I just got a dungeons and dragons. It had a bunch of problems when I tested it on location but we finally got it running after reseating a bunch of cables. This was odd because it always got to at least the 7th or 8th flash. The guy said it never had a problem booting before he moved it to his garage for sale. It booted consistently after moving and taking the tension off some of the cables.

Is it possibly just cable / solder joint issues or am I getting ready to get into a basket case? I wouldn't have thought it would get that far into the boot sequence if any of the power cables were tensioned.

Reflowed all 3 boards and everything is working perfectly. I was surprised as I couldn't see any obviously bad joints but there was only a tiny amount of solder on all the .100 connectors.

Has anybody done a good backbox lighting kit for these? I was thinking about doing some LED strips and seeing how the translite would look without that huge inside-out hotspot.

Trial #1:

Using an outlet adapter in the bulb socket with an 8' 12v soft white LED strip. Wish I got warmer but this was the warmest they had at home depot. All in a little over $20. These are just hanging from the loom, not permanently installed so it'll get a touch more even. The hotspot in the photo is not anywhere close to that bright in person but I couldn't get it to go away by area of focus. Note this method will keep gi effects in games with a backbox relay which I seem to remember reading about

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The linear flipper mechs are really shitty and prone to get sloppy. Might just need a rebuild kit (or replace with the previous mech style) if your power looks right.

I think people mostly convert to the previous bally style, maybe someone else can chime in.

The white circular part in the link gets out of round, wears faster, and is the bigger weak link (harhar) than the metal parts IMO

I dont have airball issues on my D&D. Was going to say standup backing is worn but turns out mine are about completely gone! Maybe uneven inserts?

Why you have you had 7 D&Ds? I feel like you could have figured out you liked it enough by your 4th or 5th acquisition

Cross posting this from the D&D thread in case you guys have any input. A full plunge on the skill shot is not supposed to start multiball or playfield X but it is.

Still having problems with a full plunge starting multiball. Happens sometimes with 1 ball locked but nearly always with two balls locked. I've rebuilt the switches for the two gates in the back (skill 3 top and the next one after it) with completely with new leafs, caps and diodes. The first two skill shots I put new caps in and everything seems to be firing as it should in switch test. The three lights flash on the ramp so they are all getting hit before the ball goes behind the backbox. It's almost like there is another playfield switch being validated between skill 3 and the ramp exit switch or something but I can't get it figured out. Anybody have any ideas?

I dont know if this is regular behavior but when the glass is off and I have the ball off of the playfield the two ball capture coils each pulse for a split second about every 5 seconds or so, like the game is making sure they are up or something. Is this normal? All the switches seem to be working correctly in switch test including the 4 switches related to the ball captures and skill shot.

To be clear the "summon help" light is not lit before the plunge so the playfield isn't starting validated or anything like that.

Any available MPU repros right now?

Good intel, thanks. I sent him an email.

You can get a new one from pinitech

Dungeons and dragons manual that I've seen online shows a switch matrix that has all the cabinet switches on the same connector as the playfield switches. My game has 2 different connectors and a lot of differences with the online manual, such as a slam tilt that doesn't have a diode. Am I just reading the diagram wrong or is the documentation just way off? Does anybody have the correct switch matrices?

That makes a little bit of sense. IPDB only has 1 page of the switch matrix, here's what I was using from another pinside thread:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/dd-switch-matrix-need-help#post-2595613

I think the diode thing messed me up more than it should have, in combination with the wire colors being different after the coin door connector. Here's what I've had going on.

I've been having an intermittent problem with multiball being awarded when it should not (sending the ball around on the skill shot after locking the ball or on initial plunge will sometimes award multiball when it should not). I recently completely rebuilt the skill shot 3 (top) gate and the Level (final gate on the left ramp). Today I unplugged the connectors and checked every diode, verified the involved switches worked properly, made sure all switches showed up as they should in test. This is where things started to got weird.

When testing to see if anything helped I started having what appear to be switch matrix issues but with little rhyme or reason. Most switches on CJ4-14 cause the action of the switch to the right of them in the matrix (coins and return left caused pop bumpers, return right caused left sling), but the rebound switch would cause a slam tilt which is in the same column. This would happen in game but in test mode the switches and coil tests worked perfectly. I removed the playfield connector and bridged the rebound switch pins and it did not cause the slam tilt. The problem was intermittent so these two items could possibly be red herrings but I have never gotten a switch error to show up in test mode, activating as many simultaneous as I could and doing my best to recreate game conditions. This could be due to the crappy nature of the 6803 switch test not showing a momentary closure of a problem switch.

After this I tried replacing the two socketed 6801 chips and replaced the switch IDC connectors with crimp and stuff with no changes. Without changing anything else that I know of the switch matrix problem seems to have gone away with the multiball problem remaining. During this process I tried to look at the involved columns and check for lugs and leafs being contacted, and loose diodes / diode legs contacting lugs etc. I'm not sure where to go from here but I'm getting ready to just replace every diode in the MFer, starting with the rebound switch column. I'm looking at the matrix trying to find a potentially bad diode using the box method but I can't find any commonality with normally closed (or closed during gameplay) switches that makes any sense. I'd previously snipped a leg off of most of the capacitors on the game trying to diagnose the aforementioned multiball issue.

Is it possible (or probable) that this is a logic issue, not a switch issue? The windows in the game ROMs are exposed but from what I read this isn't usually a problem.

And just like that... now I can't get it to act up at all. The only thing I did was a switch adjustment on skill shot 2. Nothing looked off about it except maybe it was a little close. I'm going to walk away for a few hours, come back and kick the shit out the cabinet, wiggle harnesses and F with it until it either shows symptoms again or I decide to set it on fire.

Sanity check: you put your initials in on D&D when you get a high score but it never displays the high scores or initials

?

The sound on my D&D is really scratchy throughout the entire volume range. I've done a sound board cap kit and just tried replacing the main speaker and no joy. Is there a particular part of the sound board or anything else that might be suspect?

You rule. Thanks buddy!

I did try the old "swipe around" to see if it made a difference but it's uniformly scratchy at all positions.

Not u16 unfortunately. I'll see if I can find the other two suspects for my next move.

Did the Tda2002 and still have scratchy sound so I need to see if I can find u8 I guess. At this point I might get a repro.

Check the switch stack on the lower flipper EOS (I think these are activated on the EOS not a cab switch, but if its the cab switch then check that). If that's all good check the wires going to the actual coil on the upper flipper would be my main two suspects. Not unusual to have a wire just pop off a lug.

I love it when it's an easy fix!!

Haha the "working" 6803 club. Disturbingly more exclusive than the regular club.

Nice!!! Thanks Barakandl!

If this sound board doesn't fix the scratchy audio on my D&D I think it must just be crappy source files.

Rats. Barandl's new sound board did not fix my D&D scratch audio issue. I've replaced the speakers in the game so the only things I have left are:

The front door sound pot. It does not seem scratchy when swiped back and forth so I'm not holding out much hope.
An MPU issue of some kind, or an odd connector problem that is not on the sound board (they have been rebuilt)
The source audio is just garbage and I've been chasing my tail.
Something funky with the speaker ohmage or something else I'm not seeing

Yeah, I guess it's just shitty source audio. Damn. I love the music and chased my tail quite a bit over this. If anybody is interested in a discounted D&D sound board (only used once to see if it fixed the issue) let me know.

But there's only the one speaker in the center! Actually maybe replacing the "blind everybody" flashers in the topper with speakers would work.

I did every search term I could think of in my email and didn't find anything. I know I ordered one in the last two years. The same coin doors were used on the arcade games like ms. pac so you may have better luck searching under that. IIRC I found the part number for that piece somewhere obscure.

Yeah! That's the ticket.

Anybody doing repros on the coin door itself? Mine is a little dinged up.

Thanks for keeping us chugging along barakandl!

The manual on IPDB shows non linear