The game suddenly stops kicking balls out of the outhole. In a game, about three quarters of the coils do nothing (slings, most pop bumpers, saucer), while the flippers, one target bank and one pop bumper still work. The switches for the dead coils still score.
Most coils suddenly dead, flippers fine: broken power wire on a pop bumper coil lug
Cause: The coil power wire is daisy-chained from coil to coil under the playfield. A doubled-up power wire had broken off the lug of one pop bumper coil, cutting power to every coil after it in the chain.
Checks
- Check the solenoid fuses first, including the one under the playfield.
- Run coil test to see which coils are dead.
- Tilt the playfield right up and follow the daisy-chained power wire from a working coil to the first dead one, looking for a broken wire or cracked solder joint at each lug.
- Or jumper power from a working coil's daisy-chain lug to a dead coil's: if it then fires, the break is in the power chain.
Fix
- Resolder the broken power wire(s) to the coil lug.
Systems
Games
Related tips
- Both right flippers dead, left works: wire at a coil lug not making contact
- One pop bumper scores but never fires: broken wire hidden under shrink tubing at the coil
- Drop target coil won't fire in test: replace its diode
- LE: one coil fires another (outhole fires a memory coil): coil diodes
- CPU flickers then gives three flashes: bad PIA at U10
- Drop target coils misfire after LEDs or a new lamp driver: expander boards need bulbs
- Drop target falls instead of the ball being kicked out (SEB games)
- Expander-driven coils fire in pairs: drop target coil fitted without its second diode
Source: Pinball Repair help group!! (Facebook group)