(Topic ID: 266738)

Bally Playboy - Locks up when idle for over 2 hours

By sneakerpin

4 years ago

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5 posts
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Latest reply 4 years ago by Spudgunman
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Linked Games

Playboy Bally, 1978

Hello,

My Playboy works well. I re-flowed and checked all board//playfield pins and harnesses. I replaced the two large electrolytic capacitors on the solenoid driver board, re-capped the sound board. I added NVRAM to the MPU and put the recommended NVRAM conversion jumpers in place. I fixed a couple of displays that had a shorted transistor issue, and lastly, I am just now going through the SCR's as I have a few lamps not triggering.

My MPU board has no corrosion as the battery was removed in 1999 and the service tech neutralized and cleaned what little damage was done on the usual part of the board. Tech did a nice job and documented the fix.

At some point, someone installed a Rottendog rectifier board.

Before and after the minor repairs, this issue comes up where if I leave the game on for a long period of time, assuming idle, it locks up. When I power-cycle it, it won't boot. I have to "let it cool" for 20 or 30 minutes before I can boot it again. The high scores and credits also get wiped!

Something must be overheating. I suspect the 5V regulator area on the driver board.

I will set up two multimeters (that's all I have) and periodically watch 5 and 43VDC lines to see if they go haywire and lock the MPU again.

Anyone know of a solution to this weird issue? Otherwise, the game is fine.

You need to sort out of this is a power problem or a logic driven problem.

You have done a lot of work here, and good chance the problem is somewhere within this work.

Watch the power at the MPU, not at the rectifier board or driver board. If it dips at the MPU you at least know you have a power problem. If it doesn’t dip at the MPU you have a problem within the MPU

Quoted from athens95:
You need to sort out of this is a power problem or a logic driven problem.
You have done a lot of work here, and good chance the problem is somewhere within this work.

athens95

The issue was present before I began working on the machine as well.

I will definitely watch the voltages at the MPU side first. Good point.

Thanks,

Tim

NVram should not get wiped. What do you mean by conversion jumpers? Is your NVRam not on a carrier board that just gets plugged into the U8 socket?

You didn't explicitly state it but you can PLAY the game continuously or every so often during the 2 hours and it's fine? Never locks up in that situation?

When it locks up touch the IC chips (or if you have an infrared temperature probe) see if any are hot. It's not unheard of for old roms and eproms to go bad in a way that causes them to run hot.

Cold solder somewhere highest suspect is the cool down needed.

A trick to solve this is take a can of “air” you know used on computer keyboards.

Turn it upside down and spray it it’s very cold. You can use this to your advantage...

When game won’t boot pick a component you suspect and spray it with a shot of cold freeze spray. If the game boots you now know where you have a faulty solder joint or component.

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