(Topic ID: 96478)

Target Alpha Bonus issues - Finally FIXED!!!

By John_I

9 years ago


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  • 33 posts
  • 11 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 8 years ago by SadSack
  • Topic is favorited by 12 Pinsiders

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#31 8 years ago
Quoted from John_I:

Sounds like anyone with a Solar City, Canada Dry or Target Alpha should check out this switch. A lot of people might not even notice because of how fast the bonus scores and trying to do the math that fast in your head. As I mentioned above I want this thing to score perfectly so it can be used in tournaments.
Since fixing this problem, I have had a constant parade of minor problems to fix on this Target Alpha. I think this game was built on a Monday morning or something. Two of the recent problems were wires the came free from relays on the bottom board and one wire came off a switch on the score motor. The technician must not have been soldering hot or clean enough that day.
Here are the most recent problems:
1) Very rarely, like once in 100 balls, the ball will simply kick into the shooter lane without scoring the bonus.
2) Last night I had a game that would not end. After the last ball, the ball kept getting returned to the shooter lane every time rather than ending the game. There was no ball in play light nor did it say game over.
This morning, I took apart the player unit and it was significantly gummed up. I cleaned it out really good with alcohol and put in a new coil sleeve. It runs beautifully now. I need to clean out the coin unit but did not get around to it. The bonus unit is already clean as a whistle and adjusted properly.
3) This morning the game was playing great. I played like 20 games because it was so much fun to finally have it playing this nice. Then I played a game where I started a one player game, but after each player one ball player two would get a ball! After the 5th ball on player one, the game ended without giving one to player two. Each time player two came up the player light would light, but only the 1 light below was lit indicating the coin unit has only seen one player start a game.
Oh well, I am going to clean out the coin unit later today and also search for more wires disconnected. This has been the single hardest game I have ever had to dial in. None of my other EMs game me this kind of problems.

For what it's worth, I was talking to Tim Meighan (an expert EM guy and restorer who used to work on the games on location/route) here in Seattle because of an issue on my Target Alpha and he said that there's a known design flaw on the bonus units that they never could consistently resolve with those machines on location. Basically, they will occasionally not count the bonus correctly, even with everything dialed in. So, FWIW, even an "expert" says it may not be possible to get it to count the bonus correctly 100% of the time (such as what you describe with #1 above, and some of the previous problems in this thread). Still a fantastic game.

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