Anyone seen this fault before?

[Espy]

Bit of a curiosity here. So a local comic book store in my town got three new machines put in, and they're on free play (I'm assuming just as an introductory thing, but you never know!) They had a T3 there, which I started to play. Immediately something was wrong. As soon as I fired the first ball, it began firing all four balls onto the playfield. For the whole time I played, every chance it got it would just load and fire balls. At first I wondered if T3 had some kind of multiball-only game mode like Judge Dredd, but as it just wouldn't end I realised it must be a fault. I eventually got the game to end (difficult as you had to drain the balls while the table didn't want to fire them back into play), marked my (inevitable) high score as GLITCHED, and told a member of staff. Apparently they thought it was a feature!

It's not my machine so I'm not too bothered, but what could cause this? Is there a mechanical fault in the ball loader? Or is it a software thing? I would assume the latter as it loads and fires balls with sound effects, so doesn't seem like something mechanical. But seems like a pretty big error for a software fault.

 

[jaredmorgs]

Ball trough switch error. Had the same thing happen on an Indy Jones when a ball trough opto failed. Left unchecked, it can cause damage to the game, so good on you for reporting the fault.

 

[Espy]

Ball trough switch error. Had the same thing happen on an Indy Jones when a ball trough opto failed. Left unchecked, it can cause damage to the game, so good on you for reporting the fault.

Thanks. I let them know, as well as tweeted the operator because often faults aren't reported to him. To think they thought it was just a cool feature and could have damaged it!

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

I had something like that happen on a Williams Indiana Jones at a hotel. I asked the manager if he could fix it but he said "it kicks out two balls every ball so it can be more of a challenge". Yeah. Because playing with another ball during Choose Wisely is challenging and not at all cheap.

 

[workshed]

You can watch John's Arcade struggle with this issue on his Revenge From Mars. Part 1:

 

[workshed]

Part 2:

As Jaredmorgs pointed out, it's probably a faulty opto in the ball trough.

 

[Espy]

I had something like that happen on a Williams Indiana Jones at a hotel. I asked the manager if he could fix it but he said "it kicks out two balls every ball so it can be more of a challenge". Yeah. Because playing with another ball during Choose Wisely is challenging and not at all cheap.

Haha, some site owners really are clueless.