Quoted from Sinballer:
-The general question is...Is there any reference material (other than the machine manual) that describes what the individual relays are responsible for?
Some are fairly obvious (tilt, reset, etc.) but some of them are still confusing to me. An example would be the Coin Setup Relay. Is there somewhere that explains, in straightforward terms, what all of the individual relays will do when energized?
The manual is probably the closest you'll get to documentation on the various relays/solenoids/switches. I do agree that some of the names are vague and only give you a loose clue as to what they do (like "COIN" or "BONUS"). But once you get used to tracing the schematics, it will become a little easier to see what they do. Especially since a lot of games, even from other manufacturers, use similar naming conventions for everything .. so you can read descriptions and threads about other games and it will usually be similar for your game.
Quoted from Sinballer:
-The specific one has to do with the startup sequence of my machine.
I wanted to confirm that my Bonus Unit will do a reset properly so I stepped it up manually a few positions before pressing the reset button to start a new game. It did step down properly to it's zero (reset) position. I was about to start my troubleshooting from this point. I turned the power off and jumpered out the Outhole switch (to simulate a ball in the Outhole). I also advanced the Bonus Unit a few steps. When I turn the power switch back on, the Bonus Unit immediately starts stepping down to its reset position. This happens before I even press the Reset button to start a new game.
Is this normal??
I thought several other things had to happen first, especially the pressing of the Reset button to start the whole reset sequence going.
Incidentally, when I remove the jumper at the Outhole switch, it the Bonus Unit does not do its reset until after the Reset button is pressed.
I don't want to go chasing a ghost. I just need to know if this is normal behaviour or if it may somehow be related to my problem.
This is normal and actually a good catch - I should probably throw this somewhere in the startup sequence I posted before (around step 6, although it will actually happen almost right away when power is applied and the ball is sitting in the outhole). The reason for it is that the outhole switch being closed provides a path to fire the bonus relay as long as it's not already at its zero position:
01 (resized).png
Once the bonus relay fires, it will cause the score motor to move and also close a switch that will lock itself on until it hits the zero position:
04 (resized).png
02 (resized).png
When the bonus unit hits the zero position, the bonus relay will de-energize and the make/break switch below will toggle to try to enable the outhole relay after the score motor stops (step 8 in the startup sequence above). But at this point the game is still in the game over state .. so the outhole relay logic won't fire.
03 (resized).png
Note - When reading the schematics, for the most part the switches are shown as if a one-player game has been started. So that is why the game over relay switch above is shown as closed .. but in the case you're describing, it would still be open (since power was just applied and a game hasn't actually been started yet).
I verified on my Space Mission just now that if the bonus unit is already at zero, then turning on the power does nothing and it goes straight to game over. If I manually step up the bonus unit and then turn on power, it steps down the bonus unit and then sits at game over.
I would suggest slowly walking through simpler chunks of the schematics, and using the test light to see how/when things fire. I would agree it sounds like your bonus unit is stepping and resetting correctly .. so you're headed in the right direction. Let us know if you have more questions, or figure out something your machine is doing that isn't in the expected startup sequence.
Vaughan, ON
Paradise, NV
