Hello everyone

Last week I bought a Twilight Zone and we’ve been playing it regularly with no problems. Today, I come down to a bunch of errors relating to the mini playfield, so I open the manual and see it’s controlled by the high power driver “A-16116”. I opened the pin and that board appears discolored “black powder’sh” on the top and bottom.

After cleaning the board and inspecting it and I didn’t see anything wrong physically (no I don’t have a DMM yet, but I will soon). I plug the board in and was shocked when I didn’t receive the errors and the mini playfield passed the tests. Hooray…(I thought)

So I get ready to play again and missed the skill shot and down the shoot the ball goes and that’s where it stayed.

Evidently Solenoids 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8 are down while solenoids 4 and 7 work normally. These are most of the kickers and poppers which explains why the ball stayed down. They’re all powered by the Power Driver Board connected at J130 (1-9). No fuses are blown, so I can’t figure out why solenoid 4 (popper) and 8 (knocker) would work, while the others are dead and also why the machine is passing all tests at startup.

I know black’sh powder on any board is not a good sign which leads me right back to the “high power Driver at A-16116 but I can’t understand why the mini playfield works if that’s the case and why I’m not receiving errors.

Can someone with a Twilight Zone manual look at pages 3-14 and 3-15 and confirm or deny that Solenoids 1-8 are controlled by board A-16116 before I send this out for repair please.

This is my first pin and thus my first attempt of tech support and repair on a pin….so be kind…

Matt

I just read a article about flipper dust and that it conductive and could cause a short, seeing that this board is within a few inches of the flipper maybe that was the black residue i whipped off the board and the flipper dust caused a short initially. Cleaning the board explains why the mini-playfield started working again but not the loss of solenoids.

I checked the fuses and they all appear ok, but I agree with you and will change them anyway. Dumb question but is there a difference between the fuses sold online that say "pinball use only" compared to the ones I can pick up at local radio shack?

I've got the DMM now, and I'm ready to check some fuses when I get home.

Confirmed with the DMM that the volts were good, checked for burned connectors and bad pins and replaced all fuses anyway. Then, I started retracing and gently tugging the wires of all the effected solenoids and sure enough one popped off with the slightest tug (01 slot kickout).... I soldered it this afternoon and that was it...just a wire hanging on thread causing me all this grief.

Thanks you all the help and suggestions.

If you have any advice for what a first time pin owner should do for routine maintenance on a street rescued pin, I’m all ears. I’m going to change the batteries now as I don’t know how old they are.

Thank again,

Matt

Thanks, I'll get the remote battery holder ordered. Seems like an easy solution to avoid a bigger problems
.