrate? While the N relay stays energized when the game is playing, the coil does not appear burned and seems to have the proper resistance (15 ohms).

HowardR - you were absolutely correct! I took all the plastics off, inspected every switch. I assumed it was one of the 10 point switches so I did those first. Nope - every one seemed fine.

Last one I inspected was the drop targets. Sure enough, the switch behind the rubber was out of adjustment - constantly closed. I adjusted it to make it NO, turned the game back on, started a game. No more buzzing out of the backbox, and now everything that is supposed to score 10 points, scores 10 points!

Thank you for the help! Greatly appreciated!

Drop Target Switch01 (resized).jpg

Drop Target Switch02 (resized).jpg

I am curious about a couple of things:

1. Why did the stuck switch on the drop targets, which count 500 points, stop all of the 10 point switches from scoring?

2. And why did that stuck switch energize the N (10 point) relay?

3. Why did all of that cause the vibration in the score reel?

Just trying to understand what exactly went wrong. Might help me understand other issues down the road.

Thanks!

Thank you so much for clarifying that, Runbikeskilee!! It now makes perfect sense, even to a newbie like me!

I'm curious: why didn't the N relay (10 point relay) coil burn up - I played for a couple minutes before turning the game off. Guess it wasn't enough time for it to burn?

Great explanation! Thanks so much for enlightening a newbie!