This project bought by @Alpha1 with @Matt Adams doing the work.
It arrived with numerous issues that @Matt Adams started to resolve.
Here are some of the gems they found:
It had had a tough working life and was being kept alive with a lot of hacks.
@Matt Adams set about cleaning and repairing
But board issues before the strip down and afterwards appeared. @Alpha1 decided to sell the machine on in January and I picked it up as a lockdown project.
As it was at @Matt Adams house already, I decided to have him decal it as the playfield already looked like it was worth having a nice cab to go with it.
During this it had new bracket bolts, flipper buttons and cab protectors added.
What arrived at mine on the 17th of February was a lovely looking cab and good playfield but with a lot of technical issues to solve as well as the tidying up of playfield parts. Plus, all the other issues that hadn't been ironed out due to it not even booting.
Before firing up, I checked all fuses and disconnected all solenoids and GI to ensure nothing locked on or burnt out. Then fired it up, or tried to.
The MPU wouldn't boot so I tested the machine with one from CFTBL, swapping over the ROM.
This showed power issues on the driver board and display board issues so a scary DMD. Swapping in CFTBL display board showed the DMD was also running on half the columns. But we did have a something working.
Visual inspection of the MPU board showed several areas to inspect and I replaced an interesting addition of new capacitors piggybacking off an older one.
Using the correct tools, I swapped the ASIC chip and the processor with CFTBL's and tested the original MPU again. It booted.
I then swapped the original processor back onto the original board. It booted.
I then swapped the original ASIC back into the original board. It booted.
No idea what was stopping this from booting, it might have been the ASIC or processor needed reseating.
However, it wasn't exactly working perfectly.
REINSTALLATION REGLAGE USINE means FACTORY SETTING REINSTALLATION in French (hello to anyone googling this later)
It was now I found that the buttons to change the settings were not attached to the door and I could see them. They were there but fallen down inside the cab during moving. Once located, I set the machine back to English language in the menu and noted that the jumpers at W17 and W18 were missing (this would set the default to English from French). A reboot showed the settings were lost again.
New RAM was ordered and RAM cut off, socketed and replaced. Plus the 0 ohm resistors put into W17 and W18 so that if the settings are all lost again, default will be English.
I also had to replace ULN2803 at U20 as that was shot.
MPU now boot up, kept setting and appeared to be detecting switches. A game could be started but with no game solenoids and we were on to the Driver Board.
So many melted and bodged connectors. Connectors with the wrong colour wires, where they were cut off another loom and soldered on to the original loom. Often using sellotape instead of heat shrink or insulation tape.
I started working through all of these and molexing new connectors on. As I went, I noted where they all went and got rather indepth with WPC schematics.
I took a power reading from all the test points, checked over the TIPs on the board and reconnected the solenoids and GI.
Fuses blew and after replacing blew again. The 20v circuit was blow. Replaced the bridge rectifier and it fixed that.
Display board has had the HV power rebuilt as it was very bad.
Display still doesn't run properly. I replaced the RAM but that hasn't solved it so I bought a Pinled replacement so CFTBL got her boards back.
The last month of nights have been tweaking with solenoids, switches and optos to get them to work properly.
As I go, I replace the sellotape and bad soldering, the melted connectors and the dodgy pins.
Two obvious things left:
It arrived with numerous issues that @Matt Adams started to resolve.
Here are some of the gems they found:
It had had a tough working life and was being kept alive with a lot of hacks.
@Matt Adams set about cleaning and repairing
But board issues before the strip down and afterwards appeared. @Alpha1 decided to sell the machine on in January and I picked it up as a lockdown project.
As it was at @Matt Adams house already, I decided to have him decal it as the playfield already looked like it was worth having a nice cab to go with it.
During this it had new bracket bolts, flipper buttons and cab protectors added.
What arrived at mine on the 17th of February was a lovely looking cab and good playfield but with a lot of technical issues to solve as well as the tidying up of playfield parts. Plus, all the other issues that hadn't been ironed out due to it not even booting.
Before firing up, I checked all fuses and disconnected all solenoids and GI to ensure nothing locked on or burnt out. Then fired it up, or tried to.
The MPU wouldn't boot so I tested the machine with one from CFTBL, swapping over the ROM.
This showed power issues on the driver board and display board issues so a scary DMD. Swapping in CFTBL display board showed the DMD was also running on half the columns. But we did have a something working.
Visual inspection of the MPU board showed several areas to inspect and I replaced an interesting addition of new capacitors piggybacking off an older one.
Using the correct tools, I swapped the ASIC chip and the processor with CFTBL's and tested the original MPU again. It booted.
I then swapped the original processor back onto the original board. It booted.
I then swapped the original ASIC back into the original board. It booted.
No idea what was stopping this from booting, it might have been the ASIC or processor needed reseating.
However, it wasn't exactly working perfectly.
REINSTALLATION REGLAGE USINE means FACTORY SETTING REINSTALLATION in French (hello to anyone googling this later)
It was now I found that the buttons to change the settings were not attached to the door and I could see them. They were there but fallen down inside the cab during moving. Once located, I set the machine back to English language in the menu and noted that the jumpers at W17 and W18 were missing (this would set the default to English from French). A reboot showed the settings were lost again.
New RAM was ordered and RAM cut off, socketed and replaced. Plus the 0 ohm resistors put into W17 and W18 so that if the settings are all lost again, default will be English.
I also had to replace ULN2803 at U20 as that was shot.
MPU now boot up, kept setting and appeared to be detecting switches. A game could be started but with no game solenoids and we were on to the Driver Board.
So many melted and bodged connectors. Connectors with the wrong colour wires, where they were cut off another loom and soldered on to the original loom. Often using sellotape instead of heat shrink or insulation tape.
I started working through all of these and molexing new connectors on. As I went, I noted where they all went and got rather indepth with WPC schematics.
I took a power reading from all the test points, checked over the TIPs on the board and reconnected the solenoids and GI.
Fuses blew and after replacing blew again. The 20v circuit was blow. Replaced the bridge rectifier and it fixed that.
Display board has had the HV power rebuilt as it was very bad.
Display still doesn't run properly. I replaced the RAM but that hasn't solved it so I bought a Pinled replacement so CFTBL got her boards back.
The last month of nights have been tweaking with solenoids, switches and optos to get them to work properly.
As I go, I replace the sellotape and bad soldering, the melted connectors and the dodgy pins.
Two obvious things left:
- Mist multiball and the 24" opto board. The motor and magnet work but the optos do not pick the ball up.
- The brown wire GI for the playfield is blowing the fuse
