is there a stalker emoji?

here's how I'd approach it:

1] look on the schematic to see what controls the "ball in play" lights.

it's the ball count unit, which is a stepper unit on the bottom board in the cabinet.

2] look at the schem to see how the step-up coil on that unit powers.

the coil is near schem 6E and is called "ball count S.U."

the circuit has coin unit, player unit and a few relay/score motor switches in it, but notice the circuit branches and also controls the player unit step-up coil.

so if the player is changing reliably when the ball drains, a big chunk of the circuit is fine. If the player doesn't advance, you've likely narrowed the problem down to three switches on 3 different relays, or the ball index relay isn't powering.

since the ball release is working, you know the outhole relay switch works (green highlight - follow the "to b-w-6 @ c-13" arrow/circuit to see why. Not on schem below, but it goes to the ball release coil thru a score motor switch).

want more details?

strato-flite ball count (resized).jpg

ok, so with that info you have the below.

green works (ball releases)
yellow doesn't work (1 player game highlighted)
red is the common part that makes both yellow circuit branches not work.

one of three things is wrong:

1] the extra ball relay switch C (per manual using wire colors on schem and manual description) is open. Check or jumper it. It should only be open when the extra ball relay is powered (player got an extra ball)

2] ball index relay switch B isn't closed when the ball index relay is powered. Check it by manually operating relay with power off and looking for switch overtravel. Clean switch if necessary.

3] the ball index relay didn't power. It should power when the 10/100/1000 relays power and keep itself powered, so before the ball drains take a look and make sure it's powered.

then it gets messy because you have to work with the score motor timing to the try and figure out how the ball index relay is supposed to behave and what it's actually for. For a first pass, it's easier to just notice outhole relay switch F and score motor switch 3E are in the circuit so check those.
strato-flite ball count2 (resized).jpg

strato-flite ball index relay (resized).jpg

you're looking at the right relay.

the manual diagrams for both the tilt relay and ball index relay are wrong because they added a switch on each relay for the "2 coins 3 plays" function. Those switches are shown on the additional circuits on manual page 1.

on the ball index relay the added switch is on top ... switch E ... so that's relatively harmless. On the tilt relay they stuck the added switch on top of A, so the B-D switches on the diagram are now C-E.

neither of the extra switches are involved in the ball counter or player advancing.

when you have a switch that isn't in the right state, sometimes circuit paths get created that bypass other problems and make things work. Fix the bad switch and something else stops working because the hidden problem is now apparent.

in your case, if you have a break in the common yellow wire, everything "downstream" of the break won't work. Problem is you don't know what's downstream ... the order things are drawn on the schem is not the order the yellow wire daisy chains to all the attach points.

the easy check is jumper directly from the yellow wire on the transformer to any yellow wire segment in the daisy chain. Note the yellow wire is unique ... there's only one cloth covered solid yellow wire so it's all the same one and it's fatter (lower wire gauge) than most wires, so it's harder to confuse it with a faded other color wire.

'course, there's plastic coated solid yellow jumper wires ... sigh. Don't assume those are the common yellow wire ... but a lot of them on the score motor are.

anyway, probably sanity check time.

what I'd do is reset the game, then jumper the yellow "common" wire onto the branch point in the circuit bypassing the outhole relay, extra ball relay and ball index relay switches. See "J" on schem below.

now you want the score motor to run and see if the player and the ball counter advance.

picture below is a reality version of the jumper. The yellow wire goes all over the place, but the tilt relay switch is handy so clip one end of the jumper there. The other end of the jumper is on the B-R wire on ball index relay B.

to get the score motor to run, you can either look at the various ways to give it a kick start on the schem, or you can make it run yourself. There is a "motor run" switch on the first cam next to the motor. It's job is to keep the motor running until the cams have spun 180 degrees to an index notch. Usually you can just push/rotate the cams far enough to close the run switch and the motor takes over from there.

push/rotate the cams at the blue arrow ... or any cam since they are all pinned to each other.

occasionally you'll have a game where the motor gearbox won't let you spin the cams either by design or because the motor rotor isn't popping out of the gearbox when the power is off the motor. In that case, just lift the entire switch stack on the index cam with your finger (green arrow). That will close the run switch and once the stack is clear of the index notch, you can let go.

there's no 120V switches on the index cam stack, so you won't get a shock.

if you aren't comfortable touching stuff with power on yet, you can also just manually close the outhole relay. A switch on that should turn on the score motor.

if the ball count unit and player unit don't step up, you have more than one problem. If they do step up, move the jumper end from the B-R wire back in the circuit toward the yellow wire, manually close the ball index relay, then see what happens when you make the score motor run.

what should happen when the circuit is working is every time you close the ball index relay, it should keep itself closed. Then close the outhole relay and the units should step.

if you can close the ball index relay, it keeps itself powered and the units step when you close the outhole relay, you likely have an issue with the ball index relay not being powered when the outhole relay powers.

you could jumper the ball index relay switch closed and see if player/ball advance works, then it'd be time to figure out the purpose of the ball index relay and why one of it's switches is in the circuit.

strato-flite sanity (resized).jpgstrato-flite sanity reality (resized).jpg

move the jumper end from the B-R wire on the ball index relay to the R-W wire (the other lug on top).

if the ball count is flaky again, you know the issue is either the ball index relay switch or WHEN the ball index relay is losing power.

assuming you've cleaned/checked the ball index relay switch, the most likely problem is score motor 3E switch. 3E is supposed to keep the ball index relay powered until after the ball count and player units have incremented.

quick test ... disconnect the score motor and manually close the ball index relay (or score 10/100/1000 pts), then manually close the outhole relay. If the ball index relay releases, score motor switch 3E has a problem.

you could not bother disconnecting the score motor (tho there is a handy plug to do it) and just watch the ball index relay. It shouldn't unpower until the score motor cams have rotated around 90 degrees after the outhole relay closes.

standard tmi follows
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if ya look at the score motor cam/switch chart on the bottom of the schem, you'll see the cams operate the switch stacks in sequence spaces 30 degrees of cam rotation apart. i.e. cam 1 switches fall into and lift out of a notch, then cam 2 switches 30 degrees of cam rotation later, etc.

the circuit below is the ball index relay hold circuit. Note the following:

1] the ball index relay powers when a 10/100/1000 pt relay powers IF the extra ball relay is not powered.

2] both the outhole relay switch and score motor 3E are closed, so when the ball index relay switch on the yellow path closes, the ball index relay stays powered.

3] for the ball index relay to lose power, BOTH the outhole relay switch and score motor 3E need to open at the same time

4] you know the outhole relay needs to change state to complete the circuit to advance the ball count and player per the circuit you've been jumpering.

5] motor 3E is delaying when the ball index relay loses power AFTER the outhole relay has powered.

it's during that delay period that the ball counter and player increment because switches on score motor cams 1 and 2 make the increment pulses, while the ball index relay stays powered until cam 3 switches change state.

so in quasi-english:

the ball drains, the bonus counts down and when the bonus reaches zero the outhole relay powers, but score motor 3E is currently closed so the ball index relay stays powered.

when the outhole relay closes, the score motor gets kicked for another 180 degree turn of the cams, cam 1 and 2 switches increment the ball counter and player unit, and motor 3E opens and the ball index relay loses power. Score motor 5B opens and the outhole relay loses power

sometimes the circuits only make sense when you know the timing of the switches changing state.

strato-flite ball index relay hold (resized).jpg

yeah, that wasn't a completely thought-thru test. The bonus counting down will make the ball counter advance since the score motor cams are spinning, but at least that shows the ball index relay switch is ok. The ball count should have advanced twice like before.

definitely check score motor 3E. You can jumper 3E closed if you want as a test. It won't matter if the ball index relay stays powered ... it's only needed when playing extra balls or tilting.

there's your problem

3E should be closed unless the switch stack in down is a cam notch. Just to make sure, the green arrow is pointing at it below.

since 3E is a make/break switch, the longer moving blade is always connecting to one of the blades above or below it when the stack is done moving. You have to look at the diagram or wire colors to figure out which blade you care about.

strato-flite score motor 3E (resized).jpg
what my latest nonsense was trying to determine is whether the ball index relay is losing power too soon, so let's find out the easy way.

jumper from the yellow wire directly to the ball index relay coil lug that is the jumper to the grey-blu wire. Blue line in below pic

you could also just fold up some paper, manually push the armture onto the coil top and stick the paper in where the purple arrow is so the armature can't lift off the coil. If you wedge the paper in hard, the armature may buzz. Loosely touching the coil top is fine.
strato-flite sanity reality2 (resized).jpg

either way, the ball index relay will be held in the powered position all the time.

does the ball count and player work now assuming you don't get an extra ball?

your issue is the ball index relay is unpowering when it shouldn't. If you jumper the middle blade of 3E to the top blade and still have the problem, then it's not 3E.

that leaves:
- ball index relay switch A ... you can clean/adjust it or jumper it.
or
- outhole relay switch F ... you can clean/adjust it or jumper it. It's also a make-break switch. You want to check the middle blade going to the blade it touches when the outhole relay is unpowered - the top blade. However, if jumpering middle to top makes things work, you don't know if the switch is not working well or the outhole relay is powering at the wrong time and opening the switch.

tmi about previous posts
-----------------------------

it'll make more sense if you can figure out the below stuff:

1] switch 3E is a make-break switch. It has three blades - long one in middle, and short ones above and below. All three blades in the purple circle are switch 3E, but the middle blade is only touching one surrounding blade when the stack is not moving.

2] with the cams lifting stack 3 as shown in picture, the long blade of 3E should be connecting to/pushing up the blade above it

3] circled in green is another make-break switch on the index cam. On this picture, the long middle blade is connecting to the short blade below it

4] since stack 3 is lifted, the contacts on the long middle blade and short blade beneath it should not be touching. The lower half of switch 3E in your yellow circle is correctly open.

cam stacks (resized).jpg

the difference between [2] and [3] is whether the switch stack is in a cam notch (red arrow) or lifted up on the cam edge (blue arrow)

to really see what's going on, with the game power off you can usually grab the cams and rotate them in the direction of the yellow arrow and watch what the switches do.

generally, you don't adjust the long blades unless they are floating in space when the switch stack is down.

when a switch stack is on a low point on a cam, all the long blades should be down and connected to the cam follower at the bottom via the white cylinder spacers. On your game, the cam follower is the plastic piece riding the cam edge.

anyway, you almost always want to adjust the short blades. In the case of 3E with game power off:

1] manually turn the cams until switch stack 3 is down in a cam notch.
2] verify all the long blades are down with no gaps between the white cylinder lifters. The long blade of 3E should be down as far as it can go
3] adjust the short blade on the top of 3E so there's a gap around the same size as the gap in the green circle. A little less is ok.
4] rotate the cams some more and watch what happens when stack 3 lifts out of the notch. You want to see the contacts close on the top blade BEFORE the stack is all the way lifted, and the short top blade should get pushed up by the long blade a little as the stack reaches the top of it's travel.

way too much bonus tmi
----------------------------

eventually you reach a point where you have to either shotgun things - check/clean/adjust everything in the circuit it could possibly be - or you need to unplug the score motor and turn the cams by hand with the game power on so you can see what the relays and steppers are doing in sequence. The one gotcha is you can't slow-turn or stop turning the cams if the 120V bank reset coil is powered or the fuse for that coil will blow. That isn't a concern if you aren't hand-turning the cams during reset.

in other words:
1] reset game
2] shoot and grab the ball
3] score 10/100/1000 pts so the ball index relay powers
4] tip up playfield without tilting game
5] pull out the score motor plug
6] manually reset the bonus unit so that's not complicating what happens next
7] turn the score motor cams by hand for a first 180 degrees.

when cam 6 switches fall in the notch, the outhole relay should power and stay powered. The bonus unit step-up coils powers. It may hum/buzz because it doesn't like being powered for a long time, but it can survive a couple minutes without burning up.

keep turning the cams and the cam 6 stack climbs out of the notch and the bonus unit steps up to light 1000. You'll get to the end of 180 degrees of rotation shortly after that. The end is when the index cam switches fall into the cam notch.

the ball index relay should stay powered the whole time.

keep going with the cam turning for another 180 degrees.

- when the cam 1 stack goes down/up the cam notch, the ball count should increment
- when the cam 2 stack goes down/up the cam notch, the player should increment
- when the cam 3 stack goes down/up the notch, the ball index relay should lose power
- when the cam 4 stack goes down/up the notch, the ball release coil fires
- when the cam 5 stack goes down/up the notch, the outhole relay should unpower

other stuff will happen during the above also.

if you really don't like fiddling around in the game with the power on, it's theoretically possible to mount a video camera in a spot where you can see the score motor switches (at an angle you can tell when they go up/down), the outhole relay, the ball index relay and the ball count unit at the same time. Video what happens and then watch it in slo-motion to see when the ball index relay loses power.

if the problem is intermittent tho, you pretty much have to use the shotgun. e.g. if a switch is flaky, the ball index relay could unpower at any time and you don't know which switch caused it.

if the above ever makes sense and you can derive the same thing (assuming I got it right) just from looking at the schem and cam timing diagrams, you'll be able to find problems in pretty much any EM game. Even a bally bingo can't baffle ya for more than a few cocktails.