(Topic ID: 304303)

Atari superman blown fuses, not sure what to do next

By TronGuy

2 years ago


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  • Latest reply 2 years ago by TronGuy
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    #1 2 years ago

    I went to an acquaintances house to "shop" his superman. I ordered bulbs, and rubbers, and went over and cleaned it up and installed new rubbers/bulbs.

    The old rubbers were original and crunchy and crispy, haha. NOthing rubber about them.

    Anyway, I assumed the machine worked. It certainly powered on.

    After changing the rubbers I thought we'd play a couple of games. Only it wouldn't kick out a ball.

    A quick look through the gameshowed me several problems:

    Under the playfield the 2amp slo blo fuse was blown. Changed it, powered it up, it didn't blow again. Game still didn't play though.

    Went into the back box.
    The far right fuse was blown 3amp slo blo was in there. Somehow I didn't have 3amp slo blo so I put in a 3amp fast blow.

    Anyway it blew at power up 3 times.

    I noticed on the bottom row of the I/O board there is a row of about 15 transistors that seem to be very similar if not exactly the same.

    The 5th one over from the left was almost blown off of the board. It wasn't standing in it's oringal position (like the rest), and it looked like a trace may have been lifted/blown. Testing the transistors (whole row of them) in circuit, they all tested similar. Nothing seemed shorted. Even the one that was half blown off of the board with apparently bad trace(s).

    Anyway. Sometimes someone else has had an exact issue . THought I'd ask. I may need to just call someone else in to do an on-sight repair I am guessing though.

    #2 2 years ago
    Quoted from TronGuy:

    The 5th one over from the left was almost blown off of the board.

    Cut the transistor off close to the body of the part as you can so it will make it easy to remove the legs by heating them with a solder iron. Can actually install one later. Very good chance that coil is toast. Have you looked at them all? Any with black paper wrapper? With the transistor removed, you should be able to play the rest of the game minus the one coil.

    Quoted from TronGuy:

    The far right fuse was blown 3amp slo blo was in there. Somehow I didn't have 3amp slo blo so I put in a 3amp fast blow.

    If a slo-blo is meant to be there, fast blow will only last a couple of power ons, so get a slo-blo per the manual.

    1 week later
    #3 2 years ago

    Dropped a 3a slo blo in

    Cut off the xsistor

    Blew the 3amp fuse immediately at power up.

    #4 2 years ago

    Can you post a picture of that board?

    #5 2 years ago

    May want to test the rest of the transistors on that board with a meter to see if any others are shorted.

    1 week later
    #6 2 years ago

    I am going to head over there again. Maybe I will take a look at all of the coils.

    I am going to take the pcb home with me and test all of the transistors and diodes. I ordered replacement transistors in case I find more than 1 bad.

    #7 2 years ago

    Pics

    A couple pics of coils underneath. Does one look bad from these pics?

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    #8 2 years ago
    Quoted from TronGuy:

    A couple pics of coils underneath. Does one look bad from these pics?

    It's impossible to tell from those photos. You'll have to take a closer look at the coils.

    The big clue would be to look up in the manual which coil matches up to the blown transistor.

    #9 2 years ago

    It looks like the xsistor on the far right may have gotten a little hot as well.

    #10 2 years ago
    Quoted from TronGuy:

    It looks like the xsistor on the far right may have gotten a little hot as well.

    That transistor was obviously replaced previously.

    Using the diode test is the only way to know if any other transistors are shorted. The obvious blown one can be seen only because the transitor failed, then the diode on the coil failed and then the coil shorted and cooked it from being shorted for a long period, then that put major stress on the transistor so then it blew apart.

    If someone would would had caught the coil locking on right away, the coil would had been saved.

    Once you remove the blown transistors you need to ohm out the resistors around it to see if they are still in tolerance.

    #11 2 years ago

    sounds good, guess I will be buried in a schematic or on a resistor chart. testing the xsistors goes quickly enough.

    In your opinion is that basically my concern right now.....that row of xsistors, and what coil it is attached to? Or am I going through the entire trace looking at diodes and other xsistors as well?

    #12 2 years ago
    Quoted from TronGuy:

    now.....that row of xsistors, and what coil it is attached to? Or am I going through the entire trace looking at diodes and other xsistors as well?

    That depends on whether you find any other transistors shorted. You definitely want to test all the transistors on the board.

    I think you can just test the diodes and resistors related to the one blown transistor. Far as resistors, you need to compare to at least one other neighboring resistor of a 'good' transistor to see that it measures close to another.

    #13 2 years ago

    No other xsistors were shorted. The blown one doesn't even measure shorted.

    So do I swap in a new xsistor, repair traces where necessary and go plug it back in? (Assuming i find no other parts bad)?

    #14 2 years ago

    That board will require a bit more work than just replacing the transistor. The charred areas will very likely have low resistance and this needs to be addressed.

    It's also probable that parts upstream from the transistor have been damaged so replacing the transistor might not be all that is needed to fix the issues.

    I would suggest sending the board to a board repair specialist or you are likely to have continuing issues even if you do manage to make it work.

    #15 2 years ago

    I agree that generally just putting in a new part isnt the answer. Upstream from this xsistor, is more xsistors. They test the same as every equivalent xsistor on the board. The resistors seem to test ok as well. I just wonder if a ball got stuck’ on a pop bumper, or a kid held a flipper for 10 minutes and overloaded something. I guess I need to look at the schematic. That 3amp fuse blowing has to be a specific symptom.

    #16 2 years ago
    Quoted from pins4u:

    It's also probable that parts upstream from the transistor have been damaged so replacing the transistor might not be all that is needed to fix the issues.

    This definitely is true on other game eras, especially when a coil gets toasted.

    I think though, at worse, it may just lock on the coil, if there is something else is still bad upstream. Normally, an IC that drives the transistor is what gets damaged upstream.

    #17 2 years ago

    Did you already change the toasted coil?

    #18 2 years ago

    No, i don't know which one it is.

    #19 2 years ago

    Or where I should buy the coil.

    #20 2 years ago
    Quoted from TronGuy:

    No, i don't know which one it is.

    Look at the solenoid chart in the manual to see which coil is driven by the blown transistor. Then you want to ohm test the coil to see how much resistance it has. Then compare that to the resistance of a good coil that has the same coil number. They should be close in resistance.

    #21 2 years ago

    Also check for shorted diodes across coils - a shorted diode across a coil will blow a new driver transistor instantly at switch on.

    4 weeks later
    #22 2 years ago

    finally a follow up....

    I replaced the blown transistor on the board. I went through and tested a lot of diodes and other transistors, they all seemed to be good. So I did a solder reflow on the header pins and took it back to the guys house.

    I went through the coils under the playfield. 1 of them was basically shorted across the 2 points. (1 ish ohms) , the good ones read around 8.9 ohms. So I unhooked that coil, and plugged in this board that I had been working on.

    We are in pretty good shape now. No blowing fuses, the ball kicks out , the game plays, but the flippers are not powerful enough. Well at first the left one was, but the right one wasn't. They both squeek a little bit (the game probably hasn't been played in a few years).

    I should have measured the voltage while I was there, but I thought I'd just buy 2 new coils for the flippers, and the one blown coil for one of the 3 pop bumpers.

    I have the part # for the flipper coils, but I couldnt read one on any of hte 3 pop bumpers.

    Again.....I would appreciate any help picking the correct coil, and suggestions on a good place to buy the 3.

    #23 2 years ago

    found this on marcos

    https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/A007030-01

    man I'd love to spend less than $63 on 3 coils, if anyone knows of another dealer. :

    #24 2 years ago
    Quoted from TronGuy:

    the flippers are not powerful enough. Well at first the left one was, but the right one wasn't. They both squeek a little bit (the game probably hasn't been played in a few years).

    Squeek sounds like mechanical issue, not a coil problem. The hardware is either worn, dirty, or misaligned, or even the flipper bat gap is too tight and needs to be adjusted. I would take the coil stops off, replace the coil sleeves, clean the plunger, file off any mushrooming of the tip of the plunger. Once the coil is slid off, try to move the flipper bat by hand again. If it is still squeeking, then the flipper bat gap is the problem. Would then need to loosen the flipper prawl, extend the flipper bat up a bit and tighten back down.

    #25 2 years ago

    I had some coil sleeves but they were way too long, so I assume they were newer stern equivalents. The left coil did look a little mushy . if I had any coil sleeves on me, I would have done a full breakdown/cleaning right then.

    This guy gave me the $, so I may as well buy the 1 bad coil, the 2 replacement flipper coils (for the future if nothing else), and some coil sleeves that fit.

    Is Marcos the place?

    #26 2 years ago

    I would go the extra mile with new plungers, EOS switch, springs and coil stops, if all is available.

    Pinball Life is usually my first choice buying flipper parts.

    #27 2 years ago

    they dont' seem to have any atari coils.

    #28 2 years ago

    On to whoever has all the parts you want to get. I usually add everything to each website's cart and weigh whether it makes since to split the order or not.

    #29 2 years ago

    I"m with you there. I am on marcos and found the coils, but I am unsure which coil sleeves I should buy . Or coil stops for that matter.

    I guess maybe I need to find a superman flipper rebuild kit somewhere.

    thanks for hte help so far!

    #30 2 years ago

    Should be an Atari club or Superman club thread you can check in to see what others ordered.

    4 weeks later
    #31 2 years ago

    OK so as I keep going over to this guys house for repairs. Some ups, some downs.

    The pcb that had issues seems to be holding up. Everything was working fairly well, except the center pop bumper which had some broken pieces , and a burnt coil.
    I have a few things to address:

    how do you remove a pop bumper unit? I really just need to get the metal arms out, but I can't get any of it out.

    The right flipper was sticking a little, after I had changed the sleeve last week, so my friend wanted to try a new coil. We did, and it did some lightning flipper thing. Almost like it was stuck. I looked at it and didn't see any problems. It just was lightinging off and on flipping. My friend thought maybe we connected the wires backwards, so he swapped them. I think that burnt the coil? Is that possible? The 3 amp fuse on the top right backboard box started blowing again, similar to when I had the blown center pop bumper coil.

    So, now I think we need to change that right flipper coil again. I will report back on that, but......

    I can't get the pop bumper removed , for repair. Any insight? I will try to come back with pictures that I have on my ipad.

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