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Indy is holding his balls

J.C.Rox

J.C.Rox

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1 10 Years
Joined
Apr 11, 2015
Messages
3,014
Location
Haddington East Lothian
Hi all, my IJ (wms) is being a total dick today. It stars with the cpu board being repaired by Andy legend after the game died at the pinball party in Wales. it seemed to be fine but then it did random resets. I did the usual fiddles and now it plays fine, lock ball 1 and it loads the idol and drops another ball into the game to be fired into play, lock ball 2, loads the idol....then sits there looking at me blankly like I'm meant to do something. "Give me a ball please" I ask and it does a ball search then sits there again. This happens a few times then it drops both balls from the idol into play. Any ideas why this is happening? Cheers
 
Yep, likely to be a blown idol LED (or wire off). Can't remember if it's the Transmitter or Receiver but it's a common problem. I've repaired a few in my time. I think it's a heating issue as they are in close confines of the plasic cover.
 
Thanks fellas, I was over thinking it and thinking it was board related. Will check and hopefully fix tomorrow and report back! :thumbs:
 
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Check that the unlocked ball is rolling freely down the trough to the ball launch position. Otherwise it has nothing to give you.
 
Cant really test s*** today as the buttons in the door have been playing up! I fitted a new molex connector to the small board inside the cab on the left because the buttons were either jamming on or not working which made testing impossible. Yesterday they worked fine today they are being tricky again. It's a new 4 button controller fitted by @pinballmania so i doubt it's that.. hmm mm :hmm:
 
Ok controller working again, it's being difficult but did idol test all ok, checked all switches in both trough and idol everything seems to be working fine but still same fault??!!
 
J.C.Rox said:
Ok controller working again, it's being difficult but did idol test all ok, checked all switches in both trough and idol everything seems to be working fine but still same fault??!!
Click to expand...

I still think its a switch issue. If you put it in switch test and bang around on the playfield near trough or idol do you get any intermittant switch closures ?
 
No mate have just tried. Is there something that could connect superbly button not working, faulty intermittent controller buttons and this ball issue on lock 2 ?
 
And when it is in this condition immediately go to switch test and see what the CPU is seeing. If its gobbledegook to you take a picture of the switch matrix whilst it's in error and post it here.
 
So you need to work out what the CPU is seeing when you are in this state.
 
The coin door switches are normally one of the first things to play up if you have leaking batteries on the CPU board. I put new batteries in my TZ last year which started leaking after a couple of months and had a similar problem. I had a quick look at this and at first didn't realise they were leaking, the effect can be very subtle to the eye early on. No real damage was done to the board, the alkaline just needed cleaning up and neutralising after which all was well again.

This may explain the original problem you are troubleshooting too.
 
Andy you might be right, I stopped the game and looked at the switch test and the last ball hadn't rolled down. Didn't do that in test but had the game up on the props. But now the game is going nuts with no balls in its acting like balls are in the trough so loose connection somewhere. Will clean and fiddle and report back.

Arron cheers mate Andy had said there was some minor acid damege to boarD, got new batteries in but if fault persists then I guess a new board is needed!!
 
Sadly I had to dash off to work but will have a ruddy good look at this next week, Thanks guys for your advice and help will keep you posted :thumbs:
 
I had a similar (not quite the same problem) on my IJ. Had to do a LOT of work on the trough and trough onto boards to fix it. Don't discount the LM339 chips.
 
Update.

So had a go at cleaning the trough and noticed a small dent in the bottom which is just enough to stop a ball rolling down when the one infront is kicked up and out. I have no idea when or how this happened and why it's is there now. :hmm: Any ideas how to knock this back into shape?

Then, out of nowhere all lights and the dmd started flickering. I'm thinking my cpu board is kaput. ****. :eek:
 
Regarding the trough, I believe it possible to file/sand the divet smoother. Alternatively I think you can buy plastic guides that lay on top of it.
 
Last edited:
aaronhicksuk said:
Regarding the trough, I believe it possible to file/sand the duvet smoother. Alternatively I think you can buy plastic guides that lay on top of it.
Click to expand...
Cheers mate I'll look into that, im also going to use a couple of washers to increase the angle of the run so they have less chance of getting stuck. I'm more bummed about the cpu tbh but it's all progress! Does anyone know if a roadshow cpu board will work in IJ as @todler has one for sale? @pinballmania will that work?
 
Had a similar problem on a Tom earlier.
Balls not rolling in the though.
Found and sanded divets out and still the same.
Still happening randomly.
Then I realized one ball was very very ( very)slightly magnetized!
Enough that it wouldn't roll unless there was 2 balls behind it.
I've played Indy once so don't know if it has magnets but might be worth a look.
 
Cryptkeeper said:
Had a similar problem on a Tom earlier.
Balls not rolling in the though.
Found and sanded divets out and still the same.
Still happening randomly.
Then I realized one ball was very very ( very)slightly magnetized!
Enough that it wouldn't roll unless there was 2 balls behind it.
I've played Indy once so don't know if it has magnets but might be worth a look.
Click to expand...
Ahhh not a bad thought, definitely worth trying a new set.. cheers mate!
 
Talking of trough issues. I've just about finished rebuilding my WCS 94 and thought I'd give it a preliminary test drive. Dropped the balls in, pressed start, two balls load into shooter lane. Hmmm. Starts going over the optos in switch test. Everything seems fine. Tries again, press start, two balls. Check trough and boards. Two balls on start up.
It was at this point that it slowly dawned on me that I had put six balls in the game instead of five. :rolleyes:
 
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