Non-working Gottlieb Gold Wings Air Siren

Author: Wayne Eggert
Date: 4/15/2011


Introduction
Quick description of a repair to a Gottlieb Gold Wings (1986) Pinball Machine.  This machine is sort of neat with a variety of horizontal and vertical loops.  It's an older game so not a lot of different objectives like in the newer 90s games.  The sounds are somewhat dated and the colors on the playfield could have been better.  What makes it really unique though is it has its own air siren underneath the playfield that sounds when you get a special or extra ball during the game.  Definitely makes the game unique.

Problem Description
The air siren does not sound.  I pulled the schematics (luckily a copy of schematics came with the machine since due to Gottlieb trademarks, they are not available on IPDB).  The air siren had its own fuse and it's really best to start with fuses and/or power going into something that is non-functioning.  Put multimeter on DC volts and although the wires going to the relay measured voltage, the wires on the leaf switch that the relay activates did not measure any voltage.


Picture: Gottlieb Gold Wings Air Siren


Resolution
At first I removed the air siren fuse from the plastic fuse panel and verified it was not blown.  It looked fine and tested fine with the continuity test on my multimeter.  I noticed though that as I twisted the fuse back in the fuse panel that the wires going into the panel moved as I turned the fuse.  I followed those wires to the molex connector harness and tested for voltage there... a-hah, there's the voltage!  So the problem seemed to be the connection inside the fuse panel.  I turned the machine off, tugged on the wires slightly and they came right out of the panel.  The clips on the ends of the wires were broken and needed to be replaced.  Once replaced, the siren worked good as new!

Here's the air siren in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3CQskoa7O4