From Newsgroup: rec.games.pinball
You start by investigating the first error shown in the diagnostics - the Mark switch not functioning as expected. I don't know your abilities with respect to electrical/electronic troubleshooting, but here are some starting points.
The first thing I would suspect is a broken wire leading to the Mark switch within the cannon cable. The cable (part H-14576, page 2-24 in your manual) leading to the cannon unit flexes each time the cannon rotates, and over time the flexing can cause a wire to fracture internally.
Since you know the Mark switch is not working you can use a continuity test/ohm meter to check each of the two wires leading to the switch: disconnect the wire harness connector at the cannon under the playfield and measure from each connector pin to the end of the corresponding color-coded wire where it is soldered to one of the micro switches in the canon.
If you look at the switch matrix table on page 2-36 of your manual you'll see the "Gun Mark" switch is #32, which has a white-red wire and a green-orange wire connected to it. I don't know if Williams maintained those colors in the H-14576 cannon cable or not; sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.
If the two wires leading to the Mark switch test out good then the next suspect is the actual Mark switch itself. Maybe the switch actuator has broken off, or perhaps the switch is internally defective. It's also possible the wire at the switch is broken off the switch terminal; you should be able to determine this by a visual inspection.
Good luck; let us know what you find.
Joseph "Tony" Dziedzic
On Saturday, July 11, 2020 at 2:04:02 PM UTC-4,
thomas.l...@gmail.com wrote:
Hi.
I am new to this hobby so may need help that has specific guidance with it by the experts as I try to come up to speed.
Basic Problem: The ball loads the cannon but the cannon will not fire.
1) When I do a cannon test, the switch recognizes if the cannon kicker has a ball loaded or not.
2) On the cannon fire test, the enter button will fire the cannon so the cannon's solenoid seems to be working fine as I don't witness the solenoid's attempt to fire in game play. The trigger on the ball plunger (which as you know also fires the ball to start game play) works and enters the ball into game play fine.
3) During the Cannon Test, the test reads "At Mark" for the cannon the whole rotation of the cannon. I know it should not. Yet, according to the manual:
AT MARK = the Mark switch is open and the Cannon is aimed at the bottom of the left ramp and above the top Stand-Up 5 Bank Target.
NOT AT MARK = The Mark switch is not open and the Cannon is not aimed.
Therefore, it would seem that if this was the problem the cannon would not have a fire safety as designed and would fire wherever the cannon was pointing when the trigger was pulled as opposed to never firing at all.
A have ran a Cannon Calibration test (that runs for 4-5 mins each Calibration) at least 4 times and it does not seem to be able to calibrate the Mark switch open/close issue and therefore not correcting the being constantly "At Mark."
Nevertheless, that should not be impacting the inability to fire the cannon during game play....if I interpret the manual correctly.
So, do I have 1 issue, 2 issues, or 1 issue that looks like 2 issues? Where do I start from here?
Thanks!!
Thomas
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