Bulbs Flickering

[LordBucketHead]

Hi All,

While swapping out decades old playfield blackened bulbs tonight (tell me if there a better way to spend a night) I've noticed while observing the playfield in attract mode that there is a discernible flicker of the mansion house bulbs (when they stay on for a couple of seconds so you can notice it) and also the flipper lane bulbs (eg. lite 2 bear kicks). The general illumination bulbs aren't flickering. You can only really notice it if you're looking for trouble tbh. The reason I'm asking is that I noticed similar bulb behaviour in the windowless downstairs loo recently, just before the miniature circuit breaker passed away in the consumer unit (triggering the mandatory 'torch toilet procedure')

I haven't a clue what's causing it to be honest but for fun's sake I'd like to take a guess. Could it be something to do with a bad capacitor because of their ability to smooth out fluctuations like an accumulator in hydraulics ?

thanks for reading & for any advice

 

[PBrookfield]

Can be a range of things. In order of likeliness:

1. Plain, good ol' bad/dirty contacts, or a dry solder joint.
2. Pin connector in the backbox is burnt and making a bad connection that will continue to get worse (really just a variant of item 1)
3. Pinched wire/burnt wire
4. Capacitor (though very broadly speaking, failing capacitors tend to misbehave the hardest when cold and improve when warmed up, if that isn't happening then it's not likely here)
5. Failing transistors
6. Transformer straining under load - you'd notice the smell first...then maybe the fire