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Pinball 2000 Tech Problem: Power Driver Board Damaged?

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jasonbar:
Howdy-

I'm having problems with my Pinball 2000 cabinet. More precisely, the power driver board appears to be damaged...and possibly more(?)

1 - Before getting verbose, does anybody offer repair services on these?

2 - Or, are there better prices than $495 + shipping ( http://ksarcade.net/pinball-2000-power-driver-board-04-12329.html ) or $349 + $100 shipping to California ( http://www.pinball.co/Products/25303-04-12329.aspx ) for a replacement?


Having said that, if anybody wants to chime in on reading along & troubleshooting, then I'd be most grateful!

3a - Ever since I got RFM, 3 of the #89 flasher bulbs consistently burn themselves out after only a few flashes (in test mode or while playing): Right Arch (transistor Q67, connector J112-9, Fuse F109), Left Martian (transistor Q68, connector J112-10, Fuse F109), & Right Martian (transistor Q69, connector J112-19, Fuse F109). The other flashers on this same fuse circuit work fine. I replaced these transistors & the bulbs still have almost zero life before blowing. These same 3 transistors drive 3 back panel flashers on SWEP1, & those flasher bulbs on my SWEP1 playfield are just ducky--they don't burn out. This suggests that there's something weird in my RFM playfield & that this problem doesn't lie in the power drive board.

3b - Perhaps a bit of an aside, but what exactly makes a bulb burn out? The filament could blow from too much current/voltage/heat/vibration, I imagine...a quick Googling didn't turn up something conclusive that applies to troubleshooting my problem...A good experiment for me would be to swap some pins on the driver board connectors to drive these problematic sockets/wires with a well-behaved transistor, & vice versa, but I haven't the proper tool to pop pins out of connectors, & I don't want to do any mangling.

4a - I had just finished bracketry for a plunger/auto-launch combo mod & made quite the electrical goof. The way I re-installed the existing RFM launch coil, I wanted the shaft to move in the direction opposite of how it was intended to move. Therefore, I made a short wiring harness adapter to swap the polarity of the wires to the coil, figuring it would run "backwards." (I failed to reverse the diode, though...)

4b - During test of the coil in RFM Diagnostics mode, Auto-Launch wouldn't fire. After trying for a bit, 3 other coils stopped firing also in test mode: Right Jet, Bottom Jet, & Right Lockup, all 3 of which share Fuse F100 w/ Auto Plunge. Before I clued myself in about the diode being reversed, I unhooked the functioning right sling coil's 2 wires & hooked them to my Auto Plunge coil (again, with the diode backwards). After a moment, the 4 coils on fuse F103 stopped working too (Trough Eject, Left Sling, Right Sling, Left Jet Bumper).

5a - Now, after rewiring everything correctly (and putting new fuses in--read more about fuses below), I get the following behavior:

5b - With RFM or SWEP1, the "Health LED2" blinks when the machine is powered on. Is this normal?

5c - With SWEP1, the Read Test Report at the top of the main menu says that there are no errors. However, when I close the coin door interlock high voltage switch, the following 2 items activate & stay stuck activated (but I fear further damage, so I don't let it stay in this state for more than a couple of seconds): Right Sling coil (transistor Q53, connector J112-12, fuse F103), both Upper Hotdog Flashers (transistor Q57, connector J112-17, fuse F109). Despite these 2 items staying stuck energized, if I go through all of the solenoid tests & briefly test each one, they all behave normally (except for the 2 listed above).

5d - With RFM, I still have the same 3 flasher bulbs (see 3a) not working. Upon immediate power-up, with the coin door open & no high voltage, the Diagnostic Report shows that fuses F100 & F103 are blown. These are the 2 fuses associated w/ the 2 dead HV circuits described in 4b. However, the fuses have continuity. After I run the diagnostic coil test for a moment, the fuses do indeed blow. The RFM software is psychic!


Any thoughts on what to try?

Thanks,
-Jason

lilshawn:
with the coils that are staying on, replace the transistors tip102's or tip107's on the diver board and it would be best to also replace the diodes for those coils at the same time. they are shorted (causing the lock ons AND the fuses blowing. running the coil reversed or having a bad diode on the coil shorts the transistors and shorted transistors often kills the diode. if you don't replace both, the coil will fire a few times and then the transistor burns out because it can't handle the reverse spike caused by the coil de-energizing. and the constant current of a shorted transistor fries a coil and kills the diode. so do both. also check the coil ohms to make sure they aren't shorted. (without them hooked up or a diode on there) they should be a few ohms but not a dead short. compare them to a known working coil of the same # if you are unsure. (Ie 28-1500 to the same 28-1500 ) for example a 28-1500 measures 20 ohms where a 23-800 is 4 ohms and both are good... but a fried 28-1500 may measure 4 ohms. see what i mean?

with your lamps that are burning out, be sure you have the proper bulbs. maybe a #89 or#906 (depending on the base) it's been awhile since i've worked on one of these, we've sold them all off. I'm not 100% on this but maybe there is an issue with the voltage driving the burning out lamps. if it's too high, that could certainly burn out the bulb. i think the flasher bulbs are 13 or 14 volts. they mostly flash them with 20 volts check the voltage. if it's way higher than that like being powered from the 50 volts solenoid power supply, then that would be the time to tell us someone hacked up, or repaired the harness because it's not right. you should be able to test this by grounding the negative lead on the frame and probing one of the wires on the flasher socket. one of them will be the drive voltage. (you may need to enter the test mode or shut the door or something to enable the power to the flashers. (i believe it's powered by a relay)

the main thing with these machines is you have to be SURE you have things fixed 100%, because if you try running something with a failed coil, it's just going to blow on you. then, when you change the coil...and you still have the bad transistor, you fry the coil. everything has to be 100% or things get fried.


--- Quote ---4a - I had just finished bracketry for a plunger/auto-launch combo mod & made quite the electrical goof. The way I re-installed the existing RFM launch coil, I wanted the shaft to move in the direction opposite of how it was intended to move. Therefore, I made a short wiring harness adapter to swap the polarity of the wires to the coil, figuring it would run "backwards." (I failed to reverse the diode, though...)
--- End quote ---

no idea what you're talking about. there is no way this would work in a million years. it's designed in such a way as to only operate in one direction. Pull in. to make it work opposite you'd have to move the coil to the other side of the item you need to move and make a linkage to have the plunger operate in that direction...still pulling in. that's how a coil works. it will not "push out" or any variation thereof.

let's focus on getting this machine back working as it's originally intended and not fart around with hacking up the harnesses or trying to drive things with other lines. It is just going to mess things up worse. specific transistors in a circuit are designed to drive specific items. the coils look the same, but the drive is different, and it's designed for that particular coil setup. You can't switch them around to see if it works, cause it won't. Stuff blows up.

ChadTower:

Yep... he borked up the driver board transistors.  No two ways about that.  And when he ran the coils without good diodes he might have fried them too.

jasonbar:
Thanks for the input. I replaced the 2 transistors that drive the SW right sling & back pair of banana flashers. SW is now working 100% again. Hooray. Played it for 5 minutes with no issues. Thanks for pointing out dead transistors. Easy fix.

Next up, checking resistance & diode on RFM Auto Launch coil.

Thanks,
-Jason

jasonbar:
I'm on a roll!

Progress on RFM:

1 - I put in the RFM PRISM card & ROMs & had no playfield plugged in. Fuses F100 & F103 OK. Normal behavior. Powered down, plugged in RFM PF, unplugged all 8 coils on the 2 circuits that had fuses blowing (F100's Right Jet, Bottom Jet, Right Lockup, & Auto Plunge, and F103's Trough Eject, Left Sling, Right Sling, & Left Jet Bumper), powered up.

2 - One at a time, I plugged a coil in (with high voltage off) & then tested it, skipping Auto Plunge, which was the source of my coil woes. All 7 coils plugged in work fine, no fuse blowing, no drama. Swell. This means the problem is either in the Auto Plunge coil/diode or in its playfield wiring or in its associated circuit on the power board. But, given that it runs off of transistor Q57, & my SWEP1's Upper Hot Dog Flashers are now running fine off of that same Q57 transistor, I figure that the power board is OK. Aside #1--yup, I clearly blew both transistors with which I tried to drive a coil "backwards". Aside #2 on fuses: when I was having fuses blow, I was using fuses of slightly different specs (It's supposed to have 250V 4A slow blow, but on hand at the time I had only 250V 3A slow blow & 250V 4A fast blow. Apparently, these different fuses lead to immediate problems--can't even do a little troubleshooting with them!)

3 - The Auto Plunge coil is an AE1-23-800, of which there is only 1 other on RFM (Right Lockup) & none on SWEP1. Given that I'm pretty good at replacing transistors on the power board by now, and seeing that I'd need to disassemble a bit & then desolder/cut a diode or coil wire to be able to check the coil and/or its diode, I chose instead to hold my breath & I plugged the 2 wires for the Auto Plunge into the already-tested-good right slingshot. Works fine--that means Auto Plunge wiring & corresponding power board circuitry is good. That leaves the Auto Plunge coil/diode as the final culprit. Sure enough, trying to fire that coil (not backwards this time!!!) blew fuse F100 immediately & the coil didn't fire. Culprit found!

4 - I removed the faulty coil, couldn't manage a clean desolder of the magnet wire or diode, so I snipped 1 diode leg & tested the diode--bad diode. I didn't have any other replacement matching diodes. I checked resistance of the coil: about 4.6 ohm. I'd rather not hack up the other matching good coil in the game, so I don't have a comparison value to see if the coil has an issue, but that resistance seems reasonable.

5 - I just ordered a handful of 1N4004 diodes & will replace the Auto Plunge coil's diode & see if that fixes it. I also ordered a new AE1-23-800 coil assembly & will have that as a backup. (I also ordered another coil b/c the bottom jet seems to have been replaced w/ the wrong coil (but of a similar size) in the past.) I also ordered some more fuses. :]  I also ordered 2 more boxes of #89 flasher bulbs in preparation for the upcoming flasher fix...

6 - ...which brings us to the flashers. Yes, lilshawn, they're #89 bulbs in RFM's Right Arch, Left Martian, & Right Martian. BUT!!! Those same transistors & connectors on the power board drive 3 back panel flashers on SWEP1 that have never blown at all. That's the weird part. I'll still try out the voltage test at the bulb socket to see what it's reading. I can also trace these 3 flashers' wires back to the connectors at the back of the playfield to make sure that there's nothing hinky along the way.


Thanks,
-Jason

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