ROAD KINGS problems [Next step: Drop target]

[RayB]

Went to an auction to deliver some parts to someone, intent on not buying anything. Came home with a pin from a fellow collector.

I wasn't planning to get one until I could save up for something mid-80's or newer, but this one was low priced to begin with, and was fully working until something smoked up in the power board. I was there when it happened, so the guy cut his price again and included delivery, a set of plastics, new kicker, original manual, system 11 "manual" he put together himself from pinrepair site. So my rubber arm was twisted.

I know it's not the best pin, but I wasn't willing to spend the kind of money that would buy me any of the better known titles.

Fingers crossed that I can find the culprit. So far on just visual inspection without removing any boards, I've found a cracked diode and a blown chip.

Pics tomorrow.

[RayB]

It's not very high demand or high priced game, most likely because it didn't match High Speed in the feel for action, or it was just too similar and released just 6 months after HS.

Anyways, pics... The red has barely faded near the front, glass art is near perfect (just some flaked corners), and playfield wear is found only in the one spot shown below and in the area in the middle where the ball goes under the middle plastic (ie: not visible)

[RayB]

Damage found on initial visual inspection.

A) Blown chip on the (display?) board mounted to the backglass illumination.

B)
1. two diodes twist tied together (seemed to work, but I doubt it should be that way)

2. burn marks around diode.

3. Cracked/burnt diode

4. Burn mark on capacitor. I'm hoping that just came from the burning diode above it.

[amendonz]

Awesome man, i'm tempted to get one from visiting this site, have to keep telling myself they're out of my league lol.
Keep seeing this come up.. Prob not worth it tho
 http://trademe.co.nz/Gaming/Arcade-pinball-machines/Complete-units/auction-319108706.htm

[JRoz]

damn nice find..curious where was the auction?..I cant find any auctions anywhere anymore!

[RayB]

damn nice find..curious where was the auction?..I cant find any auctions anywhere anymore!

Toronto. Starburst / PlaydiumStore. They have one every 2 or 3 or 4 months. Have been since at least the 1990's.

I didn't buy it from there though. I ended up going to a pin collector's house "just to have a look" at it. 

*REPAIR UPDATE*
I have a replacement UDN chip already, and an order on its way from Great Plains Electronics. I'll be rebuilding the entire power supply board to ensure durability. I also ordered a set of new rubbers and target decals.

The legs had surface rust which cleaned off easily with some SOS pads. Now they are shiny!

[RayB]

   

So I replaced the exploded UDN chip, I did a cap kit AND an HV kit on the power board and replaced the molex connector (was burnt up). Also fused the bridge rectifiers (as per pinrepair recommendations). And checked/replaced all fuses with correct ratings.

SO.... final outcome of voltage tests:

F1 fuse blows on power on. This is a 250mA SB fuse that supplies the HV portion of the board. So of course I get 0v in the display power output.

All other voltages on the J5 and J6 connectors are correct.

Voltage of the test posts (in the middle of the board, are -14 and +14 instead of -12 and +12. Should I be concered about this?

But more importantly, what can I do about the blowing fuse?
THe guy before me had a 15A fuse in there and the game was working, but his score displays got damaged and then the diodes burnt up!!
(then I bought it)

PS: Can i play anyways but just not connect the displays?

[smartbomb2084]

Try disconnecting the power to the displays and then replace the fuse and power up the game and see if the fuse still blows.  An internally shorted display, which is usually not visible to the naked eye, will blow fuses. This will narrow the problem down.

If the fuse lives without the displays. Connect one at a time and see which one makes the fuse blow. Make tthe individual display connections with the power off of course. If the fuse still dies then your soldering skills come into question.

[RayB]

Guys, I would never (and you should never) test a newly repaired power supply with everything connected to it. You first test voltages.    So having said that, it's blowing F1 without the displays hooked up.

I eyeballed this over and over and cannot see any errors where I would have put in diodes the wrong way or connected traces accidentally. The only thing I am thinking is maybe GPE's instructions to cross the transistor legs is wrong. (see photo below)

[RayB]

I have another, probably unrelated issue and that's that there is no knocker (well, i have a replacement but originally it was missing).

I cannot find what wires would be used for the knocker, except this bundle here (photo below) that is tied together and wrapped in electrical tape.

If this is indeed the knocker wires, then wouldn't tying them together cause a short-circuit every time the knocker line was triggered?

[RayB]

I think i know what I did wrong. Is there somewhere on the net with high res photos of these boards (specific revisions, not just a general example). There's a spot where I thought I had burnt off the bit of trace, so I reconstructed it. I think that may be where I went wrong and it shouldn't have been bridged. Reading the schems and comparing to the board is difficult.

[RayB]

I removed the erroneous " trace" and now it took a full 2 or 3 seconds before F1 blew. Progress or coincidence? 

[RayB]

F it. I hooked up everything BUT the displays and the game works, and is fully playable. I just don't know what my score is.  

At first it was quite disappointing because the lights werent flashing and trying to start a game made a sputtering "can't start the engine" noise. I realized a few minutes later it was missing ball #2. Added that and I was good to go.

There's miscellaneous things to look at like one pop bumper isnt triggering, some lights are out on playfield as well as up in the back glass, and the detour drop target is down the whole time.


As for the game itself. It's not bad. It's no High Speed, but it has a few interesting features.

So, is a Rotten Dog power board worth it?

[Pinball Wizard]

I talked to the guy from Rottendog before and he seems really nice and he seems to back the product like it's quality but I have heard that the boards don't last more than 6 months.

How do you like the background music on Road Kings? Anything like the High Speed background sound?

[kastawaykid]

I also have a Road Kings which had Power supply problems. I replaced with the supply with a Rottendog supply and was really unhappy (lots of Hum that I could not get rid of). Kept it for about a week and ended up repairing the original power supply and selling the Rottendog on EPay. I would stick with an original, just like Jim said.

Kid

[kastawaykid]

Something about your Transistor mod picture does not look correct to me. So I decide to go take a look at mine and an extra working supply that I have from High Speed. Looking at the picture of the configuration of the legs on your transistors, it does not look like you put the legs of the transistors back in the original holes (your board seems to have traces on the topside that mine doesn't)? Is there a reason why? I would check these against the schematic.

[RayB]

Something about your Transistor mod picture does not look correct to me. So I decide to go take a look at mine and an extra working supply that I have from High Speed. Looking at the picture of the configuration of the legs on your transistors, it does not look like you put the legs of the transistors back in the original holes (your board seems to have traces on the topside that mine doesn't)? Is there a reason why? I would check these against the schematic.

Yes this transistor mod and the extra traces is what has me quite confused and suspicious, but I was following directions provided by GPE and PinRepair.com

The reason you see a difference is because that power supply is from Williams Fire! a system 11A . According to PinRepair.com 11A can be used in 11.

So to confuse matters, all reference photos from PinRepair show the transistors in holes configured in a triangle, with no other traces nearby. My board had holes in a row, and then a set of holes in a triangle below that, unused. I did not know whether to move the transistors to those through holes or keep them original. I assumed original since the instructions never said to move them, only to swap the leg positions.

AH ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---

[RayB]

... I ended my above post abruptly because I finally figured it out.
PinRepair says this:
"A replacement MJE15031 in an older system 11 power supply: The leads on the MJE15030 and MJE15031 must be "twisted" to replace the older SDS201 and SDS202 transistors. This should ONLY be done on power supplies that originally used the older SDS201 and SDS202 transistors. It's a good idea to use heat shrink tubing on the crossed leg to prevent a short.

They say "older" without specifying which board revision. Since an 11A can be used in an 11, I figured 11 and 11A are "older system 11". AND to further mislead me, this is Great Plains Electronics instruction sheet:

http://www.greatplainselectronics.com/Downloads/W3-11_HV_Kit.pdf

Note the bold that says "This note does not apply to later System 11b and 11c boards."   So why wouldn't I think I had to cross the legs in an 11A board??!?!?!?  

PR says "This should ONLY be done on power supplies that originally used the older SDS201 and SDS202 transistors."
 So I checked the parts in the Fire! manual and indeed, 11A didn't use SDS transistors. It used MJE. Great Plains + maybe my noobishness is to blame here.


@Pinball Wizard: Ill post a video soon so you can hear the music first hand

[kastawaykid]

Ah, that makes sense now at your Power Supply is an 11A. All I have is original System 11 boards and the trace work and holes did not seem correct. Hopefully if you configure the leads properly, the supply will work (if none of the components failed or got stressed because of it). Hope you solved your problem.

Kid

[RayB]

Uncrossed the legs. Still blowing F1.

So Jim, where do I find power supplies on Ebay cheap like you said? I only see one for the exact same price as a RottenDog.

[RayB]

How do you like the background music on Road Kings? Anything like the High Speed background sound?

HS has a fast drum rythm right? RK is more 80's video game style. Parts of it remind me of Shinobi


(not my vid)

[RayB]

Got another HV kit from Great Plains Electronics (highly recommend them!). --I now have high voltage output!

Hooked up the displays... Nada. Just some wonky looking and wonky behaving.... Pics tomorrow.

I can either start diagnosing the display board or dump $200 on a set of new LED based replacement displays. I don't like that option.

[RayB]

Well here is the complete history:
The displays worked when the seller originally put the machine up for sale. I have photos showing all 8's in all of them. Just one display seems to go a little dim.

Seller decided to try and diagnose that one display and when he put the main connector back on, he put it on off by 1 pin. So that blew a UDN chip. He got fustrated by this point and sold the thing as a project machine.

Now in my hands, I replaced the UDN chip, and this is the result, below:

I assume I'm gonna have to test all those dozens and dozens of resistors on the display board.... But perhaps other chips went bad too (without exploding like the one UDN did)??

[Pinball Wizard]

Check your data cable. I had a similar with a High Speed (System 11) I had the cable plugged in funky (it was backwards or off by one pin). I unplugged it and plugged it in right and it worked fine.

[RayB]

Hmmmm!

BTW I mentioned that one voltage to the displays was a little low. I took GPE's advice to use diodes that bring the voltages down to +-90 instead of 100. They recommend this to extend the display's life. My negative is around -88. Think that would be a problem?

[RayB]

It's not the cables.
I am close to just buying a new PinScore LED display set... But this will bring my total investment right up to the market price of this under-rated, low demand machine (maybe even over it).
 

[RayB]

Tested all the resistors and they check out. Must be bad chips.

[Pinball Wizard]

I have a complete set of displays and driver board from my High Speed. I'm out of town this weekend but I can plug it in, test it and if it works good I'll sell it to you. I know for a fact that player 3 and player 4 displays are completly dead but other than that the rest looked good when pulled. I do also know that the player 3 and player 4 displays are the problem not the actual driver board. I'l see what is what and get you a price (assuming you even want to buy it).

[RayB]

Thank you for the offer! I'll research whether they are compatible or not. Just be warned, I am cheap. Otherwise I would have sprung for the new LED replacement already.

[RayB]

Pinball Wizard came to my rescue and sold me a display driver board with displays for a very fair price and it has got me one step closer, but alas, not all the way there.  

While previously the displays for player 1 and 2 only showed some pattern that didn't change, now I get actual "information" on the Match display, player 1, 2 and 4, however plenty of segments are not showing and some are permanently on.

What's confusing us (PW and I discussed this already) is that this board was tested and working in a High Speed.

So that leaves us with potentially the cables or the main CPU board. At least I didn't splurge on the LED replacements, because if its the CPU board, then the LED displays would show junk just the same.

*(The photos below are with my original displays, but the High Speed driver board. When I had PW's displays hooked up for P1 & 2, all segments showed except for the right side and one of the middle parts was always on)

[RayB]

Do this for me: Unplug everything except the single power plug and tell me what the displays do. Then plug everything except the data cable in and tell me what it does.

1. Blank displays
2. Blank displays

Does this narrow the problem down to a fault on the main game CPU board?

[RayB]

Here is a vid that shows the weird digits. Note how its not "missing segments" on every digit (pointing to a UDN fault), it's digit-specific. Like the data that says a digit specifically needs certain segments is messed up, and its messed up consistently (ie: a zero is missing the top left side segment no matter what position or display its on)

[Pinball Wizard]

Do the alpha-numeric displays do the same thing for the ones I sold you vs. the ones already in the machine?

[RayB]

Yes. Your displays (player 1 & 2) are brighter and don't flicker like my player 1 does. That's why the video is focused on the two completely working displays on the right. I'm interested in whats causing messed up characters.

I tested the data cable and it's fine.

What's weird you'll notice is the zero. In the video it's missing one segment, but if you look at my photos just above, the zeroes used to be missing two segments.

[StephenH]

It appears with the alphanumeric having one segment on on all of them and the numeric having a segment off that the issue is data, not power from this point.   

I would check the following:

1) See if the voltage changes on  each  DATA line input (not power pins) of the cable as the display is powered.  You may also be able to read this also on the input pints leading from the display board cable to the display driver chips on the display board.   Keep searching for one with no voltage change as that sequence is being run that is not a known power pin or unused pin.  When you find this, unplug the game and check the solder joints at that point. 

2) Then, with the game off, unplug the display cable and verify there is continuity from that chip to the display cable connector from the identified chip pin by using an ohmmeter (be sure to get the correct pin on the display cable or connector).  If there is no continuity, you likely have another bad solder joint.

3) Then check the display cable.  Do a continuity check with the cable unplugged on both ends on the identified pin number.  If there is no continuity, replace the cable.

4)  See if the score display is fixed now.

5) If this doesn't work, you may need to track where the pin in question on the motherboard in the display cable jack leads to an transistor or IC on the game motherboard.  Turn on the game and check the voltages on the identified chip pin for any variance.  If there is variance there, check for solder joints between that IC or transistor and the display cable pin identified.   Use an Ohmmeter if needed to verify continuity with the game off.

6) If there is no voltage variance on the pin identified above at the game board output IC or transistor level, then the chip or transistor is likely bad or there is a much more serious problem with the game board.

3)

[RayB]

Thanks for the great tips. Here's the thing... The previous owner connected the power connector to the display driver board 1 pin off. This damaged the board and likely sent high voltage back to the motherboard. The display driver currently in there was pulled working from another compatible pin.

I took the plunge and bought a new Pinscore LED set. It displays the exact same garbled characters and locked on segments.

So, I'll follow your #5 and #6 tips above as best I can but I think I should just send the mpu board out for repair. Where should I send it?

[StephenH]

I would see if the Pinscore has issues with the same segments  being out or on all the time as the original display.   Since the Pinscore had similar problems I am convinced that you have a problem somewhere in the data path from the main board to the score display.     


See these articles for the segment names:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven-segment_display
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-segment_display
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen-segment_display

[RayB]

I'll be pulling the mpu this weekend and testing the points you mentioned. Then it's Probably being mailed off for repair. :-)

[RayB]

Who was it that suggested a PIA was bad? The board had two bad 6821 chips. The tech also upgraded the ROMs to version 4 (they were version 2)

Any day now I'll be playing this thing like it was meant to be!

[RayB]

WOOOOOoooooooOOO!

I now have fully working displays, on bright shiny new PinScores!

The tech was kind enough to upgrade my ROMs to v4. Please tell me if this sounds like a programming bug though, because it never happened before (and I played the game a good 20 to 30 times even without working displays):

The game has 3 ball lock spots, but is a 2-ball game. When playing, I got a situation where one ball was locked (upper left), and the ramp lock (upper right) was flashing (ready to get a ball and lock in other words). The middle outhole was not active for ball lock yet. Got the ball in there and nothing happened. The ball stayed in there and more interesting is that the game didn't go into "Where's the ball?" mode (you know, that's where all the solenoids start kicking to find a stuck ball). So it just sat there. This behaviour never happened before, in the 20 or 30 times I've played. If this were in an arcade situation, the player would have to abandon the game.

RK did have a v5 upgrade but there's no good dump of it anywhere.

[kastawaykid]

I have a Road Kings and I just checked. It has ver 4 ROMs installed  (from John Wart). Sorry to say, but I have never experienced the problem that you are having. I have played hundreds of games without any issues at all.

Kid