(Topic ID: 8711)

anyone ever had dead light sockets?

By stuartr7

12 years ago



Topic Stats

  • 7 posts
  • 7 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 12 years ago by DrAzzy
  • No one calls this topic a favorite

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#1 12 years ago

HI,
I have replace all the bulbs in my elektra to find 2 bulbs will not light!!
anyone ever had faulty sockets or am I looking at a deeper problem?
Thanks

#2 12 years ago

Yes, it's very common on older pins. Sometimes it's a loose wire, or perhaps just a bad lamp socket.

#3 12 years ago

Or if it's a feature lamp, ie; one that is lit by accomplishing something and not part of the general illumination circuit, it could be a bad SCR, (thyristor), on the lamp driver board.

#4 12 years ago

Those Bally games had terrible lamp sockets. Is it a GI lamp socket or a CPU controlled insert lamp? If it is GI, you may have to do some soldering work to make it reliable, or just replace it. If it is a CPU controlled lamp, the sockets are always suspect, but you may have an SCR out on the lamp driver board. Also check the connections to the lamp driver board in the backbox, they can get flaky.

#5 12 years ago

Sometimes it's just gotten old and there's gunk on parts that need to make contact. Wiggle all movable bits around, and take a small file and file at the spring inside the socket a little bit.

#6 12 years ago

Its easy to determine whether its on the lamp board or a bad socket. Just rig up a new lamp socket like the one in your game, touch the wires to the same spots your questionable socket and see if it lights. If it does, then its a bad socket. If it does not then you need to replace the SCR as mentioned above.

#7 12 years ago

Bad sockets are very common. Both wedge and bayonete sockets can crap out. If the lights are in a circuit board under the PF (like the light boards on WMS/Bally games), the solder joints joining the board to the header frequently crack as well (the inserts for those light boards also crap out, just like other wedge sockets, and some of the repro ones don't fit wms/bally machines without modification).

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