Pinball Machine: Lights UP! Won'T turn over

A local Swap sheet had an ad for the following:

Williams Skylab. Lights up. won't Turn over.
-$300

What does "Won't turn over" likely mean?

That's a hell of a price for a Pin.

Sounds like they're saying it won't start up. The lights may be coming on, but something might be up with one of the game PCB's may have issues. I'm a pinball novice, but to me the term "won't turn over" is just a slang way of saying the game won't start/boot up. That is a good price for a pin as long as it's in good shape. Maybe they'll let you check out the pin in person so you can get an idea of what it does. Good luck.

I agree. Sounds like it lights up but won't boot. I am also new to pinballs as I just picked one up this past weekend. It's going to be a restore job and as an estimate I am looking at plopping a fair bit into it to get it up and running again. I also agree that this price seems pretty good.... depending on the age and shape.

Skylab is an EM pinball machine, they do not have any PCB's, instead they have many switches and relays. If the machine is not booting up there is a fault in the startup sequence. Could be something simple, like a dirty contact or something major like a complete cleaning and adjustment of all contacts and switches, blown coils etc. EM machines are great to work on and once you give them a proper clean and adjustment they will work for many years without you having to do a thing to it. Best to have a good read of marvins site.

http://marvin3m.com/fix.htm

I have 2 EM machines that I bought as basket cases, each took about 3 full days to get working correctly.