New pin: Lethal Weapon 3 (Update: FIXED)

[shardian]

 I am learning more about these stupid Sys7 boards than I ever wanted to know.

That's how I feel about everything I know about pinballs! 
I know Gottlieb Sys. I inside and out, and now I know Data East pretty darn well. Both were by necessity than choice. Whodunnit is WPC-S, and I have no desire to learn that hardware. I just want it to work. I go "duh...." when I look in the backbox of that one. I've dug far enough into that system to figure out why someone wrote in a 5A fuse over the factory 3A fuse that blew. That's as much as I want to learn. I just want to play some frikkin pinball...

[ChadTower]

Heh.  I think I need to step back from Black Knight for the same reason.  Thought I had it working well until I playtested and found out the sound still doesn't work right.

I have the parts now to go back in and fail on either the Asteroids Deluxe or the Berzerk monitors, though.

[shardian]

I just got an email from the guy claiming to have modded a rev 2 board to rev 3 capabilites. Here is a pic of the hack:

Of course I was apprehensive after the last disaster, so I did a search for him in google groups. He is BOB DWOJEWSKI - he is the guy doing the Earthshaker repro plastics and playfield for Classicplayfields.com .  I think I am pretty safe this time.

[ChadTower]

Meh, I say just wait on a better deal for a working board. 

[shardian]

Meh, I say just wait on a better deal for a working board. 

I'll be taking my rev 3 board over to a local during lunch to look at the board and bench test. He's in robotics and PIC programming, and is looking to get into the arcade hobby. In the meantime, I'm going to install the Rev 2 board in the machine. I need to prove it is tested working 100% anyways so I can sell it. I might still get the mod done to it though. Haven't decided.

[shardian]

I installed the Rev 2 board this evening. Don't know why I was a ---Bad words, bad words, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when saint censors you?--- about it before, it was quite painless. Now the game works with the exception of pop bumpers, slings, and ball save kick-back. And yes, the left saucer works perfectly.

I can live with this handicapped playability for a while.

[shardian]

How do I put this eloquently? SCREW THIS MACHINE AND THE DEMON WHORE MOTHER IT CAME FROM!!!

I played on the machine for a while with the rev2 board installed last night. I had all of my games on, and we were having a good time. I had just finished a game of Whodunnit (on which an air ball snapped the end of a plastic off...that sucked) and decided to pack it in for the night. I drained all the balls that my wife/daughter left on the LW3, then turned everything off. Then I went into the living room for a bit. About 10-15 minutes later, I came back out into the gameroom to get my shoes. There was an overwhelming scent of electrical burning, and there was a slight haze in the air. Oh ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---... I frantically went around the room smelling all of the games through the coin doors and backboxes. I saw nothing burning and could not locate the source. We both made a best guess it was the LW3. When I looked in the backbox, I noticed a connector wasn't fully seated. I went ahead and plugged it in all the way.

I turned the game on, and after it booted something inside the cabinet locked on. It came with a loud buzzing sound too. I cycled the power and now it starts as soon as power is applied. I never saw or heard anything out of the ordinary before I originally turned it off.

In closing, I now hate this game and want it gone. Anybody want it , along with all the restoration parts and both boards for cost?

[ChadTower]

I feel your pain, bro.  That's a terrible feeling. 

(coughAsteroidsDeluxecough)

[shardian]

I pulled up the playfield to watch for what coils were locked on. Right drop bank and knocker are locked on. I have no clue why.

[ChadTower]

Has to be the standard reasons for locked coils, I'd think.  No reason to believe you introduced a short in the wiring, right?

[shardian]

Has to be the standard reasons for locked coils, I'd think.  No reason to believe you introduced a short in the wiring, right?

I have absolutely no clue. After I first put the board game in, I realized the outhole wasn't working - as such, it wasn't a symptom on the Rev 3 board that I went over earlier. The signal wire had broken off its lug. I don't think that was relative to the locked coils. Everything was fine, and I'm pretty sure the knocker worked at one point in playing.  I need to go through and test all of the transistors on the boards I suppose next.
I went through and ohmed out every coil before finding the locked coils last night. All of them tested fine. I don't have much faith in the coil ohm test though. That's about as far as I've gotten. I did notice the smell still lingers in the backbox, but nothing is obviously damaged. I had a bad coil in Charlie's Angels back in the day. That driver transistor was about as obvious as a burned up transistor can be!
I just need to take a step back for a bit I think.

[ChadTower]

You don't have to check all of the transistors.  Just check the ones related to those coils, and the predrivers if they have them, I'm not sure on that board. Check the coil diodes too just for fun.

Could a bad pia be a cause here?  I suppose it's a real hard one to find if you're not confident in the data line sockets.  There could be a short any number of places.

[shardian]

Q1 in the blanking circuit was bad. It literally fell off when we poked at it while cleaning that area. It is a T518a voltage detector. I am not having any luck at any of the parts suppliers though. Anyone care to help me locate one?

[ChadTower]

That might help a little but probably not enough.

That one might help a little too.

[shardian]

Q1 in the blanking circuit was bad. It literally fell off when we poked at it while cleaning that area. It is a T518a voltage detector. I am not having any luck at any of the parts suppliers though. Anyone care to help me locate one?

Just to be clear, this was on the uninstalled Revision 3 board I have originally been having all the problems with.

[shardian]

I'll give you $500 shipped to San Antonio.

LMK

$450 + shipping and you can have every spare part I have, including the extra board. I bought everything necessary to do a shop out, which wasn't exactly cheap.

[shardian]

Except for a working board.

For a pinball genious such as yourself, this should not be an issue. I'd bet it would take you 20 minutes to fix the rev 3, and mod the rev 2 to add the extra circuit. Then you can spend a day shopping the cabinet, sell it off for $900+ and sell the spare board for $100. Not a bad day's salary mr pinball.

[shardian]

You mean how did the smoking/burning start after I left the room and powered it off? I don't know. I can only assume it happened in the last 2-3 minutes of me having the machine on, and it just took a few minutes for the smell to work its way out of the cabinet. I have a vague memory of hearing a coil fire that probably shouldn't have. I blew it off though. Of course, that might be a false memory too.

[shardian]

I went over the power supply good before changing boards out. Power is fine. There is 4.9v at the CPU board.

[pinballwizard79]

I have a good board repair guy (engineer @ boeing & been doing pinball work on the side for I dunno 20+ years), he just fixed my PSboard & MPU on my DE JP.

http://webpages.charter.net/chibler/Pinball/RepairService.htm

If you contact him he will prob say he doesnt have a DE machine to put the board in (thats what he told me so I took my whole JP there).

Let him know he can put your board in my TFTC for testing that I am dropping off next Saturday & that I referred you to him.

He will only have the machine for a week or two so you may want to pull the trigger soon if you are going to get board work done on it.... get to shipping bro :-)

[shardian]

I've grown confident enough in my abilities that I know I can do this one myself. I just need a break from it for a bit, then I will tackle it. If not, I have a local friend that can do it.

[shardian]

You mean how did the smoking/burning start after I left the room and powered it off? I don't know. I can only assume it happened in the last 2-3 minutes of me having the machine on, and it just took a few minutes for the smell to work its way out of the cabinet. I have a vague memory of hearing a coil fire that probably shouldn't have. I blew it off though. Of course, that might be a false memory too.

I took the rev 2 board out to steal a part today for the rev 3 board. Remember how nice and clean this board was? Well not anymore. A TIP122 coil driver on the cpu board is burned all to hell! I'll need to investigate exactly what happened a little closer before firing up the Rev 3 that I am close to fixing.

Anyways, yet another reason why I see people do not like DE games from the reliability/repair standpoint. Oh, and the schematics are still some of the worst I have ever seen.

[shardian]

Replaced the Q1 detector thing in the blanking circuit - game still doesn't boot. Music is now playing though... no idea why. I had left the coil connectors off for now. It was the right drop target driver that melted down on the rev 2 board. There is a quarter sized black scorch mark on the back box from it!

[shardian]

I was discussing this pin with a friend on the way home from work, and decided to swap out the known working socketed chips from the rev 2 board when I got home. I did and the machine booted. That's nice, so I decided to brace myself and plug back in the coil connector to the board. Game booted up without issues or locked coils - so problem lied in the rev 2 board apparently. I played a quick game, and that damn left saucer still won't fire powerfully enough to launch the ball. I replaced the 7408 socket myself, so it should not be an issue. When I get a chance I will go ahead and shotgun both driver transistors. Maybe the pre-driver is open or something...

Like I've said before, when I short the TIP 122's tab, the coil fires perfectly. Figured I'd refresh everyone on that before Jim accuses the coil again... 

Needless to say, I feel much better now...until something else effs up of course!

[shardian]

I had an excess of energy tonight from some EXCELLENT family news, so I put that energy to good use - not going to sleep until this damn thing was either fixed or burned to the ground.

I went over the left saucer circuit with a fine tooth comb. I fixed any/all possible shorts or breaks in the traces. Everything checked out, including the transistors. Still, the saucer couldn't kick out the ball. So I went balls out. I replaced the 7408, and both transistors. I made sure the new repair work was perfect. Plugged back in the CPU for what seems the 1000 time, and fired her up. I was then blessed with the most beautiful sight I have ever seen in this hobby: That cursed saucer kicked out the trapped ball! HALLELUJAH! I FIXED that scum bum piece o crap!!!

The only issue left is the DMD. There is a single column that stays lit 24/7. Also, the display has an odd blooming effect in solid areas during cut scenes. I noticed it when I put in the rev. 2 board, and it is still there with the rev 3 board. I assume the display is just going bad. At a later date, I will go over the DMD board and check it for errors. It is not a major issue at this time.

[Q*Bert_OP]

The only issue left is the DMD.  Also, the display has an odd blooming effect in solid areas during cut scenes. I noticed it when I put in the rev. 2 board, and it is still there with the rev 3 board. I

Your DMD's input voltages are too high. Check them to make sure they are within a +/- 10% range.

[shardian]

The only issue left is the DMD.  Also, the display has an odd blooming effect in solid areas during cut scenes. I noticed it when I put in the rev. 2 board, and it is still there with the rev 3 board. I

Your DMD's input voltages are too high. Check them to make sure they are within a +/- 10% range.

And if they're not, then what? There's nothing to adjust. The only thing that changed was that I went over the PS and cleaned up any suspect solder pads, and replaced the top right molex board mounted connector. I didn't think making the board 'better' would make my voltages 'worse'.

[shardian]

Did I say I had this fixed?

I played 2 games this morning. Both times blanking died sometime during the game, thus locking up the game. I think it has to be the battery corrosion in the blanking section, since it works most of the time. Man, and error like that is almost impossible to trace! So, I'm going to get some resistors at Rat shack today and shotgun the entire blanking circuit, along with the 7402 chip at the top right of the board that controls the 555 timer. The board needs to be bulletproofed anyways, right?

I consider this a minor problem, and still think the game is fixed. That coil has been a thorn in my side for a long time.

[Q*Bert_OP]

The only issue left is the DMD.  Also, the display has an odd blooming effect in solid areas during cut scenes. I noticed it when I put in the rev. 2 board, and it is still there with the rev 3 board. I

Your DMD's input voltages are too high. Check them to make sure they are within a +/- 10% range.

And if they're not, then what?

If they're out of range, the high voltage power supply needs to be rebuilt. Also, broken traces in that circuit can cause this.

[ChadTower]

Keep plugging away at it.  Good job.   

[shardian]

The only time I've seen blooming was on my Demolition Man and that's when the DMD was running at 140V.

Most of the time, it looks completely normal. When there is significant 'stuff' on the screen, some areas get blotchy - areas are dark where they should be lit. Kind of like someone is pushing on the screen with a finger.

Regardless, I will have to do some research and measure some things.

[shardian]

I pulled the board and rebuilt the blanking section this weekend. I did not replace the two capacitors (one standard cylindrical and one of those green rectangle deals) as they looked mostly okay. I also didn't have replacements...

I also noticed that I got short changed in the bulk pack of resistors from Rat Shack. There were no resistors at all in the 4xxxx series (first band yellow). I had to reuse that resistor - luckily its legs were fine and it ohmed out properly.

I put the board back in and fired her up. This was at about 2 in the morning, so I just ran it through diagnostics for about 20 minutes with no problems. The next day, I play tested. It still is dropping out the blanking signal, but it takes much longer now.

Yesterday I play tested and logged about 8-10 games before it finally dropped blanking.  I can turn the machine back on and it will work., though I think one time it did not until a second power cycle. There is no rhyme or reason to how or why it fails. I will go ahead and replace the 2 caps and see where I stand.

I've researched this problem on RGP, and several people have reported it. Unfortunately most of the threads end in a dead end! Several people point to an intermittent bad PIA chip, but then never supply a resolution. The Test Eproms usually can't find this though. I'll try again soon!

Side note: I do enjoy this game. It's a really fun ball slapper that requires no thinking.

[shardian]

I picked up the caps at Rat Shack last night. They also replaced the resistors missing from my bulk pack. When I got home, I logged 5 or so games. The machine never kicked off on me, and I had to go inside. I'll replace the caps as soon as I get a chance, and then keep playing it for a bit.

Back to that display issue though. Jim, do you have any experience with the displays in DE machines? They are supposed to run at different voltages than Bally/Williams displays. I've checked connectors and everything looks okay.

[shardian]

Are your voltages within spec or close to it?  Only issue I've had with a DE display was a few lines missing from broken pins on the glass.

Another DMD pin around that you can swap displays with and see if the problem migrates or stays with the machine?

....yeah....but I think you would understand my extreme aversion to 'effing' with a perfectly working DMD in a perfectly working game...

I think I still need to check the DMD voltages. I don't think I have checked them. I'll get back to you.

[shardian]

I just read the section on the DMD in the pinrepair guide again. It always makes much more sense after spending plenty of quality time with the machine...probably the 10th or so time I've read it too.

Anyways, the problem is pretty much guaranteed to be a HV rebuild of the power supply. I think I'm just going to buy a replacement PSU and be done with it. Allegedly the repro PSU has a much more robust +5 line anyways...

[ChadTower]

Why buy a new one instead of rebuilding?  Aren't you going to just sell this one off?

[shardian]

Swapping displays takes 5 minutes.  If you're afraid your known-working display is going to be torched by your Lethal Weapon (it won't) then move your cloudy-Lethal-Weapon-display to the known-working machine. 

You really need to isolate it to a board or a display problem before you proceed with any repairs or ordering.

If it's a Babcock display, it will not work in my other one. However, the Whodunnit display will work in the LW3. I started to look at it this morning while the car was heating up, but didn't get very far.

[shardian]

Hmmm...

I measured the voltages just now...I have no idea how the DMD is even working.

Here are the expected values
Medium 128x32 DMD, connector P1:
•   P1 pin 1: -110 volts
•   P1 pin 2: -98 volts
•   P1 pin 3: KEY
•   P1 pin 4: Ground
•   P1 pin 5: Ground
•   P1 pin 6: +5 volts
•   P1 pin 7: +12 volts (only used on Babcock displays)
•   P1 pin 8: +68 volts

Pin 1 was correct. Pin 2 was in the upper 80's. Pin 6 was at 2-3 volts. Pin 7 and 8 weren't even in the ballpark.

I can't see which brand of display I have without taking it all apart. I won't have time for that until this weekend. The difference = one brand uses +12, the other 2 don't.

[ChadTower]

That's progress.   

[shardian]

I pulled the DMD power connector at the DMD and measured at the plug. It's not .156 pins, so I had to wedge my black lead in the ground braid and measure on the exposed backside of the pins. It should not matter, but figure I should throw that out there.

The power board isn't the most accessible thing, but I will pull the connector and measure directly off the board next.