Having some issues on this williams lucky ace. 5 ball and 3 ball same issues. Ball count unit was dissasembled and cleaned moves good. Start up will sometimes give me one less ball. It will also sometimes subtract one ball during play. I think it happens during 50pt score motor movement but not sure. It will also randomly give a free ball not associated with special or highscore. This can happen during play or at ball drain Highscore freeball is another issue I'm having as it seems jones plug adjustment does nothing.

It will correctly give a free ball for lower right rollover when lit and for upper right rollover when lit.

The adding and subtracting of balls sure seems to be related, I went over score motor switches and all switch stacks for cold solder , solder splash and switches to close together and I did check all stacks for tightened screws in these circuits. I didnt find anything obvious.

This game also appears to be one of those factory games set up for aab only with no jones plug option for replay or novelty. I'm in Connecticut so that does make sense. Also the credit window had the silver tape covering it. Also found a weird factory mistake with 2 tilt adjust jones stickers instead of 1-9 liberal conservative.

lucky ace aab (resized).jpg

lucky ace tilt (resized).jpg

thanks Dave good call I will try the score motor to see if I get a free ball or subtract

So I made some progress. I got the high score adjustment working. I must have missed the 10,000 reel inner disc contacts (I did do all the others) It was crazy greasy dirty and had no continuity to fingers. It was borderline almost burned on the traces.

I am however still getting random ball subtracts and at the same time I loose all bonus, ball is still in play during this unless this happens during last ball of course.
And It sometimes wont subtract ball at ball drain. It is still sometimes giving a freeball at random score motor seems to make no difference

It now always seems to start at correct ball count.

I tried just hitting the impulse score motor switch over and over and it never did add or subtract balls from this action.

I pulled the pf and bottom board again and went over everything again.

I tried pounding on the playfield incase it is vibration issue with bonus unit or a switch to close. nothing

I checked all score motor switches again. nothing to close together or springing after cam drops. Also something weird on this game a, a few score motor stacks are on the correct cam but flipped from the schematic like B is in the C position.

More problems. Pulling my hair out. Never had so many problems on an em.

Along with the add and reset ball issue I had another issue start happening. The 50 pt once hit was staying locked on at times, related to impulse cam. Also triple bonus was missing some scoring then adding to many 1000s, related to impulse cam. Also ball count step up is on impulse.

I pulled score motor again and noticed groove cut into bottom stack nylon of tyhe impulse. The impulse stack seemed to be on a bit of a downward angle to compensate. I tried to readjust with just enough pressure on the cam and then I regapped the stack. I even tried moving the stack a bit to hit the correct spot. Its even worse now with no double bonus scoring, super messed up triple (all thru 1000s switch on impulse) and start up ball count at 2 instead of 3.

On the schematic it looks like things like double bonus go thru 3 score motor stacks at the same time mb at 4e, mb at 6b and impulse b. I'm sure others do as well.

If the timing is off a split second on these score motor stacks nothing works. I have never had this happen before. Do I try adjusting stack so they are closer together and dwell longer during rotation?

Any help please

cam lucky ace (resized).jpg

Tried multiple adjustment on all stacks on the motor and got it back to where I was basically. Full ball count at start up. 50pts and double bonus work fine. Triple bonus is still fluttery. It hasnt added any incorrect balls during game or subtract any balls during game but at ball drain about 20% of the time the ball reset wont fire keeping me at same ball(hard to find it when it happens intermittent) Im afraid to touch the score motor stacks at all now on this game!

yeah it just game me another random free ball. Playfield up or down doesnt matter. put close to 200 test games on this pos. I have also checked continuity on all jones plugs from wire to wire from pf to bottom to head at least 3 times as thats how many times I have dissasembled.

I made a mistake above with the double bonus and triple bonus above. I thought they went thru 5 pulse impulse and dropped out but actually go thru single pulse on cams 1,2,3 duh googan mistake. I got those two fixed. The triple in particular one of the switches was closed slightly to long and basically connecting at the same time as the next cam over for a micro second. It was acting the same way as a loose sling shot or a bouncy stand up target and scoring super fast.

But I still think this machine has some black magic in it or a poltergeist. I had everything working for several games with more micro adjustments on sm switches nothing weird happening. Then it starts with the not firing ball reset at end of ball again every 4 or 5 balls. I start manually closing ball index and then closing outhole relay to check score motor. It works fine for 2 games then every other ball it wont subtract one ball (this happens about 15 balls in a row). I marked the detents on 2a. nothing looks weird on them. I go to grab alligator to close the 2 switches on ball index and outhole the pertain to this circuit and then I cant get it to do it again for like 5 games. Then out of nowhere the 50 pt relay once triggered from pf locks on and keeps scoring and stops at random(its not the pf switches). Then it stops and next time I start and ball drains It starts knocking and freeballs over and over. Shut it off and start it up and the 1-9 reset bank wont reset, the 1a fuse was blown. Replace fuse and everything plays totally fine for 10 games. Keep in mind ALL of this happened over 20 games with NO switches touched or adjusted!

Now I have 10-20 games on it still no problems except I think I might have gotten 1 freeball at random. Im not sure because the rules say free ball after everytime you complete 1-9 after special when lit is lit you get a free ball. I manually try this and doesnt seem to give a freeball? Im using ipdb and the schematic is a little messed up on that part I'm looking at c 8.5 there.