(Topic ID: 255840)
Linked Games
Checkpoint
Data East, 1991
Topic Gallery
Luxemburg, WI
The dots look well lit. Looks like a data issue. Any improvements if you reseat both ends of the DMD ribbon cable at the MPU and at the DMD? Make sure all the male header pins on the boards are straight, not bent, as you remove the ribbon cable ends.
Where pin 1 of the ribbon is on the other end of the ribbon cable. Have to swap it on both ends so that it is connected correctly.
Quoted from PinballManiac40:Where pin 1 of the ribbon is on the other end of the ribbon cable. Have to swap it on both ends so that it is connected correctly.
?? Are you saying it’s connected backwards on one end?.
NO. I am saying to swap the orientation of the cable on both ends, so the red pin 1 is on the other end of the connector. Trying to help prove this is a cable issue or not.
Quoted from joelw23:?? Are you saying it’s connected backwards on one end?.
The Data East’s are counterintuitive. You’d think the connector is the same on both ends, but sometimes pin 1 from the MPU might not be the same end as pin 1 on the DMD. I hooked it up wrong on my DE Alphanumeric and it makes the display do weird stuff.
It’s very hard to picture, so if your cable has one of the sides colored (mine didn’t) make sure the color for pin 1 meets Pin 1 on the other side. An example being that on Monday Night Football the cable actually had to be twisted 180° to be connected properly and it made NO sense.
If the ribbon cable was wrong on one end, there would be nothing on the display.
What I am after if trying to see if we can prove one Data line is missing data due to a one or two bad pin connections in the ribbon cable.
Very good chance the problem is elsewhere.
I would have to believe the ribbon cable is not an issue here. You still have some animations freezing up even with the cable oriented this other way?
Also there were no broken or bent header pins on the DMD nor the MPU?
Is this the only DE game you have?
i just played a few games and noticed that it doesn't always give/show the skill shot animation(usually on the 1st ball) and also will score points on the dmd, but then lock up and not add any points for the rest of the game until the 3rd ball is drained....
sometimes goes completely blank too until you power down and power back up the machine.
Not sure if this is the correct number of pins on the bottom right ribbon cable for your Data East game.
http://docentelectronics.com/httpdocs/AmusementGames/Pinball/DataEastPinball.htm
The computer ribbon cables I found with the strain relief usually cause intermittent issues. Many pinball supply shops are selling these type.
I hope so since you were seeing something slightly different when you swapped the orientation of the ribbon cable on both ends.
new ribbon cable installed and I played 5 or 6 games with no freezing/resets!!!!
The data east/checkpoint logo on boot is still messed up though and the skillshot animation seems to only come up randomly..also the 3 drop targets sometimes reset with only 2 down and the 4 drop targets only seem to reset after a ball drain.
new roms maybe? or reburn the chips i have?
You can reburn your current one on the DMD. Make sure you are using the latest. I would even make sure the Game ROM is the latest version as well. I suggest to erase the Eprom twice before the reburn.
Oh, it sounded like you had the capability. Several on Pinside can do this.
I had been just buying replacements since you would have a shipping charge both ways getting someone to reburn them.
Yes, they work together. Yes, it is on the back of the DMD and it is in an IC socket as all EPROMs, which all games are that way that do not use a USB stick to update code.
Be mindful of the direction the notch on the EPROM is pointing when removing the old display ROM.
Ok. I see that Pinwiki only talks about R95 being 33k ohms, but also it is important that R104 is also measuring 33k ohm +/- 5% (31350 to 34650 ohms).
Can you post the resistance readings of both R95/R104?
When you replaced R95, do you know what the resistance was before removing it from the board?
May be only one or the other. I have not seen a MPU and a DMD fail in a single game before.
If you can't find one of those games, the MPU can be tested in 128x32 DMD game, but likely a jumper needs to be changed in order to swap from a dual eprom to single eprom game to test.
If you can't find a way to test either, I have a 128x16 DMD I can send for testing.
Quoted from joelw23:Thanks!
Got a couple command overrun messages too
What? Never seen such a message. Picture of this? Started with swapping ROMs?
Very interesting. So then, sounded like corrupted RAM.
Consider going NVRAM to rid of those batteries forever. 124 year retention rate. 
https://www.pinitech.com/products/6264_nvram.php
I’m in for a follow. My turtles screen kept rebooting and sometimes went black. I reset all the connectors and chips and not further issues but I’m sure there is something bigger happening.
Also noticed one of my batteries is starting to go bad need to swap them out.
Do you have a definitive answer on what fixed your screen?
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