This just started to happen on Stern Meteor.
Power on and the #3 Pop Cap lights up as well as Game Over and Tilt flickering. Sometimes they stay on all game, other times not. Seems to score ok.
Tilt is working as it should. I forced a tilt on it so that plumbbob is shorting to the ring and killing that turn.

I know that the #3 cap should not be on at start of first ball. It can activate switch with my finger but light does what it wants to do on it.

Any ideas on this?

Thanks in advance!

see video link below:

No, not recently. There are a few in the backglass but the LED's were put in over 6 months ago and the issue just started maybe a week ago.
I'll upload a pic with the backglass off.

I updated the backbox to all non-flicker leds maybe 6 months to a year ago.

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Well went from bad to worse.
Booted pin ok. Ran switch Test #2 all lamp test.
All the bulbs on Rocket Columns #1 and #2 out but column #3 was flashing.
All lites in the approach to the spinner out as well.
Also the lites directly in front opf the METEOR drops were out but the row below was on.
So I turned off pin, reseated some connectors on MPU board in backbox.
Now when I turn it on, I get the inital ding and led flash on cpu board, a couple second pause, then four flashes with the ding and that's it.
GI lights on. No feature lamps or displays lighting up.
Any other quick tests? I'm trying to remember what it means when the CPU stops on a certain step of the boot cycle.
It is the original MPU board. Has had a lithium coaxial soldered on the board since I got pin like 10-12 years ago.
Only new board is the power rectifier board down in the cabinet. Got that from Weebly.Com and was installed years ago.
Checked all those fuses.

Unplugged all the headers except for J4.
I left J5 in for now.
Power up.
Got 2 quick dings/flashes, pause, then 4 dings.
Power off.
Pulled J5.
Repeat boot. Just led flashes now as no sound..Just 4 flashes after the quick two I would normally hear at power on.
Time for new MPU board I take it?
Thanks for helping Quench!
CuJo

Let me know if you need a pic of a specific area...

PXL_20240331_144544427 (resized).jpg

PXL_20240331_144550890 (resized).jpg

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Has anyone had experience with one of these MPU replacement boards?

https://nvram.weebly.com/mpu.html

I've gotten Stern power rectifier board for Meteor and a Sound/Speech board for Alien Poker.

No issues at all. Very pleased with those two. And the cable set in the pic running from the top of the MPU board to the sound board on Meteor was from same company.

I like the option this board has over Alltek as you can set Meteor for Free Play and I don't think you can with Alltek.

F4 fuse good. Tested all of them. All good.
Getting 22.4VDC at TP3.

Now booting again (I think). Getting the two initial beeps, then pause, then 5 beeps and game initializes.
Back to how it was with the same issues I started this thread with.

See video:

Most of the lights came back on Rocket #1 and Rocket #2 column today when I tried to play game.(and hadn't touched J1 yet)
Spinner lane lights came on during the game too.
The lights in front of the standups came on too.
Not sure why Pop Cap #3 always lights at startup with the TILT flickering and Game OVER flickering too.

I will wiggle J1 on MPU when in light test mode and see what happens.
Thanks.

True on the EPROM windows. Been like that since I got it.

I'm still just considering the NVRAM MPU board from Weebly as an upgrade/update anyways to save my sanity.

Not sure it will cure everything but that MPU board is now 45 years old and had a rough life before I got it.

Thanks for the input! I will try the reseating again on the MPU connectors.

I think those 3 backbox bulb spots don't handle Non-Flicker LED's well. I swapped out one of the flickering LED with an incadescent and the flickering turned back to blinking. I'll replace the 3 bulbs and see. Last night, as I played, all the Rocket columns came back to light. I'd like to know in ALL LAMPS TEST if any bulbs stay off on purpose like mine does. Like the spinner lane and POP CAP #1. They aren't burned out as they do come on during play.
You could be right about the lamp driver board being the issue with the flickering.

Here is a cut and paste from NVRAM WEEBLY Bally/Stern Lamp driver board description:

"Attach included LDB J5 connector to the feature lamp / switched illumination bus, the typically bare wire common to all switched feature lamps. Like at the same player shoots again lamp on the backbox lamp door.

* Note about Stern MPU-200 games. In some cases games using the Stern MPU-200 board may experience a couple lamps flickering. The faster CPU clock in MPU-200 games has some lamps update closer to the zero cross point which exacerbates the flickering issue. Soldering a 470 ohm resistor across any lamp socket that flickers will fix it. There is a balance between wasting energy and pulling enough current to keep SCRs latched. I may decrease the resistor values for lamps that update near the zero cross in future versions. Bally and Stern MPU-100 games are not effected. *​"

No, they did not.

Eureka! Yes! J4 on Lamp Driver board needed reseating! Thank you Quench and all that assisted!

Every lamp has come to life on the playfield!

It always seems 95% of the issues are alway related to connectors.
I will clean inspect, maybe replace this one once I get parts for it.

For now I will just "buff" them lightly to remove some oxidation until I get the pins/connectors in.

I "wiped" the pins very lightly with some #600 silicone oxide paper until I can get to replacing the pins or just get a new MPU board.
No issues booting now and all the lights look bright again. And they ALL are on. Took some time to clean some GI sockets on the playfield as well.

I replaced the "flickering" backbox LED's with incadescent bulbs (4 of them).
POPCAP #3 is now lighting when it should too. Not on at game start. Tilt and Game Over bulbs no longer lit at game start.

Yep, that battery acid issues affect a lot of older boards for sure. I will probably just replace the MPU board if it fails me in future. I am aware I need connector pins as well.

Thanks again!
CuJo