Judge Dredd
Bally, 1993Does anyone know if there is a link between the two? Occasionally my JD display will lock up and sometimes when this happens one of the two upper flippers won't work. When this happens I start checking all my connections and pushing on everything will make the display and flippers start working but I haven't been able to isolate where the problems is since I do this with the power off. Is it safe to do this with the power on? Thanks in advance.
It had been working pretty good lately but the past week it's been happening more and more. I'll be playing and the display will just freeze. Usually the game will keep playing but sometimes one of the upper flippers (could be either but usually just one) will stop working. This morning the dmd just froze, then the upper right flipper then the lower left stopped working. The sound actually stopped too. I went to the power driver board and measured the voltage:
TP 1= a fluctuating 16v, +/- around .4v
TP 2= 4.93v
TP 3= 11.81v
I restarted the machine which usually fixes it. This time it didn't. So I turned it off again and started pushing on all connectors and chips. Thie few times a restart by itself doesn't fix it this always does. Sure enough, turning it on and it worked perfectly. I measured the test points again.
TP 1=a steady 16.2v
TP 2=4.94v
TP 3= 11.81v
I'm not sure if this means anything but LED 3 is out and LED 2 (I think it's 2, it's right next to 3 but hard to see the number) was a very erratic blinking when the machine was broke. When it was working I think the led was off but when the game ended it was out.
Thanks for any help.
Usually yes. Most times the game plays completely normal. The dmd freezing happens about once in 10 games but seems to be getting worse. Usually when the dmd freezes, everything including audio continue to play normal. When the dmd does freeze only a few times does that flipper problem happen and only when the dmd freezes do one or two flippers stop working. That audio problem is more rare than the flipper freeze. Both these problems only happen when the display freezes. That reset after the satisfying knock of the extra ball that happened last night was a first and at that time the game was playing normal.
I've only had a pinball machine for 9 months so I'm only guessing but I'd guess something is wrong with the power driver board? When I first got the machine I had problems with it right away and the seller swapped out the board for me. Everything worked pretty good for awhile and unfortunately I don't remember why it was swapped now. Guess I should try and find that out.
Despite being frustrated a lot of the time by the frequency of problems, I've rather enjoyed the learning part of this hobby and everytime I've fixed it I've felt that satisfaction you all must also feel. But this time it's different. I don't think I can fix it and I think it's likely to be an expensive repair that I can't really afford right now. Feelings that I have had that my JD is a lemon and I should ditch it (even though I love this game and think its the best value game out there) are resurfacing. Unfortunately, it's a catch 22... Sell "as is" and I lose my @ss, repair it and I want to keep it, until the next breakdown which has been every other week or so.
Except the knocker reset could be unrelated. I would start replacing ribbon cables first. I would consider testing the knocker in the solenoid test menu. If firing it there causes a game reset, you may have a diode issue. Since the knocker really isn't required for game play and is often annoying to many, I might just detach it in the backbox and consider that issue solved.
There is no direct relationship between the display and the flippers. It does sound like the CPU board is losing general communication with the rest of the system. The ribbon cables are responsible for that. The same ribbon cable runs from CPU board to fliptronics board to audio to video. If replacing that doesn't help, I might reflow solder on the CPU board pins on that cable and reseat the CPU, itself. Any battery leakage on the CPU board?
How is input power to the machine? Is it sharing a circuit with a microwave or a/c unit? Williams machines are very input power sensitive.
Quoted from markmon:How is input power to the machine? Is it sharing a circuit with a microwave or a/c unit? Williams machines are very input power sensitive.
I had a WPC machine that tended to reset often. It turns out that the voltage in my neighborhood is rather bad, regularly sagging to 105V. A plug in voltage regulator (like this http://www.amazon.com/OPTI-UPS-SS1200-Stabilizer-Automatic-Regulator/dp/B0007P11M4/ref=sr_1_3 ) completely fixed it. It could be that I had an iffy capacitor somewhere, but a unit like the Opti regulator is barely more expensive than a standard surge protector, so it is a no brainer.
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Grand Rapids, MI
