Hello Pinsiders! I'm so excited to be posting here for the first time ever as the owner of DESW machine! Its my first ever pin, and it was a nerve wrecking experince buying one without knowing everything there is to know. Apparently this is a pretty saught after machine these days so I had to act fast. I picked up the machine for $3750 from the owner of the now closed "Joysticks Orlando"

He had the unit in storage and I was able to play a few rounds before deciding to take it home. The coin door was closed and he did not have a key, so I was not abel to run any disagnostics or anything, but the gmae seemed to play great. When I got home, I drilled out the lock and was pleased to find $70 inside.

At home with the glass off and the game deck up I was abel to inspect it better and find that several plastics are cracked, along with the deathstar. The two shooter targets near the Tie Fighter are missing and in its place is one red circular target that came from who knows where...

I bought a set of new rubbers, some cleaner, new pinballs and carnabu wax, and am ready to start tuning it up.

My biggest issue now however is that since opening the mahine and closing it up again, several compoenets do not function, most notably the mechanism that kicks the ball into the feeder, and the kicker that pushes the ball from the feeder into the shooter. There were a few wires under the field that were only electricla taped togther, so I crimped them more properly, but otherwise I have not touched anyhting yet and cant figure out why these compoents are not activating.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

I'll be back on soon to post a video of the situation along with the DMD readout when runnign through diagnostiscs.

Thank you all in advance for any guidance and I appreacite being part of this community!

Congrats! This is a great pin. Pretty sure your issue is gonna be connecters if it was working before you shipped. But also the Outhole switch it touchy and sometimes just lifting the playfield you can bend it

start at the switch menu in diagnostics and verify that all of your switches are working first, then go to solenoid menu and make sure the solenoids are working. this will help you isolate whether you have a switch or solenoid problem. Once you know the problem start checking the connectors to that issue. If you still have problems come back here.

Thanks guys for chiming in with some suggestions! I took a quick video to show the situation, which should hopefully paint a better picture than I have been explaining above. Since last night I must have spent 6 hours just reading up on this machine and Data East machines in general. I should mention that even when I got the machine home, I had probably about 10 good games on it before I opened it up to check out the underside of the playfield and when I put uit back down is when I had the issue. So it was not in transport that my problem occured, but only in lifting the playfield once or twice.

Here is the video i just recorded. I'm of course more than happy to record anythign else that might help get a clearer picture of whats up.

you have multiple issues here:

1st in switch mode you have to manually activate each switch with your finger to make sure it is registering. every time you push on a switch, if it is reading you will see the screen display the name of the switch that you are activating. if you push the switch and nothing happens that means either
a. the switch is bad
b. the connection from the switch to the board is bad
c. or something has gone bad on the board( you don't want this if you don't know how to fix a motherboard).

so really check a&b above

start here first once you get that worked out we can move to your coil problem

It is in the works but it is currently on the back burner. I don't want to release anything until I can get Speeder Mode fully playable and my hope is to not have to sacrifice anything in the process.

Awesome, thanks for the update!

When you get it working, anyway to get SW music instead of the generic sound? Or some sort of speeder bike sound even.

after rewatching your video, you also have a major coil/flasher issue here. I had the same issue and had to repair a transistor on the board. It appears that your relay is not switching between the flashers and the coil. You are going to probably have to make a decision to either learn some electronics and buy proper equipment or just hire someone to fix it. I will tell you when I got into this "hobby" I knew nothing and learned a lot on my own ( I have 9 pinball machines) I actually almost enjoy fixing these things as much as I like playing them. If you decide you want to try and fix this stuff on your own we can help you but it is probably going to be time consuming and frustrating at times, but very rewarding when you finally do it on your own.

here's a link to the exact same coil problem you are having with the relay not switching:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/relay-problem#post-5267521

Thanks for the continued help and words of encouragment. I have since pulled all the fuses out and tested them one by one, and then began with the cables. When I arrived at the molex above the fuses, I found an interesting situation I'll put in video here.

I'm hopeful that I can replace the molex posts and femal connector, but I want to be sure I'm picking up the right thing, and then once more, wiring it correctly, as I cant beleive this was wired correctly from what i see.
I'm assuming ill need a 9 post male and femal molex. Does this board take .1 or .156 molex connectors? Then, as far as wiring the molex, does anyone know which order these wires should be in? They should be one wire to one post right?

Unfortunately, that connector will not fix your coil problem. That connector is for the general illumination. It seems to have been rebuilt before, as they commonly get burnt up. Not a very nice rebuild, but functional, and the two yellow ones together is the proper wiring.

Coils.
I would bet that the L/R relay is not working.
That's the relay on the ppb board(lower left).
It is driven by the cpu board(upper right).
If all the fuses tested good, then odds are you have a failed transistor on the cpu board.

That relays alternate between the coils and the flashers. That's why the flashers aren't working in the test mode.

J5 does your lighting for your general illumination lines. If your lites all work then you can avoid this for now, you have worse problems, the lights arent going to affect your ability to play the game. you can check continuity between pin 1 of j5 with the fuse holder f4 to see if you still have connection. If not you will have to replace the connecting pins on the board.

i see that it appears than none of your +34 volt solenoids are working as well as the relay, this could all be due to not getting the 34 volts off the power supply board. Check the voltage at pins 4-8 on cn3 (particularly pin 5 as it supplies the voltage to the solenoids)on the power supply board to make sure you are getting +34 volts, if you have 34 volts on all of those pins. check the voltage at pin 7 on J6 on the ppb board

Might help if you post good pictures of the boards

Thanks again everyone. It looks like its time ot pick up a new multimeter with aligator clips. I'll work on the above suggestions tomorrow once I grab a new meter. I also hate drown out the board here, so maybe its smart to start a new thread specifically for me issues. If i do so, I'll link back here as I really appreciate the expertise and guidance from jgadzia and Kba78!

Can't seem to find Part # 550-5043-01 Ball guide - clear return lane. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Macro is sold out.

Anyone selling in the near future?

Looking for some assistance. First let me admit, I might be over my head here, so please forgive the igonorance. I took in a DE Star Wars, I am about 90% done with the shop job (new coils, drop targets, new lighting and motors etc). I put in a new PSU and PPB board and did my first attempt at rebuilding the connectors since they were burnt. On the PPB board connector J5 on pin 6 there were two yellow and white wires on this connector. I am having little to no luck with the GI working on the machine. There are so many hacks on the wiring on this old routed machine, I am trying to make it right. Can anyone confirm there should be two wires on this connector? I feel like I am running down a rabbit hole on this one. Since I have seen it come to life for brief moments, I assume it's some sort of connection issue. Any direction would be greatly appreciated!

Wondering if someone may be able to help me out. I am looking for the following 3 play field plastics pictured below. These are the only broken ones on my game. Maybe someone has the means to make them or may have them sitting around after replacing the set.

Thank You In Advance,
Pete

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Try here:

ebay.com link: denisw

This guy makes very faithful reproductions. I know for sure you can get the top piece that goes in front of the Death Star.

I reached out to him via ebay, I haven't heard back yet.

Thank You,
Pete

Anyone thinking about selling their machine?

Just looking for the 2 bottom pieces on my picture. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You,
Pete

Plastics (resized).jpg

Hi everyone - great thread! Picked up my one the other day - been searching for ages!

Quick one...

Where do I get the 1.07 rom from??

Cheers

Tim

If you want the Eprom... try Matt'sbasementarcade..If you have the means then
ChadH. pinball code has the download.
Or look in the BIZ section.

Thanks heaps! Appreciate it!

Just picked one up in an amazing deal that the sellers were happy with also knowing I wasn't just going to flip it. $3000 Cdn....about 2400 US.
Everything seems to work fine, same home for 21 years, owners had never had the head open which meant those batteries were at least that old, no leakage.(phew)
My buddy is going to update the code and I'll be ordering the colour DMD. Funny thing is I've never seen anything to do with the Star Wars franchise.

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Great deal! That's about what I paid for mine, but your cabinet appears to be in better shape.

Do you know what code is in it. Maybe an early one?

I'm thinking original...

I was trying to figure out why my flashers weren't working and now mine is doing the same thing as this video (When in diagnostics, the Flashers test makes the coils activate). Also it never ejects a ball to begin the game.

It was working fine before I tried swapping out bulbs. Would me swapping these out while the game was on (to test) have caused this? Maybe something simple like a blown fuse? Or am I S.O.L. and have to hire someone? Is the ball ejector related or a separate issue?

I think it is a bad fuse on the ppb board. The A/C relay is not working correctly.

Ok. I'll try that first. And from what I've gathered, I can't just look at the fuse to see if it's blown like a car's fuses so I might as well change them. The ones I have are from when I first bought the machine 20 years ago. Do they normally last that long?

Any recommendations on what brand and where to get them or bite the bullet and buy the 5 packs from Marco's even though I only need one of most of them?

Need:
.5A =1
4A =1
5A=7
7A=2
8A=3

I think the ppb board uses 5amp slowblow.... check to see if the ppb board has a fuse on the lower left side.

Marcos will sell a kit, try them

Their Customer Service states :

"The fuse kit for Star Wars (DE) comes with one 5 pack of each value. Those values are:

Slow blow 1/2 amp, slow blow 3 amp, slow blow 4 amp, and slow blows 5, 7 and 8."

I didn't see any 3 amps on mine or the diagrams.

Correct, 5 amp slow blow in all positions.

Data East #15 checks in today! Been looking for a Star Wars for months.

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Congrats, got mine back in September.

Initial impression is good and I have not even updated code yet.

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Busy the last 48 hours!

Replaced all of the insert lamps with Comet LED and most of the flashers, de-greased and adjusted the drop targets so they don't get stuck, replaced the bulbs in the poppers with LED's, replaced a broken popper screw, replaced four bad lamp diodes, reflowed the relay board to get death star rotating again, installed NVRAM, burned ChadH 1.07 to EPROM and installed, adjusted backbox door, replaced backglass lift channel, took the dent out of the coin door and order parts from Titan, Comet and Marco.

Need to decide what to do about the Boba and slingshot plastics. They are broken or chipped but not terrible. Half tempted to buy a new set just to have spares.

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Question this morning after I went back a year looking already!

I swear I saw a post in regards to the red "STAR WARS" inserts above the flippers flickering but can't find it. Does anyone else remember that post?

I have Comet LEDs installed which is rarely a problem with DE pins.

Is this the one

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/data-east-lights-problem

I think that is the thread I was thinking of, thank you.

Ok did some experimenting and it is an interesting problem.

The red letters "STAR WARS" will periodically flicker when lit.

They don't flicker in attract mode and they don't flicker in diagnostics when you fire up the whole row/column.

It doesn't matter if you have led's or incandescent bulbs either.

What I have been able to pin down oddly enough is if you hit The Force or Jabba's and the ball ejects, they will flicker and will continue to flicker till you hit a popper or slingshot and then they stop. I can consistently get it to exhibit this behavior.

Tomorrow after work I'll hook up a meter and take some voltage readings.

Anyone else wish to check yours to see if it does this? I would roll the ball through the outer loop till I had 7 of the 8 inserts lit, easier to see that way and then pop in The Force.

Gary

Mine flicker sometimes as well. I will try your suggestions and see if I have the same symptoms. I've got comet LEDs as well and replaced the original power supply board with a Rottendog which didn't do anything.

Side note: Data East Star Wars has an odd refresh rate to it's lamp circuit,
with regular #44 lamps, the S-T-A-R-W-A-R-S should have a slight pulsing flicker.

555's actually, but I get your point.

Even with the incandescent, its very notable and when you hit a sling or popper it stops. I checked voltages last night and they look ok, varied around a bit on the meter actually but that did not seem associated with the flickering.

I need peoples help. I am restoring my DESW and realized I am missing an important piece. Looking for the plastic above the drop down targets with three yellow lights for hyperspace. Please see pics. I hope someone out there has this assembly. Thank you

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