Location: Cheyenne, WY
Symptoms: Flipper problem, Spinner problem

It seems like every Gottlieb – Premier pinball machine I work on has over-fused flippers.  The fuse should be 2.5 amps and in this machine there were 5 amp fuses installed.  When the flipper link broke, it caused the flipper arm to not engage the End-Of-Stroke switch, which caused the coil to melt.  Had the correct fuse been installed, the coil would have been saved.

I replaced the coil, the fuse and the broken link and everything is fine with the flipper.

The other problem, and I’ve seen this on a Monte Carlo pinball machine (which is the same vintage) is that the switches on the center spinner don’t work.  In this case, the spinner wasn’t spinning very fast either.  I cleaned and oiled the wiper contacts and the gears.  I checked every hole in the spinner and verified that each switch was working.