I am shopping out a Party Animal.

The star posts are all the taller 1-3/16" kind.

My two favorite places to buy stuff from (Pinball Life and Marco) do not carry this. Instead they only have the more common 1-1/16" kind.

Does anyone know where to buy the 1-3/16" BLUE star posts?

Actually, it turns out Marco does have them:
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/03-8370-10

I am testing a Party Animal... in switch test mode... and as I test the various switches, often the game is detecting another switch along with the one I am testing.

It always seems to be another switch in the same ROW as the one I am testing.

It doesn't always happen and it is not consistent. The only consistency is that the phantom switch is somewhere on the same ROW in the matrix.

This is happening on multiple rows.

Examples:

Press Right Outlane and Top Left Saucer sometimes triggers.
Press Right Return and Right Sling or Pigout U sometimes triggers.
Press Right Sling and Pigout U or Tune 2 Middle sometimes triggers.
Press Left Sling and Pigout T sometimes triggers.
Press Toad and Right Outlane sometimes triggers.
Press Rebound and sometimes Right Outlane triggers.

Since it's all over the place, it leads me to think that it's not just one diode. Is there something bigger to look at when this type of situation happens?

Yes. 11 switches in the matrix have capacitors on Party Animal.

The schematic says "ALL CAPACITORS ARE .05 MF"

I have some capacitors on hand that are .047 uF (which is the same as 47 nF). I think these are the correct kind to use... can anyone confirm?

I'm hoping someone can help me out here.

It's the Switch Matrix on a Party Animal.

I posted earlier about how it's behaving oddly. Pressing a switch will sometimes (not always) trigger another switch (or two or three) in the same ROW.

At first, I thought it would be the capacitors that are on some of the switches. They get old... they dry out.

Correct me if I am wrong, but those capacitors are there so when a switch is VERY QUICKLY pressed, that the CPU will still have time to detect that switch. Which means that removing those caps (cutting one leg) should allow the Switch Matrix to continue to function while losing some sensitivity on the switches with caps.

I have cut a leg on all switches with caps. However, my phantom switches are still occurring all over. Which means it has to be bad diodes, right? But my problem is, for example, I press the Left Outlane switch and it sometimes triggers the Mushroom switch. So I replace the diode on BOTH of those switches... and... the problem persists. Ugh!

Is there more to the story of this 6803 switch matrix? Is there another place I should be looking?

My game is triggering phantom switches all over the place. It seems like its not "a couple bad diodes".

Anyone been down this road before and know how to resolve this issue?

Thanks!

Hmmm... this might be a good lead.

My game came to me with all cables disconnected between head and cabinet.

There are some left over connections that I am not sure where they go. Can someone help me out?

First, in picture below there is a green wire with yellow stripe. It comes from J2 on the power supply. It ends with a spade connector. But I do not know what this connects to.

IMG_6581[1] (resized).JPG

Then in the picture above there is the metal braid wire that comes from below... where does this connect to?

Finally, as seen in the picture below, there are two green wires with spades on them... coming from below... where do these connect to?

IMG_6577[1] (resized).JPG

Thanks!

I found it! Mine was hidden underneath the big transformer.

IMG_6583[1] (resized).JPG

Yep! This was totally my problem. Now with everything grounded, my switch tests are 100% perfect.

Thanks everyone!

I was doing battery replacement on my Party Animal... and it lost all it's settings.

However, when I scroll through the adjustments, the settings are all over the place like they were all scrambled with garbage data.

Is there a way to "reset to factory default settings" ?

Thank you! It's funny how they bragged about how great and easy the keypad was supposed to be... but... seriously... it's not.

One more question...

Is there a way to test the flashers in test mode? I don't see anything. Not even in solenoid test mode. Or maybe my flashers are all just bad?

I didn't find any way to test flashers in Party Animal... but I did find out that many of the flashers in the game I am working on were dead and that they were 906's... and this game requires 912's. 906's are 6 volt and 912's are 12 volt. Very important!

Also, there are two 1 AMP fuses for the flashers under the playfield.

Now my flashers are fully working.

It's amazing how much "life" flashers can breath into a game. You don't really realize it until they are all gone.