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Solenoid and other issues with my FT

Smraedis

Smraedis

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Joined
Oct 17, 2013
Messages
224
Location
Salford
Alias
Steven K
I feel out of my depth here with this, and I'm sorry that I'm not the best knowledged with these things. Been looking online to try and find out what is going on, but struggling

When playing my FT recently, sometimes the outhole solenoid wouldn't fire, but then when a ball search would attempt, the solenoid would then fire and all would be well.
After a couple weeks, I play a couple of games and then the solenoid stops mid game, and now won't work. Doing a multimeter test on the coil is reading 14 ohms, and not 4.
The ball release isn't working either now, and that is also reading 14 ohms.

I've reseated the connector on the power board, and some of the other ribbon cables, as I read that online, but I think that's only made it all worse.

Now I'm getting "Factory settings restored" every time I turn the power off to the machine, and it makes a louder noise on power off too, (that's happened before when I had some issue that I can't remember). No idea what I should be doing now sadly :(

Any help would be great.
 
Have you checked the batteries? Flat ones or corroded battery holder will cause the factory settings restored.
 
Check the battery holder as the contacts can sometimes crack over time.
 
i had a similar problem recently on a different game. are there any other solenoids of the same values that you could swap them round with just to eliminate that aspect of it?
 
The batteries are working again now, not sure what fixed that, but the contacts don't look too good.

With swapping the solenoids, I'm not very good with unscrewing the brackets that some of them are on. I've done a voltage test on the two solenoids and getting no readings. Getting readings on the ones that are working.
 
in that case i would suggest going into the manual and finding out which connector the wires go from the solenoid to the pcb, measure the corresponding pins on the connector when the solenoids are supposed to trigger. that's what i would do (as a novice).
 
If the power is missing then check the wiring at all other solenoids. The power is wired in a chain. So you’ll see coils with a fine wire on one side ( this is the drive to ground) and two thicker wires on the other. The thicker wires are the power coming in and out of that coil. A break anywhere will cause all coils down the line not to work.
 
pinballmania said:
If the power is missing then check the wiring at all other solenoids. The power is wired in a chain. So you’ll see coils with a fine wire on one side ( this is the drive to ground) and two thicker wires on the other. The thicker wires are the power coming in and out of that coil. A break anywhere will cause all coils down the line not to work.
Click to expand...
Thanks, the solenoid next along on the chain, the drop target up mech isn't working either. I've done a bit of soldering on the coil wires before, and not sure if it has damaged the power wires. Hopefully I'm getting there now!
 
And now it works!
The issue seemed to be the power wires connected to the drop target up mech, resoldering them back on sorted it.
 
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