Addams Family, The
Bally, 1992
Attack from Mars
Bally, 1995
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Bally, 1992
FunHouse
Williams, 1990
Getaway: High Speed II, The
Williams, 1992
Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure
Williams, 1993
Machine: Bride of Pinbot, The
Williams, 1991
No Good Gofers
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Quoted from Alby87:Changed Headers, Connectors, BR2 and C5, removed Z-Connector and changed VOLT setting (from 220 to 210) on a Twilight Zone. Steady but low voltage (4.97V), reset on every flipping.
Installed this daughter board. Now it's working like a charm.
Thank you. Now I have a pinball again
Arrived, installed in a couple of seconds, and no more resets. If I were operating WPC games, they would be installed in every one of them!
And may be due to the fact that the regulator is now powered by the 12V and therefore, there is less strain on the original regulated 5V so it may not dip down to any level that could indicate a reset condition.
I am guessing you would have to have a pretty bad unregulated input for the factory 5V regulator to misbehave once you take the entire MPU board load away from it.
Quoted from rosh:hmm, I would not think that the MPU would typically be what is having the greatest impact on the load resulting in resets, but, I'm no expert. It is certainly not a board that one would typically swap out in trying to isolate the issue.
Its not so much the load of the MPU but the entire load on the regulator (which lies on the driver board and all its connections). The MPU with its multiple ICs is going to have an impact on the regulators output. Especially if the unregulated input to the linear regulator is compromised in some way (open bridge diode, reduced ufd on the filter caps etc.). So, regardless of how much of a load the MPU is. By eliminating it, you regain some operational wiggle room for the failing components and the problem potentially disappears.
Quoted from rosh:I get what you are saying, given how bad the resets were, I would think it would still be an issue. Considering I could still make it reset without the DMD and dmd board powered. Considering what you are saying and since it is not indicating that resets would be occurring, it would certainly suggest that there is limited value in the more advanced version of the product in many, if not most cases.
Regardless, the basic board certainly gets the job done.
Well, the key thing is exactly what the board does: It moves the MPU's 5V supply off of the original linear 5V regulator. It does it with a switching regulator on a different power source. Two beneficial contributions.
The Driver board and its associated components are the source of the resets but it is the limited window of the power monitoring circuit on the MPU board that actually does the resetting (of the CPU). The switching regulator is much more tolerant of lower input voltages (regardless of their source). So, in its simple beauty, the board provides a differently created 5 volts to the CPU that is not likely to drop low enough to trigger a reset.
The original 5V regulator is still powering the associated ICs on the driver board but they can typically continue to perform at voltages lower than the reset set point of the power monitor on the MPU board. And, even if they did have a bit of a hick-up with a drop in 5V, the software in continuously resending new data to the driver board which would more than likely instantly correct the data corruption.
It is issues with the Sound Board, DMD controller or Audio Visual board that would be more prone to showing fault as the original regulated 5V continues to deteriorate.
Agreed. It would appear there is little value to the fault indicator version of the board. But hey! Some people just like to see an LED on the boards they invest in!!!!
If GI effects frequency of resets, I would expect low line voltage, over taxed AC circuit (outlets), or possibly a failing thermister in the power junction box.
While it is very uncommon, people have had WPC transformers go bad. Perhaps this is an indicator of one that is failing internally.
I believe Rob's circuit uses a low drop out regulator. So, running off the 12V, there is plenty of head room for it to still provide a solid 5V even if the input voltage drops.
Quoted from Enaud:rkahr, can you comment on this strange scenario:
I've battled with the STTNG intermittent reset problem since I've had this pin, up until 16 months ago, when I installed rkahr's daughter board. That solved the problem up until the last few months. It started taking about 2 or 3 minutes after turning on the machine for it to boot up. D19, D20 and D21 would start out, then dim and eventually get enough power to initialize the mpu. Afterwards it would play fine. In the last month the occasional resets have come back.
Recently I started up a great Borg Multiball and the pin reset. Afterwards the pin would start resetting even if I pressed the flipper button in attract mode. I noticed that LED1 on the power board dims when I press the flipper button in attract mode, and the pin reboots.
Now, taking rkahr's board out of the mix, the pin boots right up, without any delay at all. But the attract mode reset still takes place. With the daughter board installed it takes 2 or 3 minutes to boot up. So, I've taken the daughter board out.
Here's my voltage readings on the power board in attract mode:
TP1 - 11.81
TP2 - 4.81
TP3 - 10.10
TP6 - 75.1
TP7 - 22.1
TP8 - 16.7
I've gone through all the z-connector, reseat ribbon cable, attempts, pinwiki research, etc.
I must be getting a voltage drop when anything tries to take some voltage. Any thoughts?
If the rkahr board cannot power your MPU board (D21 indicates presence of VCC) then it sounds like you have a problem on your Digital 12 volts. Check F115 and its fuse clips. The Digital 12V is produced off the 18VDC lamp power (TP8) which may or may not be measuring low (16.7). If you know your DVM can tell you if there is AC ripple, check to see if there is any AC on TP8.
Quoted from Enaud:I'm going through the pinwiki process right now. Just verified that BR2 is good. It's putting out 10.35 vdc. The next step is to test C5. My meter isn't a great meter, so pinwiki says my measurements may not be correct for C5 (not a true RMS meter). I'm showing 5.33vac.
Regarding dmd driver board, no voltage changes when I test with it plugged/unplugged.
Thanks to you all for helping me troubleshoot this!!!
If you have another working game of any kind (even a video game), check for AC on the 5VDC to see if your meter gives you a voltage (which should not be there) or if you get virtually 0.0VAC. If you get 0, then your 5.33VAC above is your problem.
Personally, I feel the $30 investment is good insurance to remedy most any reset issues. Even lurking ones that might not show up in your home, but maybe the new buyer's home.
It's plug and play and instantly removable if the buyer decides they don't like it for some reason.
I see no need to get the super fancy one. Just the standard unit is all you need.
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