So the other day replaced a satellite motor in a Sega Goldeneye Pinball. I don’t know what happened but the gearbox shaft snapped clean off the gearbox and the linkage connecting the motor hub to the satellite hub broke as well.

The old motor had a capacitor wired in parallel with the motor and a resistor in series with the motor. The new motor didn’t have either of these. I didn’t see any reference to them in the manual and I think they were added on later after production. I couldn’t find any service bulletins recommending the change either so I can’t be sure. There was also a neon bulb that had been removed, its leads were still there.

Twister has a bulletin to add a resistor and capacitor to the motor. You can see it here. I was told this is the same mod needed for Goldeneye but it didn’t make sense. Even though the games use the same magnet/motor board, the Twister motor spins much faster. After a little research, I found some posts that say the resistor used in Goldeneye is a 68ohm. The resistor in the old motor was a little crispy, it still measured ok at 67ohm.

Remember, you can have anywhere from a 1 to 20 percent variance in the actual value of a component compared to its stated value. For example, a 100ohm resistor can measure as much as 99 to 101 ohms for a 1% resistor or 80 to 120ohms for a 20% component.

The old resistor appeared to be 1/2 to 1 watt. When resistors tend to get hot and burn up as this one did, it’s a good idea to upgrade to a higher wattage. This will allow it to dissipate heat better and give it longer service life. When resistors fail, they go open, meaning the component(s) they are connected to will stop working. I upgraded the new motor to a 5watt resistor.

The capacitor was a .1uf 500v cap. There was nothing wrong with it but I had to replace it since the leads would be too short after removing it from the original pins and trying to crimp it to new ones.

You may notice from the above pic that the old cap is 500 volt and the new one is 400 volt. This won’t matter since the motor only uses 24 volts.

With the new resistor and capacitor installed in the motor, I can crimp new pins on and reinsert them back into the connector housing.

The motor and wiring are now prepped and ready to go back into the game.

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I still need a new linkage to drive the satellite, they aren’t available so a new one will have to be made. Once that’s done and installed the game will be ready for play!