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nasty board repair ? leave or fix somehow?

AlanJ

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Joined
Dec 27, 2017
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Leeds, West Yorkshire
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Alan
my Paragon has been working fine for months. but has a worsening intermittent problem. the feature lights to the playfield keep going out. all of em.

i narrowed it down to what appears to be a loose wire or connection near the rectifier board. i took a closer look:
5648fc9c78273c2186a0c649dc5b228c.heic


and then on the reverse side this mess:
836b5288b855f0e7a9b4fbf4a9ca5db0.heic


the loose connection is not obvious and it’s not one of these directly soldered wires. why would someone solder direct? it makes me suspect the connector plug and sockets have failed in the past and maybe the problem i’m having is caused by that same problem.

so given this board is in the state that it is, do i add to the mess and solder another wire direct. OR. do i repair the connectors somehow ? any suggestions on what i’d need to repair this properly? it has 3 connectors 8,10 and 20 way


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That's definitely worth fixing.

The soldering on some of those joints look poor and it seems that the previous owner didn't care to wash away flux after completing the job - which promotes corrosion.

Aside from improving some of the joints, I would clean those connectors thoroughly and if no good, replace.

It's an ugly mess but looks like it will be just fine after a some TLC.
 
That's definitely worth fixing.

The soldering on some of those joints look poor and it seems that the previous owner didn't care to wash away flux after completing the job - which promotes corrosion.

Aside from improving some of the joints, I would clean those connectors thoroughly and if no good, replace.

It's an ugly mess but looks like it will be just fine after a some TLC.

I agree. I would remove the board and remove everything from it.

Give it a good clean and desolder and then rebuild with new headers, sockets and fuse holders.
 
Yea you can do that - no problems, everything is nicely train tracked too, so shoudln't be an issue, its a clean up rather than a search and repair job.

Looks like it'll be a satisfying fix once done.
 
Those connectors look pretty original. I rebuilt a number of them on my paragon with the superior crimp style connectors.

Andy at Pinball mania is your man. Do you have a crimping tool ?
 
Those connectors look pretty original. I rebuilt a number of them on my paragon with the superior crimp style connectors.

Andy at Pinball mania is your man. Do you have a crimping tool ?
Yhanks, looks like there is different sizes/pitch widths - So I'll measure what's actually there. No I dont have a crimping tool - looks like there are all sorts of different ones available.
 
Those connectors have all been previously changed as the original headers were white not black.

Most of the wires are from the transformer which are factory soldered to the board.

The problem in replacing the headers is that most of the connections are made on the component side of the board, so along with the old burning of the board, makes reliable connections to the header pins on the component side very hard to make. If you replace them again you will make the problem worse.

I would Identify the pin that is causing you a problem, and reinforce it with a jumper wire and leave the rest as it is.

Or you can buy a nice new board. Buy you still have to solder the transformer wires onto it.
 
Aha thanks Andy @pinballmania - didnt realise they were supposed to be there, but now I look at it again there are more wires soldered to the back than could possibly fit into the connectors.
 
Aha thanks Andy @pinballmania - didnt realise they were supposed to be there, but now I look at it again there are more wires soldered to the back than could possibly fit into the connectors.

I was thinking the same. Could not for the life of me see where those wires on the back would have gone into a socket but I put it down to the angle of the photos.

Andy is probably the voice of logic, reason and experience but If it was me I would still pull it apart as I'm still a kid a heart who loves to tinker, some may say an idiot :p
 
No I dont have a crimping tool - looks like there are all sorts of different ones available.
I use this crimp tool which is regularly recommended on here, does the common .100 and .156 connector pitch crimps found in pinball, for the latter size you can get trifurcon crimps that make contact on 3 sides of the header pin for improved conduction. I've had problems with the original IDC types where the original plastic shrouding drys out and the contact becomes loose, imho they were a cost cutting exercise in the first place but some prefer them. Haven't used it in a while as like you I've been buggering around with Jones plugs on EMs!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Crimping...-PC-Connectors-Terminals-HT-225D/120933035908
$_61.JPG
 
You could buy this from me for £15 inc post. Upgraded bridge rectifiers instead of the crappy ones bally used
Ok the original plastic cover wont fit but half the time they're missing anywayIMG_0721.JPGIMG_0722.JPGIMG_0721.JPGIMG_0722.JPG
 
This thing has been driving me crazy - I thought it was a loose wire on one of the connectors, but I saw yesterday that the feature lights on both the playfield and the backbox both go out. Each of these is driven by separate wires, so I tested the 5V coming off the board - TP1 . It is there when the lights are working correctly - I then disturbed the board and its wires and the lights went off and the voltage dropped to 0.5v. I then tested the AC coming into the board for this part of the circult - it read around 8.0v and is consistent at that whether the lights are on of off. So that tells me the AC supply is good.

The 5v circuit is very simple - basically the ac comes in via a 10A fuse and then straight to the bridge rectifier (which has a resistor across the DC output) - so, either the fuse is faulty or a loose/dry joint somewhere on the board. I tested the fuse - it is fine, even if knocked and physically disturbed., so then soldered up the bridge and fuse joints and so far so good! Will test it out over next few days.
 
These bally power supplies always seem underpowered to me, the lights seem to dim a bit as there are so many incandescent bulbs in these beautiful games.
 
There was an uprated type used on games with an extreme number of feature bulbs, such as Space Invaders, with all those infinity effect lamps between the two backglasses. The 5.4v lamp supply was from two half-rectifier packages rather than one small bridge type
 
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