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6 months old Ghostbusters Pro broke! Node board issue?

huggers

huggers

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Location
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Alias
Andy Hug
Okay so was playing my GB Pro earlier and my gf rang me. I caught the ball on one of the flippers and held it there until the call was over, 2 or 3 minutes ish. Immediately after this half the lighting on the playfield went out and I couldn't start any modes. Turned the machine off and on again and it now attempts to update the Node boards. It then fails this update. I ran a diagnostics test on the node boards and it says board 9 is not initialising. FFS! Any advice? I'm assuming I have somehow taken out a node board and need another? Where to buy? Any help is very much appreciated. Cheers
 
I thought the holding the flipper blowing transistors was fixed with the Spike board system?
 
Thats S#it to hear. Just goes to show these things really aren't reliable, no matter how new they are. Hopefully it's not going to be an expensive fix
 
After the horse has bolted and all that but you can enable the 'Coin Door Ball Saver' in the menus to allow the ball to drain without losing a ball. I don't like holding the flippers too long for fear of something burning out, not sure how justified I am in thinking that.

Hope you get a speedy (and cheap) resolution.
 
I hope you manage to get this sorted quickly and cheaply. It's always worth exercising 'mechanical sympathy' whatever age or type of machine you're operating. When you use the flippers on a pinball machine you're putting a huge load on the high power circuit through the swing followed by a cutout to low power as you hold it. That's pretty much just to stop it setting on fire. So holding it for two minutes is not good.
 
Marvello said:
After the horse has bolted and all that but you can enable the 'Coin Door Ball Saver' in the menus to allow the ball to drain without losing a ball. I don't like holding the flippers too long for fear of something burning out, not sure how justified I am in thinking that.

Hope you get a speedy (and cheap) resolution.
Click to expand...

Is there a coin door ball saver on GB? I normally use this on my machines when I want to take a call or something but does GB even have a door switch?
 
huggers said:
Okay so was playing my GB Pro earlier and my gf rang me. I caught the ball on one of the flippers and held it there until the call was over, 2 or 3 minutes ish. Immediately after this half the lighting on the playfield went out and I couldn't start any modes. Turned the machine off and on again and it now attempts to update the Node boards. It then fails this update. I ran a diagnostics test on the node boards and it says board 9 is not initialising. FFS! Any advice? I'm assuming I have somehow taken out a node board and need another? Where to buy? Any help is very much appreciated. Cheers
Click to expand...

Might be worth checking the main board in the back-box to ensure all your supplies are present, if you've lost the 9V then this may explain the node board not updating/initialising ?
Cheers Bob
 

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pinballtoys said:
Might be worth checking the main board in the back-box to ensure all your supplies are present, if you've lost the 9V then this may explain the node board not updating/initialising ?
Cheers Bob
Click to expand...

Hmm. 9v LED is flashing. What does this mean?

WAIT Disregard this. Light goes stable after a minute or so
 
Last edited:
huggers said:
Hmm. 9v LED is flashing. What does this mean?

WAIT Disregard this. Light goes stable after a minute or so
Click to expand...

because we don't know a lot about the SPIKE system i was just going back to basics and ensuring all the supplies were healthy, which yours are if the remain static after a time.
i did fix one of these boards that had lost the 9V but looks like yours is OK in that respect
Cheers Bob
 
I had exactly the same.problem on Kiss where ball got stuck in scoop and then refused to boot up saying node bus failure.
Stern wanted £500 for a new PCB plus return of original.one! Best bet would be contact PH if bought direct from them as should still be under warranty.
Bob at pinball toys did a great job in fixing mine for a fraction of the cost and not found anything yet he can fix although I'm still trying!!! Would highly recommend Bob if you need any repairs. Tuned out to be transistor which had failed from what I remember.
 
robotgreg said:
Stern wanted £500 for a new PCB plus return of original.one!
Click to expand...

Wow! They are certainly operating a parts racket! there is no way those boards even cost them £100 total taxed and shipped

Getting you to return the old one as well is a nice touch, they are basically making sure there are no spare parts floating about in the market, for someone else to fix and then sell on to someone who needs one, for a fraction of the cost that they want to gauge you with
 
So that suggest that they won't ship replacement parts until they receive your faulty unit back?

What's to stop them fixing up the busted board and then shipping it back to you as 'new'?
 
RobZombie said:
It's always worth exercising 'mechanical sympathy' whatever age or type of machine you're operating. When you use the flippers on a pinball machine you're putting a huge load on the high power circuit through the swing followed by a cutout to low power as you hold it. That's pretty much just to stop it setting on fire. So holding it for two minutes is not good.
Click to expand...

I'd be fairly confident that any old pinball machine doesn't care about you holding down the flipper button for any length of time, as long as the EOS contact is operating correctly and cutting the high power winding. We can use ohms law to work out the hold current on your average coil and it will be fairly low (I'll grab one in a minute and measure it if I remember)

Whitestar was the first system I believe that could do PWM hold (Data East uses voltage switching instead) and you can hold a standard coil on Whitestar no problem.

When Stern switched to SAM, they f*cked up the PWM duty cycle and had the on period too long (I took some screenshots on the scope a while back to compare the 2, I'll try and dig them out) and they don't seem to have managed to get it right ever since.

They even switched to retrofitting MOSFETs with higher current handling and lower Rdson, but they are still failing so they have not identified the actual problem. I should probably do some more research myself at some point, but I can make a couple of guesses at what they have not adequately dealt with. The first is thermal, as they are just free air floating. This is the least likely issue, as with a low Rdson, the MOSFETs are not going to be dissipating large amounts of current at the typical coil operating currents. The other more likely, is are they adequately dealing with the inductive kickback from PWM pulsing a large coil?
 
lukewells said:
I'd be fairly confident that any old pinball machine doesn't care about you holding down the flipper button for any length of time, as long as the EOS contact is operating correctly and cutting the high power winding. We can use ohms law to work out the hold current on your average coil and it will be fairly low (I'll grab one in a minute and measure it if I remember)

Whitestar was the first system I believe that could do PWM hold (Data East uses voltage switching instead) and you can hold a standard coil on Whitestar no problem.

When Stern switched to SAM, they f*cked up the PWM duty cycle and had the on period too long (I took some screenshots on the scope a while back to compare the 2, I'll try and dig them out) and they don't seem to have managed to get it right ever since.

They even switched to retrofitting MOSFETs with higher current handling and lower Rdson, but they are still failing so they have not identified the actual problem. I should probably do some more research myself at some point, but I can make a couple of guesses at what they have not adequately dealt with. The first is thermal, as they are just free air floating. This is the least likely issue, as with a low Rdson, the MOSFETs are not going to be dissipating large amounts of current at the typical coil operating currents. The other more likely, is are they adequately dealing with the inductive kickback from PWM pulsing a large coil?
Click to expand...

I've been the worlds biggest and most outspoken hater of Stern machines for the past 20 years. The cost cutting is obvious and off-putting. TWD and MET have really changed my mind. But if what you're saying is correct I give up all ideas of ever owning one.
 
OK quick calculation

Grabbed an old Bally coil

352 ohm hold coil
43v powered

I = V/R
43v / 352o = 0.122A
or 122ma current

and in watts thats
P = IV
43v x 0.122 = 5.2W power

Unfortunately there are no data sheets for pinball coils that I am aware of, so we can't calculate the temperature rise of the coil dissipating 5 watts, as we would need the thermal resistance to ambient value.

As it is a large package, I am going to have a total guess at 7c/w, so that would give a guessed temperature rise over ambient of 36.4c

At 25C ambient, the coil would hold indefinitely at 61.4c

Your average cheap enamel wire has an insulation rating of 130/150c, so your old solid state pinball machine literally does not care about you holding the flippers for as long as you want. I would need to work out the temp rise on a coil at a fixed current to verify that though.


What would be interesting however, would be if I would stop acting like a man, and read the manual for my scope, I could use some of the built in advanced math functions to actually work out the power dissipation of a SAM or Spike flipper coil under PWM hold and how it compares to old solid state flippers.

There is still an even more simple explanation for all this, it could be fake Chinese MOSFETs with a smaller than required die size. These are in such common circulation, it would not be infeasible for Stern to have bought a load.

If anyone ever has a flipper MOSFET fail It would be interesting to remove the other still working one, and give it a proper load test on my bench with a DC load and known current to check if it is real and meeting specs.



Hopefully everyone is not rolling their eyes at me right now and hopefully I am not the only person that finds things like this interesting :rofl:
 
She's healed! Installed a new node board and bingo. Big thanks to Phil from Pinball Heaven for sourcing me the part so fast
 
BigIan said:
Probably wouldn't have answered the phone
Click to expand...

I half thought about asking the gf to pay for it but I was pushing my luck buying it in the first place when we need a new bathroom so thought I'd best stay quiet!
 
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