Haunted House vertical ball kicker to upper level problem

[Filmmaker24]

The vertical ball kicker to the upper level on my Haunted House pinball machine started smoking tonight. I noticed a burn on the side of the coil and once the coil kicked the piston remained raised and couldn't be pushed down until I turned off the power. Not only should I get a new coil assembly, but is there anything else I need to fix/replace? Thanks!

Rob

 

[spalmer]

I do not know how technically inclined you are but it sounds to me as if one of the TRIACs on your driver board has shorted out. Common problem and not hard to fix if you can figure out which one is at fault. I had the same issue with a High Speed machine when I was a tech in a video arcade. Each TRIAC is responsible for a different solenoid. This would cause the solenoid to energize as soon as power is turned on ,overheat and burn itself out. If you were to just replace the solenoid, the new solenoid would be energized as soon as power is applied and burn itself out. The sound problem in your other post, I have no clue but since you have a short on the driver board, I would fix it first and see if the sound problem persists. Likely not related but worth investigating. As far as swapping driver boards with Black Hole, I would not recommend this. Since these machines were built nearly 30 years ago, tinkering like that would not be advisable. Do you have the manuals with the schematics for your Haunted House?