Haunted House (Gottlieb pinball machine, 1982)

Location: Wellington, Colorado.
Symptoms: Would blow fuse as soon as ball landed on lower playfield.

The problem was obviously a short related to something that powered the lower playfield.  I inspected the wiring and coils on the lower playfield and didn’t see any issues.  With the machine off, I checked for shorts in coil and flipper power wiring and didn’t see any.  I finally found the short with my meter in the playfield illumination wiring, and it turned out to be on the main playfield.

On the underside of the main playfield, there are 8 lamps that light the lower playfield. These lights only illuminate when the ball is on the lower playfield, and are controlled by a relay.  Next I did a visual inspection of each of the 8 lamps, and as usual, found the short on the last one I checked. 😉  The center contact was shorted against the side of the socket, which is typically where lamp circuits short out.

The owner had replaced all of the lamps with LEDs.  One important thing to note:  On Haunted House and Black Hole, these 8 illumination lamps are powered by 28 volts, which will blow out regular 6 volt LEDs.  The original bulb number is a #313. You either have to use an LED specified to replace a #313 bulb, or you have to modify the lighting circuit to operate on 6 volts (a procedure is here).

 

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