I picked up a Blackout not long ago, and I'm itching to get started on reviving it. It's in decent cosmetic shape, but it's boards have seen better days. I'll get into the details of it later, and some of the crazy hackery I found. More to come there. For now, here's the basic info/situation:

Game powers on, backbox GI comes on, P1 display shows "495 1" and master/credit display shows "0 0". Playfield dead, no GI there. Coin door lights are on. Getting a hum from the speakers. I checked all the fuses, all test good when pulled.

Given the fact that the boards have some corrosion (bad in some places), it's looking like a new board is in order. Before I go buying one and slapping it in, I'm open to suggestions to ensure I don't kill the new board when it arrives. Normally I redo the 40-pin, reflow all the headers, etc... but these boards aren't likely worth that effort. I'm mainly concerned with making sure I'm in the right place before hooking up anything new.

Sidenote: the former owner cut a lot of wires to various solenoids, I'm guessing because they were locked on. The driver board transistors are nice and green from corrosion, so there's a solid chance that has something to do with it of course.

I forgot to leave the coin door open when I did that! I always forget that with these Williams games. Thank you! So yes, it did actually boot to attract mode. Displays are acting up, flickering a little now and then, but they're all on. Digits vanish and come back now and then, etc, but they seem functional.

Adding a credit makes the knocker go off, but it seems like the game is in freeplay anyway. I was able to start a game, but all the solenoids are dead (ball doesn't kick out, drops don't reset, flippers dead, slings, pops, etc... nothing). The sound appears to be working. I get the initial game start sound, then the "heartbeat" sound like Gorgar. Scoring works in most cases, and draining the ball counts down bonus and advances to next ball (though the ball count isn't showing on the display). Draining 3 balls manually ends the game as it should.

Looks like the MPU is alive, guessing the driver board not so much. Time to dig in a little and see what's next. I'll take a few pics soon.

Yep, sorry, was just commenting that the knocker solenoid worked (since none of the others seem to be).

I'm debating... with the game booting, and scoring, and most of the current issues seem to be solenoid related... I'm wondering if I should consider just trying to fix/replace the Driver board. Normally I do the 40-pin interconnect anyway. I'll post some pics, maybe you guys can weigh in on the feasibility of repair vs. replace.

The "battery" setup before I cut it off was... crazy.

Blackout_battery - Copy (resized).jpg

Blackout_Boards - Copy (resized).jpg

Blackout_BattRemoved - Copy (resized).jpg

Blackout_Driver_Corroded - Copy (resized).jpg

Blackout_Driver_Corroded2 - Copy (resized).jpg

I'm game to try and repair if you guys think it's not that bad. I'll pull the boards and check out the other side as well. I've saved some boards before, but usually they're a little less gunked up. I'll test as much as I can trace-wise I guess, see if anything is out of whack.

Schwaggs are there standard replacements I should be looking at for the transistors and resistors. I can hunt around, but from the way you said it, I get the impression you might know off-hand. If so, feel free to let me know and save me a little searching I don't mind digging, but worth asking!

Regarding the solenoids with all the cut wires, I had assumed maybe the corrosion had messed up a bunch of the solenoid drivers, but given that it's the lamp section that's all green, thinking maybe it's more likely the 40-pin interconnect?

Just went to do it, someone saw it and did it for me (they cited the thread). As noted in my post over there, the former owner was an electrician by trade. Yikes.

Awesome, thank you!

I'll get to work on some of this and report back.

Bad News - So I checked the back of the Driver board, corrosion is pretty bad, and creeped down all the way to the bottom edge of the board as well. Definitely worse than I thought.

Good News - A friend happened to have 2 driver boards (and a MPU) lying around from a Firepower and some other game. One looks rough, the other might be okay. I don't see any corrosion, but some of the components look a little different. Same stuff, just different versions I think. Pic attached for reference. Note the different transistors on the far right, etc. I assume I can try this, right?

Extra_Driver_Board_ (resized).jpg

If someone confirms I can use that driver, I'll go ahead and replace the 40-pin on it. I don't see corrosion, or anything damaged. Supposedly this board and the MPU (not pictured) were pulled from a working Firepower.

That one is closer to my original. This current one I have in hand is definitely a bit different, but looks all original. I guess I can give it a try, I'm guessing it's fine.

Update: Good news! After doing some minor repair work on the spare driver board, it looks like I'm in business. I replaced the female side of the 40-pin interconnect, one bad transistor, and reflowed soldered to all the headers on both boards. I put it all back together and it booted up!

All the solenoids seem to be working aside from one pop (the solenoid is testing at 0.7ohms and should be closer to 4ohm, so I know it's bad) and the right flipper (which I think I have sorted out and will try reconnecting tonight).

The displays were dead initially, but reseating the power and data connectors associated with them got them back on and looking good, so I'm guessing some repinning should solve things there.

Getting closer! Will keep up with progress.

Right flipper is up and running fine it seems. Not sure why it was disconnected, but it tested good and seems to work fine. Left pop bumper is iffy. I put in a brand new one I had that I had. When I turned the game on initially, the solenoid fuse blew. I replaced the fuse, and when I turned the game on the left pop started to fire randomly. I turned the game off, messed with the switches a little, turned it back on and everything seems good so far in terms of fuses not blowing, etc.

The back right drop targets aren't resetting, so I'll check that next. They did when I first got the boards back in, but not anymore. Overall, seems to be on the right track. Displays were out again, reseating connectors got them back, so definitely need to tackle that. I really thought I'd need all new boards, so this is fun.

Looks like I've still got some bugs to work out. It appears as though every few times I turn the machine on (after it's off a little while) it won't boot, and it will usually blow the solenoid 2.5A fuse when that happens. I hear a brief "click/knock" that sounds like a weak solenoid sound, so I'm guessing one of them is locking on at power up and holding until the fuse blows. It's not every time, so I'm curious what might be the cause.

I'm used to either a bad solenoid or transistor causing that. This intermittent fuse blowing thing isn't something I've seen as much. Thoughts?

Displays still on sometimes, off others, same process of reseating the associated power connector on the power supply board seems to fix it, so at least I know what the general issue is with that.

Schwaggs I usually reflow the headers and repin or replace connectors. You think it's more likely the headers actually need replacing in this case?

Regarding the Blanking circuit, that's actually something I haven't had to deal with in the past, but makes sense based on further reading. You think first I should go through the headers, perhaps replace a few things on the power supply, etc, before worrying about that too much?

Some Good News and Bad News...

Good News: I pulled the power supply board and noticed several cold/cracked solder joints on the header associated with the display power. I reflowed the solder to all the headers on the board. I also replaced C7/C11 because I happened to have the proper capacitors handy. The displays now come on without issue, and look good.

Bad News: Left pop locks on as soon as the game is powered up. If I don't shut it off immediately, the fuse blows.

My immediate thought is the transistor, but the fact that the previous driver board was also locking on that same pop bumper per the previous owner, I have to wonder if it's something else. Thoughts?

Thanks

Thanks mof! I forgot that I've used that before (on my Firepower II) and it was useful.

I guess the first thing I should do is disconnect that pop and see if that's the only thing locking on. It's a brand new coil, and didn't do this until after I did the power supply work, which is odd.

Another note... the ground strap that usually comes up from the cabinet is NOT attached to the normal spot I'm used to seeing. And I know sometimes there's an extra wire coming off of it as well. Note in the pictures below, the missing ground strap connection, and then in the back of the pic (second pic to show it more clearly) there's a ground strap connected to a nut over near the side of the head. Seemed weird to me, but not sure if it could cause issues?

blackout_ground1 (resized).jpg

blackout_ground2 (resized).jpg

Okay, so you agree that's the normal ground strap and should be moved back. Wanted to double check. Maybe they lost the wing nut and figured that was just as good.

Removing J12 stops the pop from locking on, so no wiring problem.

Remove the special switch input J13 from the driver board. If the pop still locks on, you most likely have a bad driver, pre-driver or gate on that circuit. If it no longer locks on, you have a switch or wiring problem or the capacitor on that pop has failed shorted.

Removing J13, the pop locked on for a moment, then released and stayed that way. I realized that this was maybe residual charge in the capacitor from the previous lock on? In any case, it seemed to stay NOT locked on with J13 removed. Using your thoughts above, I immediately thought of a switch-related wiring issue being the culprit.

Resolution- If you look up in my post#6, you'll see on the edge of one pic that there are a couple of wire nuts near J13 on the Driver board. Realizing how hacked up other stuff was by the former owner, I should have immediately looked at these as soon as I got the game. Sure enough, the Orange-Brown wire associated with the Left Pop that was locking on was one of the wires that had a wire nut on it. A quick twist of the wire nut and it fell off, revealing some wires that were clearly not twisted together very well. I properly repaired the wire, and got rid of the wire nut. Going to do the same for the other wire in a similar state, even though it's not causing issues currently.

Update - Sadly, this didn't fix the problem like I hoped. It appeared to, but only briefly. The pop is still locking on, even with J13 removed. Every now and then it will not lock on, but most of the time it does.

Best guess, when the pop coil went bad and started locking on, the guy probably wasn't sure what to do. He started cutting wires in various places to try and eliminate the fuse-blowing problem, and after that didn't work, tried repairing the cuts with the wire nuts.

Next Up- 3 bank drop target in the back right of the game isn't resetting. Solenoid tests good, so I'll start doing some other testing to see what's going on. I know these are supposed to reset when all the targets are down, or on a ball drain, but they don't ever seem to reset. The lower set of drop targets reset fine, but don't seem to score. Both drop banks likely need a good cleaning and tune up.

blackout_sol_switchwires (resized).jpg

Update... okay, apparently that wire nut was NOT the issue, because this morning the pop was locking on again. However, after turning the game on and off a few times, it eventually stopped doing that. It almost slowly released itself on the last time, as if the coil was gently powering down. Wondering if maybe the capacitor is an issue? Not sure exactly how that works, relative to a pop. In any case, I'm back to trying to figure that out. Once it stops locking on, it seems to play okay. Thoughts?

I also just realized that I don't think I have any GI on the playfield. the inserts all seem to be working fine, but no GI. I need to check that (and I'm assuming the associated fuse) when I get a chance.

Yes, in fact that was the only thing working when I first got the game. Still good currently. When all the playfield inserts lit up in attract mode, I didn't even notice that the GI there wasn't on until now. Been so wrapped up in the other issues.

Thanks! I grabbed my meter and did some continuity testing. One side of the GI path was good, but the other wasn't. I traced it back to the block connector between the head and playfield, and found one of the GI wires was mostly pulled out of the connector. I repinned and reseated it in the connector block, and the GI is back.

So I'm back to the primary issue at the moment: Left pop still locking on. I'll install the fuse saver board when it arrives, but given what I'm seeing, it will just blow that fuse once I install it. Since it's still locking on with J13 removed, Schwaggs said it's the driver, pre-driver or gate. Testing the transistors shows the same readings as the other pop driver/pre-driver, but I know on-board testing cab be iffy. Not sure how to test the Gate?

Here are the results

IC6 pin 1 = 3.88 V
IC6 pin 2 = 5.00 V
IC9 pin 1 = 0.14 V (assuming effectively 0)
IC9 Pin 2 = 3.77 V
IC9 Pin 3 = 4.81 V (not in game) / 0.14 V (when a game has been started)

Assuming the low 0.14 reading is basically 0, then it looks like I've got an issue with a couple of readings that should be 5V that aren't.

Okay, thanks @schwaggs , I'll go ahead and replace those. I may even have them on hand, since I worked on a BK not long ago and usually over-buy. They all seemed good, but I'll know for sure after I pull them and test them off-board.

I'll try the pop switch/skirt test too, just for kicks.

UPDATE - Some good news, but mostly bad at the moment.

Bad News- Replaced driver and pre-driver (Q2 and Q1) and the Left Pop still locks on at power up

(small) Good News - Noticed that the pre-driver (Q22) and a resistor (R42) was missing for the top drop target row. Simply not there. I added the missing components, and the top drop targets now work

So to recap:

* Unplugging J12 from the Driver board stops the pop from locking on

* Unplugging J13 does NOT stop the pop from locking on

* Replacing Driver (Q2) and pre-driver (Q1) does not fix the issue

I'm at a bit of a loss now. Suggestions?

Thanks Schwaggs I'll take a look, do that, and report back soon!

Okay, here are the Results:

IC6 pin 3 (skirt not pressed) = 3.79V
IC6 pin 3 (skirt pressed) = 0.08V
IC6 pin 2 (skirt not pressed) = 5.00V
IC6 pin 2 (skirt pressed) = 0.00V

IC6 pin 10 = 4.97V
IC6 pin 1 = 3.90V

Guessing the ones in bold are not good, and should be 5V instead. Do you think that's part of the issue?

Well, the good news is I have two spare driver boards here, so I can probably pull from them. The downside is that on my current driver, neither IC6 or IC10 are socketed. The spare driver I have is socketed, so getting that chip off won't be too bad. I have a couple spare sockets, so if I remove IC10 I can socket and try a replacement I have on another board.

Did you mean PIA IC5? My schematic says IC5 is the Solenoid PIA and IC10 is the Lamp PIA. Just checking.

Nevermind, I see that IC6 pin 1 goes to IC10 pin 19, which is testing as 3.79V . IC10 pin 20 has a good 5.00V.

So... do I pull both, socket and try to go from there? Or do I start with one instead of the other?

Schwaggs Based on your comments, it sounds like you think IC6 (7804) is more likely. I checked my stockpile and I have a brand new one, as well as a matching socket, so I could do that. For the IC10, I have the socket and can re-use a chip from one of the other driver boards to test, but it would be easier to start with the IC6 I guess.

Based on the test results above, what are your thoughts? Thanks