error 8 on dynamo air hockey

[grantspain]

alright gents,i am having an intermittant problem with all four of my dynamo air hockeys whereas on power up sometimes i will get error 8 displayed on the scorer
i have checked the +5 and +12 volts from the psu-all o.k
checked all the fuse holders
checked the connecting psu plugs
in the manual i have error 8 is marked as being a problem with the case box reed switch,which i do not have on mine
after messing with the boards(checking solder joints-especially on that load resistor and disconnecting the battery to clear the ram)they seem to work for an age-the only other thing i can think of is maybe something to do with the opto board in the goal
has anyone had a problem like this before and if so what did they do to rectify the fault?

[grantspain]

anyone,help

[Kevin Mullins]

Wish I could.... but I haven't even found any info at all on the Dynamo tables yet.   

[Ken Layton]

Have you contacted the manufacturer yet? They have a good tech support department at www.vdlp.net

Also if you have a subscription to Star Tech Journal magazine (www.startechjournal.com), you have free access to the tech forums where they have a specific section just for air hockey repairs/modifications/upgrades.

[grantspain]

thanks for the advice ken,have not contacted dynamo yet but will do now

[grantspain]

this is a really old post but if its helps anyone else i did resolve this problem,error 8 seems to be a general memory error caused by ram corruption,bad battery etc
by holding down the 2 test switches on power up you clear the ram thus eliminating this problem-obviously you need to reprogram the settings afterwards
if this problem occurs frequently then the battery needs to be changed
i never got a reply from dynamo/valley so i had to resolve this myself(yet another U.S company that does not reply to emails)

[Kevin Mullins]

Cool ..... ALWAYS good to hear the updates and solutions.

[Ken Layton]

There have been several generations & styles of the circuit board in the Dynamo air hockey game. The later versions of the manual details the circuit board variations and programming/settings/diagnostics.

I have one on location in a theater that was occasionally missing goals when the puck went past the optical switch. Turns out the infrared LED was getting weak in light output. Replacing the goal optical switch circuit board cured it.

[grantspain]

thats another bit of handy information,thanks ken