Measuring voltage at a solid state flipper coil

Steps

• Start a game so the flippers are enabled (coin door closed on WWF Royal Rumble and later).
• Meter on DC volts, black lead to the ground strap inside the coin door.
• Red lead on the flipper coil lug at the banded end of the diode. Press and hold the flipper button.
• Expect a brief high-voltage spike that settles to about 7 V DC. No reading points to a blown fuse, flipper board damage or a fault at the CPU flipper relay.
• Repeat in attract mode with the red lead on either lug; you should see the same spike and about 7 V while the button is held.

Keep hands off coil lugs and the solenoid supply while the game is on; 50 V coil circuits read up to about 80 V unloaded.

Systems

• Data East CPU Version 1/2
• Data East CPU Version 3
• Data East/Sega CPU Version 3b

Games

• Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends
• Back to the Future
• Batman
• Batman Forever
• Baywatch
• Checkpoint
• Guns N' Roses
• Hook
• Jurassic Park
• Last Action Hero
• Lethal Weapon 3
• Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
• Maverick
• Phantom of the Opera
• Robocop
• Star Trek
• Star Wars
• Tales from the Crypt
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• The Simpsons
• The Who's Tommy Pinball Wizard
• WWF Royal Rumble

Related tips

• Solid state flippers, Robocop and later
• Solid state flipper flutters when held
• Solid state flipper does not work: fuses and fuse clips
• Solid state flipper goes up but will not stay up
• Checking a pre-solid-state flipper coil
• Solid state flippers dead, weak or intermittent: clean the switches
• Solid state flipper very weak: power side has failed
• Solid state flipper stays up only after the button is first pressed

Source: Repairing DataEast 1987 (Laser War) to Sega 1995 (Batman Forever), Part Two, Clay Harrell (pinrepair.com)