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» Avengers "The Pin" Home Version IO Error

(Topic ID: 228506)

Avengers "The Pin" Home Version IO Error

By pinballwiz

5 years ago

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21 posts
11 Pinsiders participating
Latest reply 23 days ago by HDBrian
Topic is favorited by 2 Pinsiders

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Avengers The Pin Stern, 2012
Transformers The Pin Stern, 2012

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#1 5 years ago

TAB

pinballwiz

Pinside member

Powell, TN

11y 32,400 208 1

Well I just purchased a mint Avengers "The Pin". The original owner said that it was working with no issues until one night at a party, it was nudged hard and it thew up an "IO Error". From there they replaced the CPU board and the Node board. Neither fixed it. I bought it in this state and have continued to work on it.

When booting up with just the node board connected to 48V and RJ45 from CPU connected, it doesn't throw the IO Error. On the node board there is a 6V LED that flashes. As soon as I plug in the flat ribbon cable running from the node board to the main LED board, it drops the 6V down to 1.5V and says IO Error. It does this with nothing but the ribbon cable connected to the LED board. So I thought the LED board has a short pulling down the 6V. I just received a new LED board from Stern today. Plugged it in and it does the exact same thing.

I have called Stern support and David & Chas has helped some but it appears they have received absolutely no support from the engineering department on these pins. There appears to be no diagnostic menu for these machines either.

Anybody have any experience with either the Avengers or the Transformers? Would love to know how a known working machine boots up and how the 6V LED acts during this. Also make sure the node board is connected correctly.

This is the first Spike system. The CPU board appears to be working ok. All LED's are reporting with the correct voltage and it is talking to the Node board as long as I don't plug in the LED board.

3 weeks later

#2 5 years ago

TAB

pinballwiz

Pinside member

Powell, TN

11y 32,400 208 1

I assume nobody has any experience with this machine. Since my original post, I have corrected the error and the game is fully functional now. These pins have 2 LED driver boards. I replaced both LED boards and that corrected the problem. Each LED driver board has LED surface mount chips on board. Those chips were bad. The chips require 6V to operate.

It appears the voltage regulator (creates 6V) on the original Node board went bad and allowed a higher voltage to the LED boards. This caused both boards to be damaged. There was a dead short between gnd and Vdd on those chips.

The original owner replaced the Node and CPU board but had not replaced the LED boards before giving up.

#3 5 years ago

TAB

pinballwiz

Pinside member

Powell, TN

11y 32,400 208 1

Oh yeah also the first LED board I got from Stern was bad as well. I sent that board back to Stern they replaced it.

2 weeks later

#4 5 years ago

REB

FiatsRUs

Pinside+ Frequent

Omaha, NE

8y 42,800 254 14

I had a Transformers The Pin in the past with issues. There was no 6 v at the node board and Stern provided zero support (no manual, tech support, nuttin'). It also appears that the node board is unique to The Pin and is now unobtainum. I was fortunate that a fellow Pinsider sold me a NOS board. It is worth nothing that I was able to use a PC power supply hardwired to the start switch for the missing 6 volts prior to obtaining the properly working node board. It worked just fine.

Good luck. Neat little machine.

#5 5 years ago

MPS

Msch

Inactive member

9y 47,050 1,273 16

Quoted from FiatsRUs:
I had a Transformers The Pin in the past with issues. There was no 6 v at the node board and Stern provided zero support (no manual, tech support, nuttin'). It also appears that the node board is unique to The Pin and is now unobtainum. I was fortunate that a fellow Pinsider sold me a NOS board. It is worth nothing that I was able to use a PC power supply hardwired to the start switch for the missing 6 volts prior to obtaining the properly working node board. It worked just fine.
Good luck. Neat little machine.

Did you talk to stern about a replacement node board? I have an avengers the pin that when the up post assembly is connected I lose all power to coils except flippers

3 months later

#6 5 years ago

???

KenLayton

In Memoriam

Olympia, WA

12y 83,400 5,965

Quoted from FiatsRUs:
There was no 6 v at the node board and Stern provided zero support (no manual, tech support, nuttin').

And they still don't provide *any* support (manuals, schematics, parts lists, etc) whatsoever for any of "The Pin" machines.

I see Marco Specialties has the node 1 boards (520-5321-00) available:

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/520-5321-00

They also have the cpu board:

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/520-5318-01

4 weeks later

#7 5 years ago

MOO

MooButt

Pinside member

Massillon, OH

5y 59,550 483 6 1

Here’s the parts list. I’m having a problem with the multiball plunger coil shorting out the system and blowing the fuse when it’s hooked up. Any ideas? I’ve tried two different node boards already.

42A39C81-4269-416A-9680-C10BBAD94F8A (resized).png

F09E50CC-BAC2-48DF-B94D-B44199AAB1D8 (resized).png

#8 5 years ago

BAD

BC_Gambit

PinMod Industries

Unknown

11y 70,550 3,532

Have you checked to make sure the coil is not shorted itself?

Is anything touching something it should (stray wires near the coil or coil switches?).

Does the game work 100% if you bypass the coil (e.g. disconnect it?).

#9 5 years ago

???

KenLayton

In Memoriam

Olympia, WA

12y 83,400 5,965

Quoted from MooButt:
Here’s the parts list. I’m having a problem with the multiball plunger coil shorting out the system and blowing the fuse when it’s hooked up. Any ideas? I’ve tried two different node boards already.
[quoted image][quoted image]

Where on Stern's website did you find those documents?

3 months later

#10 4 years ago

???

KenLayton

In Memoriam

Olympia, WA

12y 83,400 5,965

OP
Quoted from pinballwiz:
I have called Stern support and David & Chas has helped some but it appears they have received absolutely no support from the engineering department on these pins. There appears to be no diagnostic menu for these machines either.

This will likely be the same scenario with the new Star Wars the Pin home model too. ZERO support. No manuals.

#11 4 years ago

D G

Pin_Guy

Pinside member

8y 103K 3,996 11

These are literally designed to be disposable machines. Whats worse is Stern took the Homepin design and used it in commercial pinball machines ... this is how the Spike system was born.

1 month later

#12 4 years ago

MOO

MooButt

Pinside member

Massillon, OH

5y 59,550 483 6 1

Chaz helped me. I got the multiball working on mine. There were a couple of blown transistors on the node board.

9 months later

#13 3 years ago

CAP

CaptNRetro

CaptNRetro’s Pinball Co

Snellville, GA

6y 36,650 44 5 23

I just picked up the same Avengers The Pin game with an IO error being displayed..no 8v LED on Spike..node board on bottom shows 6v..any ideas?

#14 3 years ago

EDH

TigerLaw

Pinside Moderator

Jennings, LA

14y 224K 20,099 24 240

Quoted from Pin_Guy:
These are literally designed to be disposable machines. Whats worse is Stern took the Homepin design and used it in commercial pinball machines ... this is how the Spike system was born.

It’s a shame, there is market for Safe Cracker sized machines at reduced prices, but they have to be repairable or no one will buy them. Perhaps this is a market another manufacturer will look to capitalize on at some juncture.

2 years later

#15 1 year ago

BLH

HDBrian

Pinside member

Lee's Summit, MO

2y 26,300 45 8 15

I have been working with Stern and have some good news! They sent me email last week stating "We currently have 520-5321-00 rev C on order with our vendor so it's on backorder for the next few weeks". I called to confirm and this is indeed the node board for the Transformer the Pin and Avengers the Pin ELG home pinball machines. These 2 games basically are pre Spike 1 and are sometimes called Spike 0 or Spike 0.5 because they are the precursor to Spike 1.

They said to I can go ahead and put an order in, so I ordered 2.

1 month later

#16 11 months ago

BLH

HDBrian

Pinside member

Lee's Summit, MO

2y 26,300 45 8 15

Stern could not repair my 520-5321-00 Rev C node board. They said the highlighted components are all blown but they cannot get replacements.

Does anyone know someone that would be willing to try to repair it? I would definitely be willing to pay to get this thing working.

520-5321-00 Rev C Damage (resized).jpg

6 months later

#17 4 months ago

BLH

HDBrian

Pinside member

Lee's Summit, MO

2y 26,300 45 8 15

MY TRANSFORMERS THE PIN ELG HOME PINBALL LIVES!!!

Stern has had 20 new 520-5321-00C node boards made and I received my order yesterday. I installed it and connected everything to it one at a time (powering off each time) out of fear that something else in the game may have been defective and caused the damage to the node board, but eventually I had everything connected and it still booted up fine.
You should be able to buy one from Marco's, Pinball Life, or any other Stern distributor, but have them make sure it's REV C! REV F is an entirely different board and does not work.

They only made 20 and will not be making any more.

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/520-5321-00C

20231219_014212 (resized).jpg

#18 3 months ago

BLH

HDBrian

Pinside member

Lee's Summit, MO

2y 26,300 45 8 15

If you are looking for a parts distributor to buy the newly re-made 520-5321-00 REV C node board, here is a link to a distributor that has a few in stock. Remember, Stern only made 20 more of these and are not going to make any more when they sell out.

https://www.sandiegoamusements.com/product-page/node-board-1-stern-home-systems

2 months later

#19 52 days ago

BLH

HDBrian

Pinside member

Lee's Summit, MO

2y 26,300 45 8 15

Marco Specialties now has in stock the newly re-made 520-5321-00 REV C node board 8 for the Transformers and Avengers "The Pin" games, for $169.99.
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/520-5321-00C

#20 51 days ago

R M

PinFever

Pinside member

Boca Raton, FL

13y 79,050 2,039 4 30 1

So if you miss out on these 20 boards and your spike homepin goes down you are just shit out of luck? So you must try and sell before it fails and or be throwing it out when it can no longer be fixed or repaired……. Good to know .

4 weeks later

#21 23 days ago

BLH

HDBrian

Pinside member

Lee's Summit, MO

2y 26,300 45 8 15

Quoted from PinFever:
So if you miss out on these 20 boards and your spike homepin goes down you are just shit out of luck? So you must try and sell before it fails and or be throwing it out when it can no longer be fixed or repaired……. Good to know .

If you actually have one of these home pins and it is still working with the original node board, I suggest buying the new one now. They are made with newer components and should last a lot longer.

I am grateful they even made 20 new node boards for a 12 year old game that only sold around 1000 units.

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