documenting the problems

I want to keep good tabs on all of the issues that I find on this machine.  It will give me context for all of my future technical research, and allow me to reference what has increased or been resolved and/or faded away.

Here is a reference pic:

ISSUE #1:  Green joker resets to TRIGGERED
I think this is by far the most pressing issue for me to look in to.  Once in every 3 or 4 resets the green joker will start with already being triggered.   That is, the rollover light is turned off, and the green circle lights are on, as though I had already rolled the ball over that joker up there on the left.
Before the beginning of each ball a reset routine happens on the machine.  All drops are raised, all stored relays are cleared.  All jokers light at the top, and just at the very end of that routine the green joker resets again.

Here is a video of me playing the machine, and you can see this occur at 1:59 in the video below.

ISSUE #2: Q and J (5th from the right, 3rd from the right) get initialized to a down position
This is another rare occurrence, but after the ball initialization routine the drops would duck away to the down position.  Never at the same time, mind you, since it's rare for either of them to have it happen, but something to watch for.


ISSUE #3: Jack occasionally gets stuck halfway down, continuously awards points
When I was about to buy the game this occurred while the seller was playing it, and I went ahead anyways.  The reason for this occurring was pretty easy to diagnose, given the mechanism of the droptarget scoring.  I will go in to further details in a later post.  Since I got it home this has only happened once, and since I did my fix, it hasn't happened since.
But while it was happening, the jack was half-down and would continuously award it's score, for reasons that seem obvious once you look at how it works.

ISSUE #4: motor-engaged hum while ball-return gate open

This occurred in the first 2 days of owning it, and hasn't happened again since, so another to keep an eye on.  When the gate (see below) is trigger to open, it would buzz as though the motor was not disengaging.

 

ISSUE #5:  upon inserting a coin, multiple players are added

Another rare occurrence.  The "add player" routine keeps happening, so adding one credit gives 1, 2, 3, then 4 players and keeps trying to add more, only stopping by turning the power off.

ISSUE #6: left metal rail isn't firmly affixed.

When you shoot up left towards the jokers at the top, you want your ball to roll right up there.  Since the bottom part of this metal rail is not firmly affixed, it acts like a springboard and absorbs the momentum of the ball, sending it right back down.  I think the rail should be flush to the plastic to all for a proper upwards deflection.  This is a common happening, so I should probably deal with this sooner rather than later.  I will seek advice on how best to temper that there metal/mettle.

(see gameplay video above for a few examples of this, say at 3:32)