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Help with Gottlieb Gladiators

  • Thread starter Thread starter olonguet
  • Start date Start date
O

olonguet

Hi everyone,

New to the pin world I got a gottlieb gladiators pin recently. I was booting when I got but one day recently it didn't even start.

Display controler board and CPU board blink slowly as if they're booting fine, but nothing happens on the display.
I replaced the U8 gal chip on the Display control board, but no success. I replaced the on board battery and changed the U11 but still nothing. I tried with a new display but still getting nothing.
The voltage on the power supply seems stable and I don't notice any issues with the pot.

I'm out of ideas (and time) on this and I don't have a test bench to start probing the IC pins.

Anyone got any ideas what could be wrong with it, or even better would be able to fix the boards if I sent them ?

thanks
ollie
 
I'm no Gottlieb expert (calling @Poibug and @JMP) but connectors and ground mods are the first things I'd be looking at. Reseat all of the connectors and eyeball them for any damage or corrosion while you do. Has the game had the recommended ground mods done?
 
@Poibug is the technical one but yes, the connectors are almost always an issue. If not those, the CPU will be the culprit I'm sure. Not many people want to look at Gottlieb boards I'm afraid but you could try Jim @myPinballs to see if he's prepared to?
 
Hello and welcome. First thing to check is if the 5v regulator is receiving a stable 12v input and then outputting correctly 5v to the cpu board. As this is a system 3 game there are some differences to our beloved system 80b games, but some things are still the same! I would then double check the voltages at the dmd display power connector

Also confirm if the game appears to be in attract mode or crashed at boot. A good way to tell here is if the playfield feature lamps are strobing or stuck on randomly
 
thanks . yes voltages are double and triple checked at this point :) cdm is all good and power supply board checks fine too.
I haven't done the ground mod so maybe I should do that next. If this fail I can look into replacing cpu and ram on the cpu board . I've spare working dmd and display controler board so I'm pretty confident I can rule these out.
 
olonguet said:
thanks . yes voltages are double and triple checked at this point :) cdm is all good and power supply board checks fine too.
I haven't done the ground mod so maybe I should do that next. If this fail I can look into replacing cpu and ram on the cpu board . I've spare working dmd and display controler board so I'm pretty confident I can rule these out.
Click to expand...

are the feature lamps running in attract or not?
 
Have you checked the 3 bridge rectifiers?
 
to answer @myPinballs re attract mode, it seems to be in a limbo state. the coin up sound comes up when I trigger the switch and there's the odd attract mode sound coming up when I hit the start button. it's just weird. I do suspect the cpu board to be dodgy but I need to do the ground mod then before I can rule this out.
if that fails i need to debug with a probe but I'm just out of time at the moment and I need to set up a test bench for it then . I can fix arcade boards so probing ics is not an issue but it's more time at this point .
If someone can test and repair these I'll be more than happy to pay for their time and expertise :)
 
olonguet said:
to answer @myPinballs re attract mode, it seems to be in a limbo state. the coin up sound comes up when I trigger the switch and there's the odd attract mode sound coming up when I hit the start button. it's just weird. I do suspect the cpu board to be dodgy but I need to do the ground mod then before I can rule this out.
if that fails i need to debug with a probe but I'm just out of time at the moment and I need to set up a test bench for it then . I can fix arcade boards so probing ics is not an issue but it's more time at this point .
If someone can test and repair these I'll be more than happy to pay for their time and expertise :)
Click to expand...

Well the reason to ask about the attract lamps was to determine where you should be looking and yes if there's no attract lamps then it does sound like a bad cpu board. I can't remember though if system 3 needs both the display controller and cpu to be working before it will boot.

Before changing more ics randomly. I would check data cables and pin connections between these 2 boards.
 
thanks I will add this on my to do list then :) thanks for the pointers
I'm not sure which lamps are the attrack ones though ? The box and playfield light up fine on power up.
maybe I should make a video of what's happening
 
Needs display controller to boot on some System 3's iirc.
 
Needs grounding mods and bridge capacitors replacing first before anything else. The gottlieb MPUs are fairly bullet proof so a but alarmed that you have been changing components on there already! :eek:
 
Sys 3 pretty robust system. A mate once had a similar problem,was weird cos disconnecting coin acceptor, board cured it, try that.
Then disconnect power supply cable outputs,and move potentiometer a few times then reset the 5v,as pots can be a pita. Also ensure fuse holders for main supplies are not fatigued,had that before now
 
And believe me, connectors are a lot better on your sys 3 game than on sys 80 series!!
 
Right so after putting this on hold for a while I found the time to have another look at it.
I had already tested voltages at all connectors and ground mod had already been done. I ruled out the display as it tested fine in another pin.

The display control board had a blown zener dione so I replaced it but still no boot.
Looking at the cpu board I saw that the ram was a fujitsu equivalent of the required 6264LP mentioned on the schematics. I've had bad experience with fujitsu chips (multiplexers mostly but also other types) high failure rate.
So I took it out, got a Hyundai 6264LP, socketed it and it's now booting fine. yay!!

The battery had already been socketed and I replaced and socketed U11 while I was at it for peace of mind.

pfeww
 
Firstly well done on getting it going , secondly cheers for letting us know - in ten years time it may help make someone else fix theirs

Also sados like @myPinballs and @lukewells will enjoy the info on bad chips ;) I would too, but I'll have a few beers later and totally forget I read this
 
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