The game is clearing out locked balls during regular play. Not sure that we've noticed a pattern yet. Open to suggestions. Thanks.

I've only noticed it putting one on the table, so I'm going to guess when one ball is locked. Not saying that is 100% accurate, but is what I've noticed.

I recently acquired a WW and have been taking care of a few lingering issues. I think I'm down to the last one, but it's quite an elusive gremlin. If 1 or 2 balls are locked, it will kick them out at random from time to time. Sometimes it's every few games, sometimes it's several times per game. I have replaced the 3 lock switches and that didn't cure things. I also put 2 balls in the lock area and pressed every switch shared on the rows and column several times as well as combos of switches. Once during that exercise it kicked out the balls, but attempting to duplicate that failed after 15+ minutes of trying, so I don't think it's a switch issue.

Has anyone had this issue before and resolved it?

Yes, but I tightened the crimp if they felt looser than I was comfortable with. But you make a great point. When I first put the switches on and used the old bent wire, one of them would not let the switch unclick. When I started the first test game the kicker fired repeatedly until I powered it off. I found the issue, and fixed it by bending the wire tab a little. If there was a flaky spade connector, I can see that being an issue. I will cut them off and solder the wires on, and cross fingers.

If it doesn't, what should I be looking at adjusting? On a full plunge, I think mine is hitting high and rattling. On a slightly softer plunge it will make the upper loop, but because it's weaker, tends to drop down to the red pops instead of making the full orbit.

Nice! I had no idea. I'll check it out and see if I can get it aiming correctly.

If moving from one hole to the next doesn't work, I'm guessing I will have to do a little bending.

Don’t do this, but...

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There is a .375 amp fuse for the display, isn't there? It looks super dainty, which is why I find it amusing that it is handling the highest voltage on the game.

So I was able to do this tonight and in the first game after I locked a ball it kicked it out. Taking any other suggestions as this is a great game that folks love to play, but not having it in tournaments is quite a bummer.

Just did this tonight and no dice. I did it with 2 and 3 balls in the lock area, in both switch test and edge mode. I was popping the playfield all over the place to try to force the presumably problem switch into clicking. I don't expect the banging around to activate a switch when they are most/all microswitches, but you never know.

What I see as a tricky aspect is this has happened with both one and two balls in the lock. I don't know that any of the players have had it happen with one/two balls locked and the ball in the shooter lane. Not saying it's never happened, just not a pattern we've seen. I'm also not sure the trough is a factor either, only because it has happened with 2 balls in the lock and the third ball in play. IIRC, there are 3 balls in the game, so with 2 locked there would be nothing in the trough.

This reminds me of an issue my friend had on his Baywatch. If you hit the left flipper with a ball in the shooter lane it would plunge and fail the skill shot, instead of letting you change the skill shot selection (there are 3 options). In the switch test mode if you had a ball in the shooter lane and hit the left flipper, two other switches would register (right sling and right inlane or outlane, can't remember) and those formed 4 points of a square on the DMD. It took me hours, but I eventually found that the wires were done wrong on the shooter lane switch at one point in time. The wrong legs/diode orientation were the cause and once I fixed that everything worked great.

The difference here is that I can't seem to duplicate the issue on WW, and none of my top players have noticed a pattern to give some clues. Glass off doing all sorts of combinations of switch hits won't kickout the locks. Put the glass back on, play a handful of games, and at least once the locks will kickout with no audio or display indicator of what the game thinks is happening. The most gremliniest gremlin I've run into yet while working on pins.

Sorry about that. One test I did recently was to put one and two balls in the lock and manually put the third ball into the scoops and over every switch the game has multiple times. There were probably more switch hits per minute on that game than any typical game that has been played since the issue started. The balls were kicked out once, but when I reset the locks and focused on the switches in the area for quite a while it never kicked them out again.

What are the odds it's a connector issue on the matrix? With classic Bally games, repining connectors and replacing headers is rule number 2 behind getting rid of the battery. I have several System 11's, and I never have connector issues outside of burnt GI connectors. I'm not horribly opposed to repining the connectors with crimp and stuff in case one of the IDC crimps is flaky enough to pop up every 10-15 games (at best). I just don't like doing work that likely will cause more issues before fixing things.

The lock switches are on the same column, and there isn't much else on the column. I'll replace diodes on whatever else is there. I'll start doing the switches on the row of lock 1 as well, and maybe lock 2.

I’ve seen it called spring steel normally.

Is it just a regular microswitch? If so, get anything and pop the tab off the old one and put it on the new one.

Every time somebody makes a 3-way combo during an event everyone looks over and we all celebrate a little because the sound is so cool. I have no idea if anyone local has ever done 100+ tolls, but quite sure I've ever heard the sound.

Do you have a thread you could link to? I'd love to watch that process. I would guess the topper might be tough, but I think recently those have been linked to for sale. So maybe nothing is all that hard to find, at least I hope that is the case.

Nice job on the hunt. It's a great game and will be well worth the effort to get it going again.