Fincastle, VA
What all is required to access the emitter or receiver to align these two?
(Topic ID: 219893)
What's the symptom? Are you sure the optos are not aligned? A majority of time it's the board that's the problem. Homepin makes a good one that you can adjust. In any case put the game in the test mode and test the mist optos. If you move your hand across the pf and it registers then you can rule out the optos.
Symptoms? You're going to love this. Sometimes mist work. Sometimes not. Gotten worse over time. Turning game on last night and it would not load ball to mist holding area. Just firing coild and the magnet going back and forth under the playfield non stop and trying to realease the ball from the right hoding area. In magnet test it shows the beam is is broken and thinks a ball is in the beam. I have a homepin board I bought for parts in case needed. I swapped it in tonight. Worked good at first. Green LED lit nice and bright. Long opto worked in switch test. Then ran magnet test. Ball loaded fine. Went through the whole test checked out good. Dropped the pf and initial symptoms returned, not loading ball to mist and coils firing. Lifted pf. Green LED on homepin lit but dim. Long opo worked in switch test. Magnet test shows incandescent interference. Pulled J121 and killed all GI. Same error. Left the game on with pf up and in switch test mode. Was sitting here researching and I heard the switch goign on and off. Looked over and its beeping almost like Morse Code. Homepin green led flickering dim to bright and back with beeps. It finally I played with connectors at the 10 and 24 opto boards and it finally settled down but seemed to be not related to connector wiggling. Then I started lowering the pf to check in the back box. About half way down the long opto gets triggered (still in switch test mode). I lift pf up and it triggers. Im sitting there lifting up and down and at the same or nearly same pint the opto triggers. I do the connector and wire wiggle routine again and get nothing with pf up. Lower pf and get on off as I lower/raise pf. So I hold the pf just at the point it seems to be triggering the opto. I shake the pf and its triggering the switch. Then I hold the pf steady and twist it slightly clockwise and anticlockwise slowly. As it do this it triggers the opto. The green led reflects this behavior as I do my experimenting. I'm thinking the emmiter/receiver are slightly off and causing the eratic behavior. However if I can adjust the homepin to a stronger beam this may be what is needed.
JUst tried adjusting the homepin by turning the pot some. Seemed to fix the problem except still got lamp interference even though GI is still off. Could not get the on off trigger by pf motion this time at first. However after the game being on about 3 minutes its started triggering by itself again. Then it did the same thing with pf position and twisting. I considered maybe solder joint cold in the back box but not amount of wiggling triggers this in the back box or elsewhere. Only it does it some while leaving it alone. I can absolutely close and open the opto switch with pf lifting/lowering or twisting. Beam is solid with pf up. Goes open with pf down. All wiring harnesses are free with plenty or room and not tension. I flopped those around trying to trigger the bahavior without luck.
Well, I may have to re-read your post again to be sure, but it looks like you may actually have a flaky opto, the way you test it is to put the game in test mode and slap the pf with you hand to see if it triggers by the shock...also pay attention to which one is triggering, it maybe a different opto....if nothing is triggering then go we have to regroup and go back to the usual suspect the board. Looks like you know how to adjust but just in case the way you adjust the pot is by shorting out the pins on the connector with your finger while turning the pot to get a nice steady green. I will repost the directions for you....Do this an report back.
From Mike@homepin:
Unplug both J1 and J2 (the two small plugs on one end going to the TX and TX opto pair. Ensure the board has 12V supplied to it (the red LED should be on). You can have it plugged into the machine.
Place your finger firmly across all 4 pins of the J1 and J2 making a path between them. The green LED should light.
In case you have a high resistance finger....you can run a clip lead between the pin marked 'C' on J1 and the pin marked 'K' on J2 - this bypasses the RX and TX pair and all cabling between them.
If the green LED does NOT light the most likely cause is that the 'frequency center adjustment' - the small blue/white adjustment pot in the center of the PCB marked "LOCK".
This is not a volume or sensitivity adjustment but rather a frequency lock adjustment. With the two pins connected as above, gently rock this pot back and forth - at some point the green LED will light. Find the center position where it stays on and leave it.
Test by removing and reconnecting the jumper wire - the green LED should light with perhaps a very slight hesitation - this is the circuitry decoding the signal and locking to it and is perfectly normal.
I'm thinking flaky optos (especially since it seems to not do this until the game has been on a few minutes) or slight misalignment as well. I am shutting down shop for now. I won't be back till next weekend so I'll do more testing then. In the meantime I'll order optos. Back to the original question of how to align them. It appears as though the ramp, plastics and wireforms have to come off to get to them to adjust or replace. Is that true?
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