WWFRR - all lamps out, possible short!

[Dinsdale]

Hi folks

Christmas is nearly upon us. So I thought I'd treat you all to one last pinball issue to see if you geniuses can help.

Problem: All lamps on Data East WWFRR are out. GI is fine.

What happened: I say GI is fine, I noticed a while ago that one half of the GI playfield was a bit flakey. Wiggling connector fixed it.

I should have left it.

Of course, I didn't. While working on my T2 issue, I had all my soldering out and I said to myself "You know, I may just need to reflow those pins on the WWFRR PSB"

I took the board off, took one look and thought "Nope - not getting involved with this"




So I put everything back. Turned machine on, everything ok (coils, GI) except lamps. Had a quick look, I had left CN4 unplugged. "I'll just plug that back in"

When I did so, spark on around pin 8-10ish. I know I shouldn't have plugged it in with the power on but I think it's given me a hint.

Troubleshooting
So I got my DMM and tested all fuses. All good. Hmmm.

I got the schematics out and it seems CN4 is served by F4. I replaced this for good measure. Still the same.

So I've looked for a short - I found a wedge lamp sitting on a coil switch (it fell down as I've got many plastics off due to them getting restored).

Well I removed this, and swapped out F6 fuse for good measure. Still the same.

It is weird that it is all lamps so I'm hoping it's something simple. I know DE boards have poor fuse clips but they seem ok.

Another hint is my PinSound board has an orange status light, and a status LED is lit that says "Weak Amp Pwr"... and the power for this board is piggybacked off CN4 with a Z connector.

Anyway... DMM results are:

- 80-90vac on all CN4 pins to both sides of F6
- 80-90vac on all CN4 pins to both sides of F5
- 9-10vac on all CN4 pins to both sides of F1
- 9-10vac on all CN4 pins to both sides of F2

Going to read the schematic a bit more.

 

[Dinsdale]

Was asked to check BR by a Facebook group and it was shorted. Bought a new one, and it's one of these that are right in the corner of the cabinet (not on a board). It was incredibly awkward to do and took an hour of bending in and soldering. Got it installed.

Plugged in connector, spark, fuse blew.

Frustrated isn't the word for it.

 

[Dinsdale]

Ok, adding this as a diary so that it may help someone. I have really narrowed down the issue. It's not a short on the lamp matrix, and it's not an issue with the backbox BRs.

The issue is with, of all things, the Data East Power Booster used for the PinSound board on DE games.

It's simply a splitter that plugs into CN4 and gives more power to the PinSound board. Turns out, unplugging this, replacing the fuse, everything, including the lights, work perfectly. The only issue is the sound is choppy, which is expected as that's what the Power Booster rectifies in the first place.

If I plug this into CN4 without it being plugged into the PinSound soundboard so it just acts as a Z connector, the fuse still blows. So it's almost like there is a short inside one of the pins.

I have ordered another one, though it is literally a splitter - so I'm not 100% sure it is fix the issue. Will test when it comes back and update here.