I posted to rgp about the board but didn't get a really coherent picture of what was wrong. Most of the suggestions didn't pan out. I did scrutinize the board carefully in preparation for the post and found that the high voltage section of the board looked like it was repaired by a 5 year old. Crappy soldering, there are scorch marks all over the board, and some of the diodes are actually 2 diodes soldered together.
The answer I wanted out of rgp was is this board worth saving? I think the answer is yes, if I could repair it myself (which I can't, currently). I considered getting a high voltage add-on board for $40-50, but then I'll have a crappy board with a good high voltage section, plus I can't see spending that much more money on this board -- it would put me into the $130 range, which is way more than a new board cost.
So yesterday I gave up on my current display driver board and ordered a new PinLED version from Bay Area Amusements for $95 including s/h. I figure I'll save what little hair I have by spending the extra $$$, plus the adjustable voltage feature of the PinLED board should help if it can't deal with the transformer delivering 5 volts too much for both high voltage inputs. I think I'll be a lot happier with the new board... I'm hoping it will arrive Thursday, because I'm off work that day for my wife's birthday (the perfect gift! It will go well with that baseball glove I got her).
I was thinking about testing the under playfield switches and maybe seeing if the W ramp is unplugged, but decided to wait for the new board to show up.
I also posted my first WTB (Want To Buy) to rgp for the mini-playfield motor/cam assembly, and at first I was disappointed with the results. Most of the offers came to my email address, and they were either too expensive ($179!!!), too little (a guy wanted to sell me just the motor for $70 when Pinball Resource sells them for $73), or too much (pinballchuck, who seems to acquire more Doctor Whos in a year than I've seen in my life, had a complete mini-playfield which he wanted to sell me for $250 -- I think that's a little steep). But then a guy showed up who wants to sell me the cam for $35... I'm waiting on pictures, and he says that something's missing, probably one of the things that attaches things to other things. We'll see how that goes. One of the posters suggested I make one, which appealed to the DIY nut in me until somebody mentioned bushings... I don't even know what a bushing is, much less how to make one. Probably buying one will be less painful.
I made a rare foray into The Home Depot Sunday and picked up rust remover for those crappy legs I got at the last Allentown show and alligator clips so I can forge a more permanent temporary connection between my buttons and the coin interface board.
I'm also getting a serious itch to try the Pinmame-HW thing. I found the box of parts I ordered from GPE. I've thought about buying one of those cool playfield mounts (sorry, I can't find a link!), but was daunted by the $275 price tag -- especially if this doesn't work out, I don't want to invest hugely in it. But then I found this site where the guy basically puts the playfield up on blocks... it's definitely a low cost alternative.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Saturday, July 22, 2006
A better day than usual
With a semi-working DMD, today I decided to get down to some serious testing. Mainly I wanted to run through the diagnostics and see what's working and what isn't.
I started by making a set of test buttons for the coin door. For the first time in the last 10 years, @$#! Radio Shack had some buttons like I needed at a reasonable price. So I did a half-assed non-soldering job of wiring them up, and I even punched some holes in a piece of cardboard to mount them. Then, again half-assedly, I attached them to the coin interface board and fired up the game. It almost worked, but at least two of the buttons were in contact, which meant that every time I tried to turn down the volume, it just got louder. So I gave up and used my alligator clip again.
I love testing pinball machines. I don't usually like what I find, but the process is enjoyable. This is the first DMD game I've owned, and browsing through the little menus is too fun. I tested the solenoids, switches, and lamps, and found that more stuff is working than not... 4 solenoids/flashers aren't working and 1 works sometimes out of 25 or so, 4 switches out of 64-ish don't register (I didn't test the mini-playfield, though I probably could have by going at it from underneath) including the entire W ramp, and 7 lamps of 56 are out/missing (I didn't look), with 8 lights abstaining because the speaker panel is gone. As a percentage of total assets, it's probably working better than Eight Ball Deluxe.
Then for kicks I dug out some pinballs and fired up a game. The mini-playfield warning ruined the purity of it somewhat, but I rolled the balls around and had a good old time. I should have plugged in the flipper opto boards -- which I got from Bay Area Amusements last week, sorry I forgot to mention it -- so I could play the video mode. Maybe I'll do that later this weekend. I also have to figure out a way to keep that playfield glass switch closed.
And that was my exciting day of pinball testing! Hopefully this weekend I'll keep up the pace I've set and do some more.
I started by making a set of test buttons for the coin door. For the first time in the last 10 years, @$#! Radio Shack had some buttons like I needed at a reasonable price. So I did a half-assed non-soldering job of wiring them up, and I even punched some holes in a piece of cardboard to mount them. Then, again half-assedly, I attached them to the coin interface board and fired up the game. It almost worked, but at least two of the buttons were in contact, which meant that every time I tried to turn down the volume, it just got louder. So I gave up and used my alligator clip again.
I love testing pinball machines. I don't usually like what I find, but the process is enjoyable. This is the first DMD game I've owned, and browsing through the little menus is too fun. I tested the solenoids, switches, and lamps, and found that more stuff is working than not... 4 solenoids/flashers aren't working and 1 works sometimes out of 25 or so, 4 switches out of 64-ish don't register (I didn't test the mini-playfield, though I probably could have by going at it from underneath) including the entire W ramp, and 7 lamps of 56 are out/missing (I didn't look), with 8 lights abstaining because the speaker panel is gone. As a percentage of total assets, it's probably working better than Eight Ball Deluxe.
Then for kicks I dug out some pinballs and fired up a game. The mini-playfield warning ruined the purity of it somewhat, but I rolled the balls around and had a good old time. I should have plugged in the flipper opto boards -- which I got from Bay Area Amusements last week, sorry I forgot to mention it -- so I could play the video mode. Maybe I'll do that later this weekend. I also have to figure out a way to keep that playfield glass switch closed.
And that was my exciting day of pinball testing! Hopefully this weekend I'll keep up the pace I've set and do some more.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
I want to celebrate by killing myself!
Yes, it's another one of those pyrrhic victories that I'm experiencing so many of lately.
The replacement display driver arrived last week, so I plugged it in this weekend. After satisfying myself that it has all its parts and a few plugging misadventures, I booted the machine and...
That's certainly an improvement over the wavy line! For those who can't see, that's the Bookkeeping Totals Cleared/Factory Settings Restored display when the game doesn't have its batteries. Clearly a step in the right direction... that's the celebration part. The killing myself part has to do with the fact that almost all the pixels are lit up... it looks like a police car light flashing on the display.
A trip to the repair guide and some voltage testing indicates that the board is running hot... pins 1 and 2 on the display are -138V & -126V, not -125 & -113 they are supposed to be. Based on my guide, my guess is that this is a board where the voltage has been upped because the display it was used with was dim -- probably on its last legs. Increasing the voltage makes it brighter. Of course, for a brand new display this isn't good. I'm going to verify this on rpg, look for the telltale signs that the board has been rebuilt, then complain to the eBay guy again. Hopefully, he'll offer a refund again, and I can cut my losses and just buy a new display board.
That was last weekend. Today at work I had a bright idea... I can probably get out of this screen by pressing one of the buttons that my game doesn't have, and then I could get to the inevitable error messages. So when I got home, I experimented with Visual Pinball again... I renamed the .nv for Doctor Who (the saved settings for the pinmame emulator) so I got the above message, then pressed the virtual buttons until I got into attract mode. I found that Escape button == good, Enter button == bad (because you just have to press escape again), Up & Down buttons == who cares.
Using my manual and the spare coin door interface board as a guide -- boy that thing's coming in handy! -- I connected an alligator clip to ground (J3 pin 3, if you're keeping score), turned the game on, and touched the other end to pin 7. Look what happened:
Hey, this crazy gizmo really works!
For those who can't tell the players without a scorecard, it's in attract mode! Most of the lights on the playfield are strobing, some of the coils fire off, and a loud annoying voice is telling me that my hands will be crushed to a pulp by the mini-playfield! That's the sweetest loud annoying voice I've heard in a long time!
Let's get a closeup of that DMD...
That reminds me of this classic picture from Engrish.com...
So anyway, the game is more working than I expected. I think my next step is to get some buttons and connect them up so I can navigate the menus (my first goal is to put in some batteries and turn down the volume). Then I gotta get rid of that warning... the game thinks the playfield glass isn't on, so there's probably an issue with that switch. Then I can run some of the diagnostics and see what's REALLY wrong with the game. All in all, things could have been worse... maybe I'll just mutilate myself.
The replacement display driver arrived last week, so I plugged it in this weekend. After satisfying myself that it has all its parts and a few plugging misadventures, I booted the machine and...
That's certainly an improvement over the wavy line! For those who can't see, that's the Bookkeeping Totals Cleared/Factory Settings Restored display when the game doesn't have its batteries. Clearly a step in the right direction... that's the celebration part. The killing myself part has to do with the fact that almost all the pixels are lit up... it looks like a police car light flashing on the display.
A trip to the repair guide and some voltage testing indicates that the board is running hot... pins 1 and 2 on the display are -138V & -126V, not -125 & -113 they are supposed to be. Based on my guide, my guess is that this is a board where the voltage has been upped because the display it was used with was dim -- probably on its last legs. Increasing the voltage makes it brighter. Of course, for a brand new display this isn't good. I'm going to verify this on rpg, look for the telltale signs that the board has been rebuilt, then complain to the eBay guy again. Hopefully, he'll offer a refund again, and I can cut my losses and just buy a new display board.
That was last weekend. Today at work I had a bright idea... I can probably get out of this screen by pressing one of the buttons that my game doesn't have, and then I could get to the inevitable error messages. So when I got home, I experimented with Visual Pinball again... I renamed the .nv for Doctor Who (the saved settings for the pinmame emulator) so I got the above message, then pressed the virtual buttons until I got into attract mode. I found that Escape button == good, Enter button == bad (because you just have to press escape again), Up & Down buttons == who cares.
Using my manual and the spare coin door interface board as a guide -- boy that thing's coming in handy! -- I connected an alligator clip to ground (J3 pin 3, if you're keeping score), turned the game on, and touched the other end to pin 7. Look what happened:
Hey, this crazy gizmo really works!
For those who can't tell the players without a scorecard, it's in attract mode! Most of the lights on the playfield are strobing, some of the coils fire off, and a loud annoying voice is telling me that my hands will be crushed to a pulp by the mini-playfield! That's the sweetest loud annoying voice I've heard in a long time!
Let's get a closeup of that DMD...
That reminds me of this classic picture from Engrish.com...
So anyway, the game is more working than I expected. I think my next step is to get some buttons and connect them up so I can navigate the menus (my first goal is to put in some batteries and turn down the volume). Then I gotta get rid of that warning... the game thinks the playfield glass isn't on, so there's probably an issue with that switch. Then I can run some of the diagnostics and see what's REALLY wrong with the game. All in all, things could have been worse... maybe I'll just mutilate myself.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
I need to change the name of this blog...
... to What's My Pinball Machine Missing Today?
I did my testing on the DMD based on the suggestions from rgp. It turns out when I looked at the Tested and Working display driver board, the Q2 transistor and the D3 diode were MIA. Q2 might have broken off, but D3 was cleanly removed, solder-sucked and everything. It also has scorch marks on the back, never a good sign in a high voltage area. I wanted to see if this is actually a different board than the one pictured in the auction, but of course it was one of those where the pictures are hosted, so they're no longer visible (I need to save pictures of auctions I win... pinballchuck, a paragon of virtue, always includes a printout with all of his items). I contacted the seller from eBay, and to my shock and amazement he replied back saying that he can replace the board or refund my money. So I put that board in the mail today, and we'll see if he sends me a replacement. I was kind of considering getting a new board -- they're only $90+s/h, and I'm already into this used one for almost $80 -- but we'll see if this guy comes through with a working replacement.
Today's revelation -- and wanting desperately to change the blog name -- came when I decided to see if I could navigate through the errors without the DMD using the diagnostic buttons... basically see if I get any reaction when I press the button, which I think should be some bloop bloop bloop noises. After checking the menu controls in the Visual Pinball VPM version of the game, I soon discovered that there are no diagnostic buttons! There's nothing at all on the coin doors except the coin slots. Oh, the zumanity! Actually, it was really annoying because I'm really tired of finding stuff missing, so to speak. Anyway, I spent some time studying the schematics and the great repair guides at Marvin3m.com (which I think are written by This Old Pinball host Shaggy/Clay). I found the wires involved (plug J3 on the Coin Door Interface -- hey, it turns out I really did need one! probably not two, though), and since they're just buttons I can probably "press" them by connecting the appropriate pins (7, 8, 9, and 11) to ground (3). Crisis averted, maybe. I'll wait to get the display working before I try that trick.
While I was looking at that, I plugged in the speakers I bought to the audio board, and they seem to work. I also found some stray plugs that were unplugged.
On the (rare) plus side, this week I sold a bunch of the playfield spare parts from two of my recent eBay purchases to a couple of guys. Two guys bought a post each, one guy is on the fence about 2 posts, and one guy got what was left of the Judge Dredd parts. All together it's about $17, and the stuff itself cost me just under $20, so that's not too bad. I'll take my blessings where I can find them.
I did my testing on the DMD based on the suggestions from rgp. It turns out when I looked at the Tested and Working display driver board, the Q2 transistor and the D3 diode were MIA. Q2 might have broken off, but D3 was cleanly removed, solder-sucked and everything. It also has scorch marks on the back, never a good sign in a high voltage area. I wanted to see if this is actually a different board than the one pictured in the auction, but of course it was one of those where the pictures are hosted, so they're no longer visible (I need to save pictures of auctions I win... pinballchuck, a paragon of virtue, always includes a printout with all of his items). I contacted the seller from eBay, and to my shock and amazement he replied back saying that he can replace the board or refund my money. So I put that board in the mail today, and we'll see if he sends me a replacement. I was kind of considering getting a new board -- they're only $90+s/h, and I'm already into this used one for almost $80 -- but we'll see if this guy comes through with a working replacement.
Today's revelation -- and wanting desperately to change the blog name -- came when I decided to see if I could navigate through the errors without the DMD using the diagnostic buttons... basically see if I get any reaction when I press the button, which I think should be some bloop bloop bloop noises. After checking the menu controls in the Visual Pinball VPM version of the game, I soon discovered that there are no diagnostic buttons! There's nothing at all on the coin doors except the coin slots. Oh, the zumanity! Actually, it was really annoying because I'm really tired of finding stuff missing, so to speak. Anyway, I spent some time studying the schematics and the great repair guides at Marvin3m.com (which I think are written by This Old Pinball host Shaggy/Clay). I found the wires involved (plug J3 on the Coin Door Interface -- hey, it turns out I really did need one! probably not two, though), and since they're just buttons I can probably "press" them by connecting the appropriate pins (7, 8, 9, and 11) to ground (3). Crisis averted, maybe. I'll wait to get the display working before I try that trick.
While I was looking at that, I plugged in the speakers I bought to the audio board, and they seem to work. I also found some stray plugs that were unplugged.
On the (rare) plus side, this week I sold a bunch of the playfield spare parts from two of my recent eBay purchases to a couple of guys. Two guys bought a post each, one guy is on the fence about 2 posts, and one guy got what was left of the Judge Dredd parts. All together it's about $17, and the stuff itself cost me just under $20, so that's not too bad. I'll take my blessings where I can find them.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Struggles and Triumphs
Well, that was an adventure.
I spent a great deal of time last weekend testing and agonizing. First I installed as many new parts on the playfield as I could, and put back the parts I had taken off for the purpose of comparing with new parts. I was able to replace the slingshot posts with stuff from the Judge Dredd parts, and two of the spanners from the Hurricane lot fit under the ramp on the left slingshot, so that was reasonably successful (I also contacted the other bidders on those auctions so I can share the wealth). I fastened down the long ramp and dove in.
The new power supply freaked me out. I installed it while my daughter was watching the commentary on Clerks. Everything seemed to work fine, but when I tested the voltages I got crazy numbers. I didn't want to plug it in to the power driver board and have it melt before my eyes, so I got some advice from the communal overmind at rec.games.pinball. A prompt answer from a guy with a transformer page indicated that I shouldn't test the voltages against ground, but rather against each other... so pin 1's 20.6VAC and pin 2's 8.5VAC suddenly became about 10VAC when measured against each other. I'd actually seen his page before when I was searching for a way for the transformer I had to work, but since that wasn't what I was looking for I didn't grasp its full significance. When the transformer tested out against all the values in the Measured Voltages table, I plugged it in to the power board. Nothing bad happened, all the LEDs that were supposed to light lit, and the one that isn't didn't. So we're in good shape so far.
Next I installed the CPU. Power on, the CPU booted, no problems. So I chugged though. It helped that my wife was catching up on new Doctor Who episodes (just released on DVD today! buy it now!), so I had appropriate background noise. I put in the rest of the boards and plugged each one in in turn... really the only noticeable effect of this was when I hooked up the sound board and got a beep at power on. Finally I came to the Dot Matrix Controller board, which caused the CPU to not boot. Bad. I checked some plugs and I think the ribbon cable wasn't plugged in properly or something. So finally I plugged in the DMD, started it up, and got this:
And just so you know, that's NOT the Bride of Pinbot saying she can speak ("Oh, no!"). A little poking around showed that one of the fuses was the wrong value (probably not the issue I found out later) and, after testing the voltages coming out of the controller at J604, pin 8 (+62V) was 0. Even I know that that's probably not a good sign. So much for "it is tested and Working", right. I like to believe that the fact that the guys shipped it in plain bubble wrap ruined the board. Or his test was that it didn't cause the game to explode when he plugged it in. Who knows. Anyway, after another post to rgp, the consensus is that the high voltage section is messed up, and they gave me some things to test. I probably won't make this my first foray into board repair, though the board does cost $50 to repair, ouch.
So that's where things stand right now. I've got a few things to test which I figure are my patriotic duty to perform (it being July 4th and all), then we'll see where that leads. I have to admit, I'm reasonably happy with progress so far, since things appear to be mostly functioning. I was kind of counting on the DMD to give me actionable error messages, but I guess the jagged line was a pretty clear message itself.
And while I was linking to The Machine: Bride of Pinbot page in ipdb (using my Mozilla search engine, of course!), I found a link to the homepage of the woman who did her voice! Kewl!
I spent a great deal of time last weekend testing and agonizing. First I installed as many new parts on the playfield as I could, and put back the parts I had taken off for the purpose of comparing with new parts. I was able to replace the slingshot posts with stuff from the Judge Dredd parts, and two of the spanners from the Hurricane lot fit under the ramp on the left slingshot, so that was reasonably successful (I also contacted the other bidders on those auctions so I can share the wealth). I fastened down the long ramp and dove in.
The new power supply freaked me out. I installed it while my daughter was watching the commentary on Clerks. Everything seemed to work fine, but when I tested the voltages I got crazy numbers. I didn't want to plug it in to the power driver board and have it melt before my eyes, so I got some advice from the communal overmind at rec.games.pinball. A prompt answer from a guy with a transformer page indicated that I shouldn't test the voltages against ground, but rather against each other... so pin 1's 20.6VAC and pin 2's 8.5VAC suddenly became about 10VAC when measured against each other. I'd actually seen his page before when I was searching for a way for the transformer I had to work, but since that wasn't what I was looking for I didn't grasp its full significance. When the transformer tested out against all the values in the Measured Voltages table, I plugged it in to the power board. Nothing bad happened, all the LEDs that were supposed to light lit, and the one that isn't didn't. So we're in good shape so far.
Next I installed the CPU. Power on, the CPU booted, no problems. So I chugged though. It helped that my wife was catching up on new Doctor Who episodes (just released on DVD today! buy it now!), so I had appropriate background noise. I put in the rest of the boards and plugged each one in in turn... really the only noticeable effect of this was when I hooked up the sound board and got a beep at power on. Finally I came to the Dot Matrix Controller board, which caused the CPU to not boot. Bad. I checked some plugs and I think the ribbon cable wasn't plugged in properly or something. So finally I plugged in the DMD, started it up, and got this:
And just so you know, that's NOT the Bride of Pinbot saying she can speak ("Oh, no!"). A little poking around showed that one of the fuses was the wrong value (probably not the issue I found out later) and, after testing the voltages coming out of the controller at J604, pin 8 (+62V) was 0. Even I know that that's probably not a good sign. So much for "it is tested and Working", right. I like to believe that the fact that the guys shipped it in plain bubble wrap ruined the board. Or his test was that it didn't cause the game to explode when he plugged it in. Who knows. Anyway, after another post to rgp, the consensus is that the high voltage section is messed up, and they gave me some things to test. I probably won't make this my first foray into board repair, though the board does cost $50 to repair, ouch.So that's where things stand right now. I've got a few things to test which I figure are my patriotic duty to perform (it being July 4th and all), then we'll see where that leads. I have to admit, I'm reasonably happy with progress so far, since things appear to be mostly functioning. I was kind of counting on the DMD to give me actionable error messages, but I guess the jagged line was a pretty clear message itself.
And while I was linking to The Machine: Bride of Pinbot page in ipdb (using my Mozilla search engine, of course!), I found a link to the homepage of the woman who did her voice! Kewl!
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