(Topic ID: 178539)

$100 sttng fix me challenge - experienced techs only

By Djshakes

7 years ago


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  • 153 posts
  • 34 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 7 years ago by Homepin
  • Topic is favorited by 27 Pinsiders

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There are 153 posts in this topic. You are on page 3 of 4.
#101 7 years ago

Okay, totally strange but I flipped the wires around at connector like you said, no change. Flip them back and it works. I know I wasn't reading it wrong before, I did the test a million times. Oh well, seems to work. Home at wire form.

I did something so fucking stupid I want to puke. I got two used dmds in mail I bought for backups. Figured I'd test them. Use sttng to power them. Both work, great. My fucking lazy dumb ass didn't turn off the game when I plugged the original back in and it now doesn't work. Check fuses, one appears to be blown. Swap it, nothing. Take both fuses out of my Indiana Jones, put in sttng bc I know they work, nothing. Take entire board out of ij and swap. Sttng dmd works fine. I think I fucked up something on the board. God damn it I could puke. I want to smash the machine. What parts other than fuse could go bad? I hate myself. I'll probably send out for repair.

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#102 7 years ago

Yikes, these are high voltage connectors >170VDC anode to cathode and are NOT interlocked by the coin door ... you really should never touch them with the power on.

That being said $#!+ happens ... let's just call it a learning experience. This is usually not a hard repair, but depends on what actually blew; the first thing that comes to mind is blown rectifier which is an easy fix. Fortunately there is an outstanding article on PinWIKI for troubleshooting this problem if you want to tackle it yourself. http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Williams_WPC#Display_problems. You can probably just hop to the power issues section if you want to make some quick checks. http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Williams_WPC#Testing_DMD_Controller_Power so we can see whats missing.

Optional: So the high voltage section of your Display Board is shot? Just pull out both the fuses and toss them in the box with your old plasma display and install the ColorDMD! This is the single best upgrade you can make to your STTNG, and since its powered by 12VDC you wont need that power sucking, heat generating section of the display board any longer. Please see http://shop.colordmd.com/colordmd-replacement-display-for-star-trek-the-next-generation-pinball-machine/ for more information

#103 7 years ago

I'll check the bridges tonight. Not sure how to test the caps or if they can go bad with a short or dipshit move I made. I can order the caps and bridges cheap. I was told as long as the logic isn't blown on the board it can be repair. Not sure how to test the logic? Hoping it is the BRs.

#104 7 years ago
Quoted from Djshakes:

I did something so fucking stupid I want to puke. I got two used dmds in mail I bought for backups. Figured I'd test them. Use sttng to power them. Both work, great. My fucking lazy dumb ass didn't turn off the game when I plugged the original back in and it now doesn't work. Check fuses, one appears to be blown. Swap it, nothing. Take both fuses out of my Indiana Jones, put in sttng bc I know they work, nothing. Take entire board out of ij and swap. Sttng dmd works fine. I think I fucked up something on the board. God damn it I could puke. I want to smash the machine. What parts other than fuse could go bad? I hate myself. I'll probably send out for repair.

Sweet!! Toss the DMD's aside and don't worry about repairing the HV. Now is the time for several ColorDMD's.

#105 7 years ago
Quoted from Djshakes:

Hoping it is the BRs.

Please take a look at the Can you see any physical damage to the board around the lower right side? you are going to test these similar to the way you checked the power board BR.

All checks with power off. You can limit your checks if you know what voltage you are missing; BR1 for +62V or BR2 for -125V

BR1
J605-1 to ground, J605-1 to C4 +
J605-2 to ground, J605-2 to C4 +

BR2
J605-3 to ground, J605-3 to C7 -
J605-5 to ground, J605-5 to C7 -

DMD Power (resized).jpgDMD Power (resized).jpg

#106 7 years ago

Checked bridges, all legs giving .53 so they are good. Voltage reading at dmd:
Pin1 - - 114.9
2 - - 102.8
6- 5v
7- 12v
8 - . 8v

I think pin 8 identified the culprit. No 62v reading. Just bring sure what part to change I can trace the leads from that wire I guess. I'm thinking maybe the R11 resistor?

www.greatplainselectronics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=WPC-HVP-KIT

#107 7 years ago
Quoted from Djshakes:

I'm thinking maybe the R11 resistor?

does it, or anything else looked burned? If not, I would measure the voltage on both sides of the resistor as a starting point.

#108 7 years ago

$5 for the repair kit, it pains me to say it but at that cost it's not a bad way to go for the price. I've actually done this before, since the machine was down anyway, I figured what the hell, I'll just replace it all and troubleshoot it later if it doesn't work...it worked. I would stick to the 62V side only though since the other voltages look good.

#109 7 years ago

Nothing looks burned. Board in great shape. I'll test resistor ohms tonight.

#110 7 years ago

I think it is r11. Readings bouncing all over the place. Other two register 4.7 and 1.8, right where they should be. Wonder if radio shack has these?

#111 7 years ago
Quoted from Djshakes:

Readings bouncing all over the place.

You need to remove at least one leg to measure them. You can't get an accurate reading in circuit.

LTG : )

#112 7 years ago
Quoted from LTG:

You need to remove at least one leg to measure them. You can't get an accurate reading in circuit.
LTG : )

Thank you for input. I know you know what your doing. Do you think given the readings are accurate on other two resistors and with the 62v reading is dead there is a strong possibility that it's not coincidence that resistor feeding the 62v is the only thing not testing right? Wouldn't you gamble on this being it? If radio shack carries them I could quick swap. Wouldn't hurt right? Can you put cement resistors on backwards?

#113 7 years ago
Quoted from Djshakes:

Can you put cement resistors on backwards?

No.

Quoted from Djshakes:

resistor feeding the 62v is the only thing not testing right?

Easy to remove and check.

Quoted from Djshakes:

Wouldn't you gamble on this being it?

No, on expensive boards I prefer to not gamble.

LTG : )

#114 7 years ago
Quoted from LTG:

No.

Easy to remove and check.

No, on expensive boards I prefer to not gamble.
LTG : )

Damn you, I want life to be easy! OK, I'll check it in the morning.

#115 7 years ago

Really great thread. Thanks everyone -- esp. pin_guy and Djshakes.

#116 7 years ago

The $5 shotgun kit usually works great and is pretty easy to install. Great practice for building your PCB repair skills, plus it isn't that expensive of a board if you totally melt it.

#117 7 years ago

As suspected, no reading. Hopefully radio shack has. I'll swap this out, if it doesn't work board goes out to Lloyd. Spot tested some other resistors, even though in circuit, I still get readings. Noticed a little burn under r8 but very minimal.

Other progress, got most of game back together. Need to remove beta ramp again bc I bought pop bumper led discs. Hoping pinballife order gets here today and radio shack has what I need. Might be able to test game tonight.

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#118 7 years ago

Found a place that has them. Probably get a couple caps just in case as well.

#119 7 years ago

It's coming along nice! I see you got your delta ramp protector, bumper caps, and new bands installed; your playfield appears to be in really nice shape, this could be a side benefit of buying a non-operational machine I'm sure you you cant wait to play it, and I'm looking forward to hear how that goes.

#120 7 years ago
Quoted from Pin_Guy:

It's coming along nice! I see you got your delta ramp protector, bumper caps, and new bands installed; your playfield appears to be in really nice shape, this could be a side benefit of buying a non-operational machine I'm sure you you cant wait to play it, and I'm looking forward to hear how that goes.

I order the kit from great planes. Electronic store was 20 miles away and I have a lot going on. I figured I could pull board out of IJ. I see my pinside order came today. I WILL have an update tonight after I assemble. All the ramps have protectors. No playfield wear. Not a scratch on the cabinet. It could probably be considered collector quality and I don't throw that term around loosely. Some wear around the neutral zone hole completely covered by cliffy. I'm praying it fires up and plays. I'll be posting around 10pm pacific time tonight with an update. Fingers crossed.

#121 7 years ago

Alright guys, midnight here and I'm exhausted. Everything hooked up. Played a couple games and it went into ball search mode when I sunk a hole. Don't remember which one. Figured I would do a single switch test. I tested each switch had to change out a couple. All the optos seem to be working fine. Went to lower the Playfield and noticed several beeps when I had it in switch test. I know these games are notorious for having trust issues. Noticed that when I would touch the ICD connector with the most cables it would cause all the trough switches to fire and the LED light to go out. Clearly the power is being cut and that's why all the switches fire and the LED flashes. I also noticed a bit of a hack on the other small ICD connector on the opposite trough. I think those ICD connectors are a bit of a pain to get but I could be wrong. Can I Reflow this board or do I just bite the bullet and buy new boards? See video.

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#122 7 years ago

Unbelievable, ground wire in idc connector was loose. Pushed it in with driver tool. No more issue. Finally catch a break. Time to play even though I need to get to bed. Will report back. I do notice the left Cannon doesn't cycle on start up.

#123 7 years ago

Awesome job man

#124 7 years ago

Having a couple issues. Sometimes when left Cannon is loaded ball completely jumps the wire form. Adjusted it with two nuts but didn't help. The solenoid seems powerful. Wondering if I should deaden with foam on top of the vux? A couple times when I hit the mission hole the game went into ball search mode for two cycles because the ball never kicked out. Then later it kicked out an extra ball during play. I may have to pull subway and clean all the optos. However, all worked properly in single switch test.

At least I'm at a point where I feel like progress is made. I seriously need to sleep, I just crank and crank. It's a problem.

Such a fun game. I owned one stern and it was star trek. It was gone in two weeks. This game craps all over that.

#125 7 years ago

FYI, both cannons do not necessarily cycle in boot up. Had mine for years with no issues and had this behavior.

#126 7 years ago
Quoted from Djshakes:

Having a couple issues. Sometimes when left Cannon is loaded ball completely jumps the wire form.

Quoted from Djshakes:

The solenoid seems powerful.

Things to check:
1: Make sure the play field slope isn't too steep and that it's level side to side.
2: Measure the coil resistance, this coil should be an AE-800 and measure 4.2 ohms (you never know if someone removed a few layers of windings or installed the wrong coil. I found one like this in my machine, the tech made it stronger by removing coil winding rather than fixing the actual problem
3: Check that the popper housing is tightly secured to the playfield

Quoted from Djshakes:

I may have to pull subway and clean all the optos. However, all worked properly in single switch test.

Fortunately you wont have to do this, you can remove all three pairs of optos without removing the subway. If you think it would be easier, you can remove the entire subway wiring harness fairly easily, there is one coil connector and one switch connector; if you do this, the only spot you will have difficulty is the coil wires, probably easiest to just remove the coil brackets and pull the harness with the two coils attached.

Subway (resized).jpgSubway (resized).jpg

The ball search you describe shouldn't occur with just a failed/intermittent subway opto alone, as the ball should be seen by optos in the VUK that its fed to, the problem you are describing sounds more like a VUK opto problem. A good check to do is to remove all the balls from the game, with no balls installed, all 23 of the optical switches should read closed, if one doesn't its not working.

Another good check you can do for the VUK's is to load 4 balls, one at a time, into any of the subway holes while monitoring your switch edge test. Since the subway coils will be de-energised all the balls will lead to the Left lock, this VUK has four optos and you should see them sequentially close as the balls pass by the optos, then read open where each ball is sitting. So after loading all 4 balls, switches 35, 41, 42, and 43 should have all changed from closed to open.

A working STTNG matrix with no balls installed should look like image below, the light green switches may or may not be closed depending on the drop target position and the if the coin door is open, but you are primarily concerned with status of the optical switches in columns 3, 4, and 6.

STTNG Switch Matrix-no balls (resized).jpgSTTNG Switch Matrix-no balls (resized).jpg

#127 7 years ago

Thanks Pinguy. I bought my last bit of hardware today. I'll try your tests tonight and report back.

#128 7 years ago
Quoted from wxforecaster:

FYI, both cannons do not necessarily cycle in boot up. Had mine for years with no issues and had this behavior.

I've noticed the same with mine. Interestingly, both cannons used to cycle at startup, but at some point the right stopped and hasn't for quite some time. Still works fine, though.

#129 7 years ago
Quoted from Pin_Guy:

The ball search you describe shouldn't occur with just a failed/intermittent subway opto alone, as the ball should be seen by optos in the VUK that its fed to, the problem you are describing sounds more like a VUK opto problem.

There is another possibility I touched on near the start of this topic that can also cause this issue, although the problem I'm about to describe normally shows up as a continuous cycling of balls at the end of a game.

If the subway diverters still have the original factory grease on them, this grease will now be hardened and applying additional friction to the diverter shaft, rather than reducing it. If this happens, the spring release may not have the required energy needed to fully operate the diverter and leave it in a position that will actually catch a ball between the diverter arm and subway side wall causing you to have a lost ball. Later during your play, another ball comes down the subway striking the first and forcing the diverter open enough to allow both balls to pass to the VUK, the VUK would then send not one, but both balls back into play as the game knows how many balls should be in the lock.

This is easy enough to check for, just manually turn the subway diverters and then leg go, if they don't snap right back to their full de-energized positions, then you will need to address this.

#130 7 years ago
Quoted from Tripin:

Quoted from wxforecaster:
FYI, both cannons do not necessarily cycle in boot up. Had mine for years with no issues and had this behavior.
I've noticed the same with mine. Interestingly, both cannons used to cycle at startup, but at some point the right stopped and hasn't for quite some time. Still works fine, though.

Interestingly enough, when I power on my game both cannons cycle; however on a game reset, like leaving the maintenance menus, only the left cannon cycles; but, on a slam tilt reset, only the right cannon cycles.

#131 7 years ago

I'm checking my diverters tonight as well. I guarantee that shit is all crusty. I'll add new grease. Still pissed about the dmd board. Game could be full on operational tonight, maybe

#132 7 years ago
Quoted from Djshakes:

I guarantee that shit is all crusty. I'll add new grease.

Clean off old first.

LTG : )

#133 7 years ago
Quoted from LTG:

Clean off old first.
LTG : )

Yeah, I have electronic cleaner.

#134 7 years ago

Okay, my diverters snap back fine.

Threw four balls down advanced rank hole. When ball came to rest the following closed in this order. 41, 35, 42, 43. See pic. Also took pics switch matrix with no balls. They all seem to be fine according to your chart.

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#135 7 years ago

Try not to beat yourself up to bad over it, the game is looking great!

There could be a loose connection causing issues with the optos; intermittent problems can be tough to lock down, but one thing you can try for the mission start/ball search problem is to open the door when the ball search happens, read all the Switches from switch test to try and figure out which one is having the issue.

#136 7 years ago
Quoted from Pin_Guy:

Try not to beat yourself up to bad over it, the game is looking great!
There could be a loose connection causing issues with the optos; intermittent problems can be tough to lock down, but one thing you can try for the mission start/ball search problem is to open the door when the ball search happens, read all the Switches from switch test to try and figure out which one is having the issue.

I'll keep trying. Added lit slingshot posts. Noticed diverter up by borg ship really gummed up. Will fix in morning. I accidentally left balls in subway when I lifted playfield. Upon start up after it went into ball search. Forgot to check vux coil for ohms. Wife is going to kill me if I don't take a break. Hard to turn off. My buddy just brought over a scared stiff for me to shop out as well. Mainly lights and rubbers. It'll have to wait till sttng done.

Should I be concerned I got different numbers than you on the four ball subway test?

#137 7 years ago
Quoted from Djshakes:

Should I be concerned I got different numbers than you on the four ball subway test?

Nope, yours are correct, I had one of the switch numbers listed wrong and went back and corrected it

#138 7 years ago

Took all the optos out of the lock area and from under guns. They all test fine. Checked the ohms on the left Cannon. 4.1 reading. Think that's fine. Game is level. I'll get some more time on the game, especially when I get dmd board fixed. I know I'll pull the subway out to clean in the next couple weeks. It drives me nuts being dirty.

Played like seven games without a dmd and no errors or ball searches. Nice. Minor issues I need to address:

The ball hits the ramp when launching from right Cannon. Not sure if spacing is right.

0130172139 (resized).jpg0130172139 (resized).jpg

Need to adjust pop bumper switches for greater sensitivity.

Trigger is really mushy, might be missing a spring.

When ball ejects to shooter Lane it often bounces off side and goes back in trough.

Need to add rubber behind targets next to ramps to cut out airballs.

Look down bar hard to lock in place. I think the brass screws adjust.

A couple other things I'm sure I'm forgetting.

#139 7 years ago

Hey cosmetically you scored!

#140 7 years ago
Quoted from Djshakes:

Trigger is really mushy, might be missing a spring.

All I did to mine was took it apart and cleaned it real good and it was much happier after that. It seems like there was some kind of greasy gunk in mine, all I did was clean it real good and put it back. I have no pictures of it apart

#141 7 years ago
Quoted from Djshakes:

Need to add rubber behind targets next to ramps to cut out airballs.

I also get a lot of air balls off mine as well, but as I recall this title was known for that, especially on the Beta Ramp targets, couple that with having a clean and waxed play field, and it's even harder to avoid, I just decided to accept it.

#142 7 years ago
Quoted from Pin_Guy:

I also get a lot of air balls off mine as well, but as I recall this title was known for that, especially on the Beta Ramp targets, couple that with having a clean and waxed play field, and it's even harder to avoid, I just decided to accept it.

I might be able to return a favor on this one. The shadow is known for crazy airballs off the left ramp. I removed the foam completely, cut up an old flipper rubber and super glued to the target where the foam was. Make it the same width as the old foam. NO airballs. I did the same thing to Ibjames sttng beta ramp. NO airballs. I guarantee this will work. Costs nothing and is worth everything! This works on all games.

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#143 7 years ago

Grunge

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#144 7 years ago

Awesome thread!!!

#145 7 years ago

I should have taken an after picture but too excited to get it back in.

#146 7 years ago

Got my great planes kit. Changed the 120 Cement resistor. Nothing. Changed cap, nothing. Then started shotgunning based on ohm readings, etc. Change the zener diode, about three other resistors. No go. Finally decided after an hour, Wtf am I doing, I could send this out for $50. So it's in a box ready to go to Loyd.

#147 7 years ago
Quoted from Djshakes:

So it's in a box ready to go to Loyd.

If you mean me, look into Borygard, Chrishibler, and Johnwartjr that post here. They do board repairs and are good at it.

LTG : )

#148 7 years ago
Quoted from LTG:

If you mean me, look into Borygard, Chrishibler, and Johnwartjr that post here. They do board repairs and are good at it.
LTG : )

I just bought a rottendog board for $95. Figured it would cost me a minimum of $50 to repair plus $20 in shipping both ways. I can take my time and try to rebuild the whole board without rushing. If it ends up working I can sell or keep as a spare.

#149 7 years ago
Quoted from Djshakes:

Figured it would cost me a minimum of $50 to repair plus $20 in shipping both ways.

That's a fairly close estimate, I would charge $50 just to look at it plus parts/labor to fix it, my guess is you would be in for more than the cost of the Rottendog board no matter who fixes it. Just the nature of the beast these days.

#150 7 years ago

Got the rottendog board in. All good. Last thing is this left Cannon shooting over the wire form. Driving me NUTS. At least it is mechanical. I'll figure it out. I got four hours of sleep Friday night and last night another four. Was up stripping a scared stiff and putting cliffys, all new rubbers, leds for a buddy. . God are those ramps a pain. I finished in four hours. I thought I was going to collapse. I seriously need to turn off the switch.

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