Loosen the screws holding it a little, turn switch body. See the long slot in your second picutre ? Up/doen there. Retighten screws, but not so tight the switch binds up tight.

LTG : )

I tried that last night, tweaking the switch position but nothing changed.

Does the switch register properly in switch test mode? Does the target stay up if you manually raise it?

Target does not stay up if I manually raise it.

Is the black plastic drop target broken?

The drop target should catch on its black plastic edge, on the metal scraper on the mech.
Check to see that the decal isnt bunched up, or that something is keeping the drop target from catching on the metal scraper.

If the decal is bunched up, remove the mech by removing the 4, 1/4" hex screws with a magnetic 1/4" nut driver. One screw will probably need to be removed with a magnetic screwdriver. Carefully lift iit out of the game and let it hang on the wiring harnesses near by. Scrape off the bunched up decal with a pocket knife or razor cutter, dont cut the black plastic.
Dont lose the screws in the game. Take your time. Put a towel down in the lower cabinet to catch dropped parts.

You should be able to catch the black plastic drop target on the edge, and then knock it loose with the brass finger on mech by pushing on it. The lower solenoid is what pushes it up, The spring on the side is what pulls it down. Make sure the spring is intact and hooked on the side of the black plastic drop target.

Also please test the switch in switch tests to make sure it is working properly, or at least making contact when you manually actuate it. Switch test will verify that the game can use the switch.

The spring also exherts a lateral force on the drop target that pulls it forward enough to catch on lip and stay up. If the spring isn’t in place that could also keep it from staying up.

Last night I turned on WOZ & the playfield lights weren't on. I immediately turned the machine off for a minute & turned it back on. After turning WOZ back on all was fine & the lights were functioning as they should. We had some friends over all night & the machine was fine. Should I be concerned about this, or is this a precursor for issues w/ the playfield lights in the near future? Also, is there anything I should check or reseat? The machine has the original light boards & is a first production run. Jan/6/2014 ~ 588/1000.

Don’t worry about it unless it becomes more frequent. It happens to me maybe twice a year.

Happened to me as well yesterday for the first time. Fine after reboot. I’ve also had the purple ubutnu boot screen stay up and clear itself after 5 minutes. Great game, just has some quirky gremlins that come out sometime

Happens to me too, including the jibberish the crystal ball displays sometimes. As long as a reset continues to correct it and it doesn’t happen often you’re good to go.

LTG and others...

My flying monkey is misbehaving. Essentially it moves down very fast, smooth, and quietly. But on the upward return trip it is extremely slow (and maybe has a hickup). It goes so slow that after returning 1/3 to 1/2 way it stops and drops the ball. (My guess is that is by software design.)

A few comments:
* I've gone into test and it works correctly with regards to moving all the way up/left and down/right and triggering the sensors for those positions correctly.
* The motor when going down/right "hums" and you can tell it is spinning fast.
* The motor when going up/left sounds very different... essentially like it is not spinning as fast... (either due to torque or lower power)
* I have not yet added any lubrication to the shaft (happy to, and recommendations welcome)

Do you think lubrication alone will fix this?
Any chance the motor is getting different power levels for different directions?
Other thoughts?

If motor is working not much there. Coupling holding motor to shaft or clean off old and put on new lube.

LTG : )

Thanks everyone for the insight w/ the temporary gibberish start up issues. After reviewing the random problems w/ the unbuffered light boards I thought that this might be the start of some possible diagnostic & repair headaches. I'm all the better now & will play on! WOZ is amazing!

Howdy-

I've got my first (I think) light board weirdness.

I've had the occasional light glitching/sticking/off, always solved by a reset.

Today, for about 3 hard resets, I got the same behavior. Only a few PF lights are on.
The image shows self-test "All LEDs on-white"

Looks as if only light boards W6, 29, 179, 178, & 176 are working, if I'm reading the map correctly.
Per the manual map, W6's connection is "from I/O", but I don't see where it goes next in the chain.

Please advise.

Thanks!
-Jason

1 (resized).JPG

2 (resized).JPG

Follow the data harnesses - #29, to #1, to #2, etc. etc.

LTG : )

board 29 goes to 1. Try taking the green color coded connector out of board 1 and inserting it where the green coded connector is on board 2. Essentially, you are jumpering around board 1 that could possibly be bad.

Finman2000 & LTG, thanks for your replies!

I flipped up the PF, & confirmed that board 10 lights but board 12 does not. I see the daisy chain order on the PC cover. Super handy reference!
Ergo, light board 12 is suspect.
I gave the 10->12 cable some good wiggling w/ no change.

So, I took the cable coming down from 31 (castle PF) & plugged it into 10 (order of boards in this area is 11, 9, 10, *12*, 31).

This bypasses both the #12 board & the 10->12 cable.

Back in business!!!

To confirm if it was the board or the cable that was the culprit, I put back the 10->12 cable in the 9->10 position.
Still works.
Guess it's the board!

Guess I need to buy a 15-0006-00. Maybe I'll get a spare. One went bad on the original owner years ago. Compared to some light board stories I've heard, I don't feel too bad about 1 failure of the tiniest PCBs every 2-3 years.

Questions:

1. Is it safe to make these swaps when the game is on? Need to first pull the power from a light PCB before messing w/ the data cables?

2. The #12 PCB seems to light "Left Winkie" or something like that. Best I can tell, the light is inside/under the castle wall? Or perhaps it has a light pipe that goes up to the castle PF? I can't even find where this light is, so part of me is tempted to not fix it, but I'll fix it anyway--it would bug me if I didn't. :]
Actually, there are quite a few GI lights in the back corners that are so well hidden that I wonder if they're even noticeable when playing.

Thanks,
-Jason

In the settings menu, disable the board that you bypassed.

The game will play normally now until you get a replacement board installed.

Indeed. Already done, thanks.
I can't even tell that that particular board is bypassed--it's hardly visible. Fortunate for me, I guess. :]

Can the light boards be plugged/unplugged while the game is on?

Thanks,
-Jason

Frank from JJP said it was okay to do so with the data cables but not the power ones.

To add to that. Frank said it is ok to unplug light board power cables when the game is on, just don't plug in any while the game is on.

Looks different.

If one were bad, the rest after it would be out.

W1 the big fish board - yellow brick road - has some, this goes over to the T O T O lights and up the right side to the RAINBOW lights. So I'd check connectors for power and data harness from before W1 and up thru the ones that are out. Refer to page C-54 in the manual to see the data harness path.

Look for loose connectors or loose wire in connector.

LTG : )

One B A L L light is out. I'd start at LED Board #15, and by pass LED boards one at a time and see if one isn't passing data through right.

LTG : )

Sounds like regular lack of maintenance issues on your game.
Its nothing that cant be sorted out.

Everything can be fixed, however due to the age of the game now, and the 5v system, ITs a great candidate for the 2.0 system being offered by JJP.
My game is just slightly newer that yours with a lot of plays on it. Im probably going to get the 2.0 system as my boards fail due to age.

I recommend this to make the game rock solid for years to come.

You are at the game, easier to look underneath. This is how to search for a failed board.

Please check out page C-54 in the manual ( you can download it at jerseyjackpinball.com ) that page shows the data harness path. From W6 to #29, to #1, to #2, to #3, etc. etc.

Please go into Tests - LEDs - All LEDs, this turns any working all white. Lift playfield and lean on backbox. You can see the working ones kind of glow.

They are wired in series, a straight line. Find the last working one, the one after it that is out is the bad one. With the power on, you can by pass the data harnesses on the LED boards, bypass the bad one, and turn off in settings. ( be sure and turn it back on when you replace it ) this will help you identify a bad one.

As an example, say #15 was out. You can run the data harness from red on W2, to green on #16 instead of #15. If the rest light up, you know #15 is the bad one.

With the power on you can move data harnesses. They go red to green from board to board. Don't mess with the power connectors with the power on.

LTG : )

The 2.0 system is expensive but replaces all of the big boards in your game as well as rerouting cables.

Its a big job and takes experienced people a bit of time to do it.

That said, if I have to replace all of my boards anyway, over time, its the best solution for long term ownership.
My game is going nowhere for years to come. This is why Im going to do it.

Its about the same price as getting all new boards of the older style, if you can get them.

Replaces almost all the little ones too.

LTG : )

$800 right now.

Because many games will never need it.

LTG : )

Buy the kit. Install it. And be done with it.

LTG : )

I understand your frustration but I would suggest taking things one step at a time. Figure out the upstream board that’s causing a problem and get a replacement. Hopefully all will be well for a long time and you will have a very enjoyable game experience. If you have other problems after that, then see about 2.0.

Utesichiban before you jump to such wide speculation you might want to get a better understanding of history... and also research what your problem is and what it will take to fix it. Many people have already tried to help you but you're just jumping to the worst case solution (that everything must be replaced) instead of attempting to find and fix the problem that exist. (And it is very likely you don't need the entire kit or labor to install.)

I realize you probably are frustrated b/c it worked perfectly before you got it home; however, whenever you move a pinball things can happen (even if only moving it 10 feet in your basement)... but you'll either need to learn to enjoy the problem solving and fixing... or pay to have it fixed... or realize that owning a machine may not be for you b/c they always take some tinkering.

FYI: I'm not trying to be an ass but you come on here turning a mountain into a mole hill and making rampant claims with little to no understanding of background. It's not a great way to introduce yourself to a group that started out trying to help you...

OK... so now... let's get to getting your game back up and running. Suggest you follow some of the excellent suggestions Lloyd already posted... let us know what the results are... and we'll help you get to the bottom of this.

Don't worry, this can be frustrating as you learn.

You could bypass #12 and see. Run the red connector on #10 over to the Green on #13 and see if things works except #12 and castle playfield lights.

Or maybe take the long data harness from W1 yellow brick road board that goes to #20 ( LED boards past #20 up the right side won't work ) and use this long data harness and go from W6 to #9, Then #1, Then #2, etc. etc. to isolate bad and good boards.

LTG : )

Documenting the fix here for others/posterity:

Finally got some white lithium grease... applied to just the lead screw (top rod in attached picture) that is attached to the motor and it helped a little but not a lot. Then I applied it also to the guide shaft (bottom rod in the attached picture) and that fixed the problem.

Thanks all!

WOZ-monkey-Mech-Pic (resized).jpg

No worries. Good luck with both pinball and the real life stuff! [And I agree... this light board stuff is very confusing... but if you break it into really small pieces and follow Lloyd's suggestions it can be worked through.]

Regarding pinball repair... the best thing to realize is that you might screw some things up but rarely are they catastrophic... and more often then not the fix isn't that difficult (once you know what's wrong).

Godspeed.

My .02, If your concerned about your abilities to sort this out, Check out regional threads that are close to you, like: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/whats-for-sale-in-utah and see if there is anyone local that can help. Pinheads in general are a friendly bunch and usually down to help a fellow pinsider out.

However, one way or another (eventually), your going to want to get well versed in tracking down problem boards, bypassing and replacing them.

Good luck (sincerely).

To all who have had light board issues, or researched it - what's the story on that now? I understand you can pay the $800 for all new boards, but what about games which are starting to fail? Do you still have to pay full price for each board, or do they do trade-ins, or what? I'm interested in re-acquiring and trying to weight my options. I don't mind doing the work at all, but I need to understand the material cost so I wouldn't lose my shirt. . thanks!

I have one of the earliest Woz's. Over a thousand + games ....I have replaced very few boards in 3 years. One fish board (W1) very early on and 4 small light boards.
Once I got the new buffer boards (5v) over 2 years ago and hundreds of play, I have not had any other light board issues. Now whether they fail in the future is anyones guess. I remember speaking with Eric (JJP engineer...and now designer!) years ago, he felt very confident with the daughter buffer boards, game would remain solid. In over two years...no lightboard issues..FWIW.
Now Im afraid of turning the game on after I just said this.