I am stumped.

I am restoring my Target Alpha and it's currently stuck in Game Over.

Nothing happens when I push the start button.

I can get the score motor to run if I manually press the S switch a few times (never works the first time). The score motor runs a few rotations and then goes into an endless loop until I manually activate Z2 in the backbox, which finishes the score motor cycle and puts the game back into Game Over.

All lights are on when I plug the machine in.

There are 70 points on Player 4 (they never reset)

The machine is not in Tilt.

I've read pinrepair.com and http://www.planetimming.com/. It's all still indecipherable to me.

I found a thread here with a similar issue on a Solar City machine with a snippet of the schematic posted below. I have no idea how to follow the schematic. I did see in the Solar City post that there could be an issue with the DX relay. I took a look and all of the switches appear to be working correctly.

Would be grateful if someone could Explain it like I'm 5 about the steps I should take to troubleshoot. I've already given myself one nice shock when I touched a relay with the power off but the machine still plugged in. Don't want to give myself another
TA (resized).png

Hi Howard, thanks again so much for spending time with me on the phone last night. It was very helpful.

Tonight, I identified the 1C and 2B switches on the score motor. I tested all of the blue, green, and brown points on my attached schematic picture.

When I jumpered from the fuse to the blue points, I was able to activate the score motor by pressing the replay button.

When I jumpered from the fuse to each of the green points, the score motor activated.

When I jumpered to the brown points, nothing happened when I pressed the replay button.

Do I conclude from this that my problem must lie somewhere at one of the brown points, or one of the green points?

I inspected the bounce switch at the bottom of the cabinet. The switch seems adjusted correctly, and when I manually pressed the switch, the machine went into Tilt as it should.

When I manually press the Anti-Cheat switch on the coin door just below the replay button, nothing happens.

Thanks again for looking

schematic update (resized).png

I did try that but nothing happened. I'd been at it for a while at that point and I was ready to give up. I will try again tomorrow in hopes that maybe it's a misadjusted switch.

I think I tested that one successfully and forgot to notate it as blue, but I'll double check tomorrow.

Jumping all of the various switches in the circuit did not lead to any progress.

While poking around the anti-cheat switch (which does not seem to do anything), I noticed a cut black wire going to the 2nd coin slot solenoid. My coin door is pretty hacked up. I connected the broken wire to that coin slot coil and success! I can now get the game to partially reset by pressing the replay button (no ball kick out, no resetting of the target banks).

I adjusted a switch on the P relay that seemed to be sticking during the reset.

Now I'm stuck in a loop. Whenever I press the replay button, the start motor activates and the playfield target banks reset over and over. Credits decrement off the replay unit in the backbox down to zero and then continue firing those coils until I shut the machine off.

I thought maybe the black wire on the coin chute caused a problem so I cut that wire again. No change - still stuck in a loop.

I assume this means I have a poorly adjusted switch somewhere or a short but how to diagnose?

I have the manual with the operating instructions

op man (resized).jpg

Thanks again Howard for all of the help and for patiently explaining to me how to troubleshoot the problems! Psyched to finally be able to put this machine back together and get to playing

I noticed one of my drop target banks was extremely hard to get the targets to drop - the space for them seemed way to tight. Turns out the previous owner also put the little black bumpers in the drop target mechanism on backwards (not sure what to call them).