TZ clock constantly going backwards

[bethamari]

Hi all,

We recently replaced our TZ clock board for an LED one from Pinball Heaven as it used to say clock is broken and it had a lot of the bulbs burnt out. The new board was working beautifully and the clock looked far better for it, we had quite a few games on it with it working.

However recently it's started to constantly spin the clock backwards when we power on the machine - it won't stop and we get a clock is broken message too. We've disabled the clock for now, but we're unsure why it is doing this when it's a new board and was working well previously.

Any ideas please?

 

[Garry Sp8]

If you go into the test menu T16 clock test, you can select clock forward/backwards and fast/slow. See what happens in these tests. It should also indicate the clock time as it goes round.

 

[bethamari]

We're doing the clock test and clock fwd. slow is behaving strange it counts 3:15, 3:30, 3:45, 4 etc okay which is matching with the clock until it reaches 9 it says gets confused and shows 8 again, 12, 5, 6 and 3. If fixes itself when it gets back to 3 on the clock face so all the bottom half of the clock is working but the top half when it's going around isn't counting properly.

 

[Garry Sp8]

It looks like the hour optos are not working properly. Could be an opto fault or something associated with it. As the clock goes round in the test, all 4 hour optos should show and go at some point through the 12 hours. Watch them and see if this happens. It looks like the 1/4hr optos are working ok, otherwise you would get faulty readings through each hour.

 

[bethamari]

Thanks. The 2nd opto in the row of 4 always appears to stay on throughout the clock test.

 

[Garry Sp8]

Looks like that's your problem then - that one should be showing on from around 2.30 to 8.30. A faulty opto or something associated with it. Shouldn't be the opto itself if it's a new board so check your wiring and connections. Connections between the 2 clock boards and the 2 on the bottom of the clock.

 

[bethamari]

Apologies for the delayed reply - been trying to fix up some other issues on IJ instead.

We've have the clock disabled for a while, checked the wires today and all seems okay. I did a test last night and it behaved much better and settled on 12 correctly. This morning it started going backwards again but then when I tried again it settled on 12 - went around again and has settled on 10. We do have clock attract time on.

Any other ideas of things we could try please? Is there anything in the back box for it etc?

 

[Sgt GrizZ]

If it's a new board then *assuming* it's working fine I would suspect any connection points as the weak link .... either where the 2 boards join - reflow solder ,or the IDC connectors - at very least reseat a few times, check no wires loose or redo them.

Do you know anyone local with a TZ ? - test your board in it just to be sure its 100%

 

[Garry Sp8]

Hi, you can test in my TZ if you like. I am expecting some new boards for my clock any time now so I will have to take it apart.
You can bring them or send them whichever. Or just bring the whole thing if you don’t want to take it apart again.
Cheers
Garry