A. Caution
B. Solid State Troubleshooting
    1) Early Bally / Stern
– Voltages Required
– Solenoids
    2) WPC Bally / Williams
    3) Williams 11
    4) Williams 3 – 7
5) DE – Sega – Stern
– DE / Sega V3 & 3B
– Sega / Stern Whitestar
C. EM‘s

This is where most ‘newbies’ mess up. They hear ‘replace the board’, ‘redo the connectors’, ‘rebuild the power supply’, etc. These are all good strategies, when there is a reason to. But don’t do this until you have an idea of what is wrong.

Jumping in and replacing / fixing stuff without testing first is just being stupid. Don’t fall into this trap. Do these test first!

Prior to proceeding, please read and understand our Caution section. Note that pinball machines contain high voltages and can kill. Do not proceed unless you are qualified.

The following information cannot cover everything. There are other sections on this site that covers many of those. This is for ‘nothing works and what do I do?’

Troubleshooting SS (Solid State) Pinball Machines

Gorgar Power Sys 6 — Williams Power Supply.

On all solid state machines, there are two important steps when (almost) nothing works:

1) Unplug as many boards as possible. Troubleshooting when things are wrong can cause more expensive and hard to repair problems. We will cover this later.
2) Check the fuses and measure your voltages. Checking the fuses is covered under that link. What we cover here is how to check the voltages.

On essentially all pinball machines, the (120, 230, 100, or?) VAC comes in from the wall plug, into a transformer and out to the power supply. Some games have two sections of power supplies: rectifiers (convert AC to DC) and voltage regulators. Other games combine those two sections into one. Sometimes the power supply is part of the solenoid control board two. Still others have multiple power supplies.

All of the following assumes you have basic tools including a voltmeter (DVM) and know how to safely use it. And understand basic circuit diagrams. If you don’t, you should not be doing this.

Tools Required

* A reasonably good voltmeter (DVM) with good test leads.
* Screwdrivers. Phillips and slot.
* A manual for the pinball machine that includes a circuit diagram.

Sometimes Needed Tool

* Allen Wrenches.
* Nut Drivers. Usually English.
* Needle Nosed Pliers.
* Wire cutters / stripper.
* Crimper and supplies.
* A good set of test leads that can clip onto a wire.