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Theatre of Magic Sound issues, Back Again :-(

Andypc

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Joined
Oct 24, 2015
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785
Location
London, UK
I have just had my Theatre of Magic Sound Board recapped to try and solve an issue with slightly scratchy sound. Caps C20 C21, C32, C41 C18, C19, C15 and C52 were all replaced. Unfortunately I now have a new problem with the sound cutting out completely after a few balls. This often happens when a ball launches and the sound just goes completely silent. If I switch off and switch on again the sound will come back for a few balls and goes again?

Any Idea's

I also noticed that the score increases 200 points on every press of the flipper buttons? Is this something I need to change in the settings or another problem?
 
I have managed to solve both issues. After reseating the ribbon cable for the third time the sound is no longer cutting out :clap: but I am missing the correct sounds when the Multiball is triggered?

I also solved the flipper button scoring which was down to the spinner switch triggering from the vibration, so a small adjustment solved that one :)

Unfortunaly I still have slightly scratchy sound, so any suggestions on what to try next?
 
I realised the incorrect sounds when the Multiball is triggered was due to the ball dropping from the trunk and triggering the spinner switch, so that actually solved two problems :clap:
 
I’ve recently replaced the ribbon cables on all of my WPC games at home - ToM and No Fear are much more reliable at power on now.


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I have a new set off ribbon cables and a set of new speakers arriving from Pinball Heaven tomorrow :)
 
I installed the new ribbon cables and new speakers, but unfortunately that didn't solved the issue :sad:

I was a little skeptical about trying this, but followed the PinWiki advice to cut off the ceramic caps C37 and C45 and it worked. :clap: The difference is huge and it now sounds amazing. I hadn't seen many post with feedback on how well it worked, but I would highly recommend it to anyone with scratcy sound from a DCS Soundboard.
 
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So removing caps C37 and C45 solved my initial issue with the sound quality. I am still having the issue of the sound completely cutting out that I did not have before getting the sound board recapped? Caps C20 C21, C32, C41 C18, C19, C15 and C52 were all replaced.
The sound just cuts out completely after a few balls. This often happens when a ball launches into the shooter lane after losing a ball and the sound just goes completely silent. If I switch off and switch on again the sound will come back for a few balls and goes again?

I thought I had resolved this with the brand new ribbon cables, but apparently not. Any suggestions?
 
when it happens, if you go into the menus do you get sound ?
 
when it happens, if you go into the menus do you get sound ?
Unfortunately not. If I go into the test menu and do the sound tests it's still completely silent. Even exiting the menu's, when it resets does not bring the sound back. It only come back if I power cycle the machine. Then it's fine for a few balls and happens again. :(
 
It could be a data issue, or maybe check how hot the heatsinks are on the DCS board. IF they are extremely hot then spray them with freezer spray and see if the sound returns.
Alternatively - do you have another game with a DCS board ? If so - swap he eproms over and try a different board. OR do you have a pal locally with a DCS pin?

These things are 25 years old now so no surprise they are getting problematic.

Woudl also run the game without the DMD board plugged into the ribbon cables, and same with the flipper board (obviosuly you can not flip or get the balls into the lock area!). It could be another board messing up the data.

I would also replace the caps you snip'ed off - they are there for a reason :)
 
This problem started before removing caps C37 and C45. According to pinwiki they were removed by Williams on later boards. Removing them solved the sound quality issue. Will try the other things you suggested.
 
Unfortunately not. If I go into the test menu and do the sound tests it's still completely silent. Even exiting the menu's, when it resets does not bring the sound back. It only come back if I power cycle the machine. Then it's fine for a few balls and happens again. :(

To me it sounds more like a DAC issue, or one of the caps in the final output section that was replaced is not installed very well. Who changed the caps for you? Have you got some pictures of the board after the changes.?
 
So removing caps C37 and C45 solved my initial issue with the sound quality. I am still having the issue of the sound completely cutting out that I did not have before getting the sound board recapped? Caps C20 C21, C32, C41 C18, C19, C15 and C52 were all replaced.
The sound just cuts out completely after a few balls. This often happens when a ball launches into the shooter lane after losing a ball and the sound just goes completely silent. If I switch off and switch on again the sound will come back for a few balls and goes again?

I thought I had resolved this with the brand new ribbon cables, but apparently not. Any suggestions?


Following on from my earlier message and checking the schematics, i would say check the changed caps C32 & C41 as these are on the output for each amp but it does seem unlikely both would be bad if you have silence out of both channels. The other caps changed would not cause a silence issue. They are all noise and power filtering related.

A better and more likely point to cause the silence would be the DAC or C22, where either of these is partially failing.
 
I had a similar kind of problem with a corvette, sound dropping out after the ball was launched ? Tests said that it was a faulty eprom. I popped them all out & Re seated them back into the holders & it has been fine ever since ! Worth a try if you’ve not done it already ?
 
That was next on my list!


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Had a chance to check out a couple of simple things tonight. The heatsinks are definately not getting to hot. I took the board out and reseated all the roms. Tested it again and the sound cut out at the second ball launch on my second game. Heatsinks were only luke warm. Unfortunately I can't easily get to the soundboards on my other games at the moment to try swapping them over. Phil is kindly sending me another set of roms to try.
 
I managed to get a spare DCS Sound Board thanks to pinballaction57 and a new set of roms thanks to Phil at Pinball Heaven. Stumblor kindly changed the two large caps just to be on the safe side as they looked a little bulged.
Dropped it into my TOM last night and played a load of games without any issues. So the problem definately appears to be with the original sound board rather than anything else in the machine. Any idea's what could be wrong with the sound board that would cause it to just cut out after a couple of games?
 
Does the fault occur at a certain event in the game or after X amount of time? If you turned the game off and on again does it fix itself? At the moment it does sound like a component is at fault after getting too hot?
 
It always seem to happen as the game launches a new ball into the shooter lane. i.e. just after a ball drain. If the game is turned off and on again the sound will come back on for a game or two before going again.
 
Didn't really try that, but did leave it for a few minutes before launching a ball and it was fine.
 
Would that conclude the fault is event triggered and not time/ heat? Maybe you can also try just letting the balls drain and see if that'd set off the fault in record time?
 
have you tested the voltages going into the board?

If I had to guess something is getting hot enough at the point of playing that sound that its then crapping out the rest of the board and the input to it. maybe worth swapping all the boards and see what happens.
 
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