fixing 2 bugs in Kick Off

I realized my arcade room had been askew for about 2 months since I had been neglecting it.  The games were all shoved aside to give me access to Kick Off's backbox.... and then I just got distracted by life and other projects.  One goal of the weekend was to get things back in to a state of order!

The first issue with Kick Off was that on player 1 the 10,000 reel wasn't resetting.  I've dealt with this many times on Gottlieb machines, but Kick Off is my first Bally.  The principles aren't widely different, just things shuffled around and renamed a bit.

Here is the part of the schematic dealing with the scoring reels:

Specifically, the player 1 10k reel:

At the top we can see if the 1k scoring relay is pulled, and the 1k number is on the 9th, it steps the 10k reel.  But on the left-hand side we see the two switches for the rest relay.  The full label isn't shown, but if you look to the full schematic, they have the row defined with these labels:

If the "Score Reset Relay" is closed (it gets pulsed and closes,) and the "Drum Unit Zero Sw's" is closed unless the reel is at zero, then that reel should advance with each pulse.  The system will keep pulsing until it gets all of the reels to zero.  On a 4 player game, it actually breaks this in to two steps, so it's not trying to pulse too many solenoids at the same time.  (players 1 and 2, players 3 and 4)

If we can observe that the machine is clearing the other score reels, then we know the reset circuit is working.  If we see it clearing player 2 and just missing a single digit on player 1, we know we can logically isolate what is going on to that reel and/or switch and/or related wires.

player 1 reels.  Note the 10k is on the RIGHT because we're behind it.

Bally reels have a spring loaded latch and are easy to pull out to examine.  (Gottlieb reels don't have the spring latch, but were also made easy to handle)

Here is the reel in zero position:

The schematic doesn't tell us which of the switches is which, but it tells us the wire colours.  R+G, or Red wires striped with green, goes to the middle switch, which we can see as open here.  I have to clean and adjust that switch.  What was happening?  Well, the reel was at a non-zero position and that switch was closed, but it was either misaligned or too dirty because the system did not detect it as closed.  The system doesn't have continuity across the switch, so it assumes it is in zero position, thus it does not reset properly.   That means the game can continue with the rest of the reset cycle, and spit out a ball with an improper score to begin.

The other problem was the upper rollover lights, which we've worked on before.  These are pretty important for this game as hitting a lit rollover gives you 30 yards and can be critical for getting the extra ball.  This logic also controls if the lower left target is lit for 30 yards as well.  Very critical for on-the-fly decision making in how to cobble together 2 goals for the Extra Ball.

Here is the schematic from the last post:

We can see near the bottom that everything goes through that "12 A" switch that looks like an odd face.  That is, 12 A on the score motor:

Score motor: hurray the labels are still there

Stack 12 is, thankfully, on the right-most end.  I kind of find these hellish to adjust.

this is three "make/break" switches.  Each switch should rest and close one contact.  Then when the motor hits the metal bump at the bottom, it should raise and each switch should close against the OTHER contact.

The "A" in "12 A" means the bottom one, and I adjusted it best I could and lo' and behold the lights were back!

Sadly after 3 games one state of the lights was not working again, meaning the switch needs a better adjustment.  I'll get back to that eventually... I swear!  But at least the working state is the one that matters most, as it shows you when the standup is lit. 

Ah well, back in the lineup!

The scoring is working fine, and there is just one small light issue to try and improve on.  Playable.