Self-inflicted wounds

Apparently, the source of my problems is.....me

The Hot Tip table has a couple of burned out lights. I thought it a bit difficult to count which ones were out in the series so I came up with the brilliant idea to leave the power on and in light-flashing-mode and open the table.

I lifted up the table but while shifting my grip I managed to set the partially extracted table down onto the metal bar.

POW

smoke curled out and the table went dead... really dead, not a light on it.

I checked the circuit breaker in the panel - it was fine. I opened the back and checked all the fuses on the power supply, they were fine. Looks like it was time to toss it into the garbage.


Before I retrieved the dolly, I started thinking about power. I have nothing lit at all and all the power supply fuses are low voltage - 5 and 28 volts. There must be a house-current fuse somewhere.

I followed the power cord into the cabinet and where it snaked around until I found another fuse, hidden back on the side of the lower cabinet. It was blown...off to the hardware store!

While looking around, I wondered if I had shorted and melted anything, I checked the wires on the solenoid that was the problem and they were ok, but then I looked at the solenoid itself.

I must have set it down harder than I thought as I gouged a divot into the windings of the solenoid....sigh, time to replace one of them as well...

and the light still isn't replaced...sigh

Cleaning the dropdown - part 3

This is turning into the part that will not live....

as documented last time I purchased a replacement solenoid and transistors, I soldered the transistors into the board, wired the solenoid up and tried it out. Nothing worked and now there is a whine, even after pulling out the transistors and solenoid...

After spending quite a bit of time looking at the solenoid board and trying things I found the problem appears to be in the sound board. At least when I pull the sound board everything starts working again.

However..... after soldering the transistors back in again...

All of the solenoids stopped working.
More checking, the fuse under the playfield is blown. And it blows every time I connect the replacement solenoid back in.

Time to find out if that was the right transistor.

The saga of the knocker - part 1

One of the interesting pieces of a pinball game is the "knocker." This is the device that makes a loud distinctive sound when you match and get a free game.

On the Star Trip, the knocker solenoid was fried. I found this some time back and had disconnected it (removed the wire) - now it was time to try and fix it.

Step 1 - removal

I pulled it out of the cabinet. It is strange looking compared to the other solenoids:

The dark band around the solenoid shows it is burned. I took everything apart. it has some unique features. There is a long plunger with a copper end on it and the plastic tube sticks out much further than any other ones I have seen.

Checking inside the tube, it looks like there is a wad of gum in there!

After checking with the experts, I found out that:

1) the "knock" sound is the plunger striking the bare side of the metal assembly
2) the "gum" is actually a severely melted plastic tube
3) I will need to replace everything but the metal

Off to order more parts!