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Strange resets on multiple machines. Double flipping.

David_Vi

David_Vi

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This might all be a coincidence as they differ slightly but I've been having resets on 3 of my pins in the last few weeks. With Road Show joining in yesterday.

First of all,
AFM
It was resetting in attract mode, on one day. I checked the 5v on the power driver board and luckily for me it reset while the multimeter was on. There was no drop of 5v.
I fiddled in backbox, reseated seemingly random cables and it hasn't happened since.

ToM
During gameplay the music would stop (and resume on a different mode or ball drain) on rare occasions then the game would sometimes reset not long after.
Again, It hasn't happened for a week or so but I haven't played it a lot.
I also got a U6 chksom error on boot once...then it was fine (I've since changed ROM to 2.0 so maybe it'll resolve that?)

And the weird one,
Last night I turned on Road Show for first time in a week or so .
Game frozen and rebooted multiple times, I could replicate it with double flipping. Which says low 5v?
Monitored it with multimeter, dropped to around 4.7v sometimes.
Couldn't see any damage or cap leaking

Again, all of a sudden I couldn't replicate it again. Reseated connectors so maybe that's why,

Is it common to have issues like this that just go away?
Absolutely hate these intermittent issues.
Bit scared to try Fish Tales now🤣
 
I have 5 Bally/Willams machines and Chris at the pinball office has many more that I’ve worked on.
All of mine and a few at the office have been resetting in the time we have owned them, in my experience they are only 3 common reasons.

1) check the plugs on the power driver board for any brown burnt plugs, in the worse case the socket will need replacing.
unplugging the plugs and plugging back in did fix a couple at the Office.

2) These machines are nearly 30 years old and the 5x 15000 mf are now low in capacitance, with a meter I found all the machines I worked on they were low by 10% or at least one out of the five by 50% for the cost of them just change them, the 3 remaining smaller capacitors I changed them at the same time as they are pennies to buy on e.bay, again some measured low.

3) the two rectifiers under the heat sink run hot, while changing the capacitors I change these two for the longer leg type to allow more airflow making them run cooler.

So everyone that I worked on it was one of the above fault, pinball Heaven and pinball mania sell the Capacitors and rectifiers.

If you have never soldered double sided print before, don’t do it yourself you will damage the print.
 
Andy Netherwood ,he of Pinball Mania fame and legend 😁always used to give this advice for resets ....... see below

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A problem with BR2 is a possibility, but is in fact rarely the cause of most reset problems.

It is more likely that there is a bad power connector. You need to carry out these checks first.

Measure against ground on a DC scale the voltage reading at TP2 on the power board the 5V test point. If this is below 4.9 V then you have a problem on the power board, either with the LM323K regulator or the J101 power input connector.

Look to the right hand side of the power board and locate connector J101 which has red and blue wires. Remove and replace a couple of times. If it is scorched then it needs replacing. Re-check the 5V and see if any improvement.


If still less than 4.9V then replace LM323K rectifier.

If 4.9v or above, make a note of the reading and then take another measurement on the CPU on the top end of the copper coil you can see to the right hand edge of the CPU. If this is more than 0.04V less than the recorded reading from TP2 then the power connector between the two boards is at fault.

Locate the short grey ribbon connector that joins the CPU and power driver board.


Now remove and replace the connector directly below this on the power driver board. Do this several times, which basically removes contaminants and improves connectivity.


This may well solve the problem, but it may re-emerge in the future and the connector may need replacing long term.


If all the voltages are good, and you have more than 4.9V consistently on the CPU then you are at liberty to replace BR2 and its capacitor.
 
Take a socket off the wall where the pins are and meter the brown and blue wires, just be careful not to touch anything ⚡️

Should be about 230v but could be up or down 10%, its about 242v here.
 
I had this with Cosmic Gunfight. Replaced several of the connectors and it seemed to resolve it. Then it came back one day.
I re-pinned one of the connectors (again) and its been fine ever since.
 
M4carp said:
Take a socket off the wall where the pins are and meter the brown and blue wires, just be careful not to touch anything ⚡️

Should be about 230v but could be up or down 10%, its about 242v here.
Click to expand...
Does it matter where? Or can rooms/rings vary?
I've got a lot of sockets without plates on due to doing the place up😁
 
HomerRamone said:
I had this with Cosmic Gunfight. Replaced several of the connectors and it seemed to resolve it. Then it came back one day.
I re-pinned one of the connectors (again) and its been fine ever since.
Click to expand...
Maybe cold solder ?
 
David_Vi said:
Maybe cold solder ?
Click to expand...
Maybe - but it was doing it consistently. Re pinned connector and it wasnt. (I find the molex connectors somewhat intermittent when it comes to crimping - somethings they are a breeze, other times a pain)
 
This was super useful. I’ve just managed to get a pin back at home from storage, after a year or so! Hurricane. Lots of resets.

I wonder if anyone can advise if these numbers look ok for test points and at cpu coil.

My wall comes into the Molex for transformer at 250v. Seems ok with 10% guidance. Molex is pinned correctly for 230v

I’ve attached a picture of the readings, if anyone has five mins to review it would be appreciated.

Big caps were done back in Feb 21 and new 5v regulator popped in while there. I didn’t do the connectors at the time as they all seemed ok and I did reflow the board connectors.

I’ll keep on reading!!

I’ve missed my pinballs. Thanks to Chief coffee and NQ64 in Soho, I’ve managed to find a small fix when in London! 😁
 

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Irritatingly since I put Cosmic Gunfight in the office its started happening again. So not sure my connector stuff actually fixed it. (Its got a rottendog PSU so not sure it can be the PSU board - being at the office makes it trickier to actually work on though :()

I do have Gorgar at home - I can maybe check those the voltages on that when I get a chance if someone else hasnt)
 
Check the J connectors that provide power look for corrosion on the pins and ideally repin the headers.

Ideally I would give each board a cleanse in a Ultrasonic bath to remove any built up crap around the pins.

Measure voltage from the Power Driver board to the MPU board. Not just whether you are getting 5v on the test point on the Power Driver board.

Random resets 'can' be caused by bad/dirty ribbon cables. However you usually get something from the error report as 'Sound Interface Board error'. I replace all mine as a matter of course when I get a machine as most are either chewed up or so dirty they pratically look brown.


Intermittent faults are the worst thing to identify and resolve. I had an issue on my BSD for ages where a random switch was firing without being pressed. Turned out to be corrosion on the pin of the header.
 
CPU board has 5v at the coil. Im presuming that’s good.

I’ll do the connectors. Step by step!

Had that vain hope this afternoon, that reseating and testing and wotnot had helped. And then it resets. Haha.
 
biglouieuk said:
Had that vain hope this afternoon, that reseating and testing and wotnot had helped. And then it resets. Haha.
Click to expand...
I had that ... a lot.. all seems great.. then you play for a bit.. just as you get in the zone ... its resetoclock... scores go zero, flippers die and thats all she wrote :)
 
Just realised you're talking about hurricane.. So checking the Gorgar psu probably won't help here?
Doh
 
Everything Andy Netherwood says is correct - but I am going to add something.....

These days the smaller electolytic capacitors on power driver boards, and CPU board get changed on any game I repair. There are only a handful to change and replacements are literally pennies. I do change them on sound/dmd board but these have never caused reset issues.

Also extract, clean pins/socket and reset asic chip. Use the correct tool - do not bodge it out!

Some IDC connectors on these boards can feel very 'loose' - in this situation - I replace the IDC connector and pins.
 
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