So we bought our first machine in the last year and had a great time playing it, when it was working. In my spare time over the last year I have been working to troubleshoot the issues but the short of it is it hasn't been working for a long time.
The system will power on, light half the board and play the 'Teenage... Mutant... Ninja... Turtles!' intro vocal. Then it just sits there. The board electronics do not initialize, no response from the diagnostics or anything else.
When this first started it looked like it was a blown fuse issue. The problem being that the fuse that was installed was an obscure 3.15 amp. It took me ages to get around to finding and ordering a proper replacement (after three different wrong orders). I get it install it and Voila! the system boots. It promptly fries that fuse 10 minutes later (PPB F6). Put this on the backburner again till we recently moved. The pinball is now in a place where I am actively working on it.
Did further Research and found that the Machine came with the wrong fuse installed in that position. It needed a 5 amp so I said hallelujah and ran out to radio shack. Installed the 5 amp fuse and it came back to life! There were so many more lights and sounds going on now than there had been in our previous plays. It was awesome! Then another fuse blew. (PPB F2)
Replaced it, machine worked. Then it froze up again. Only this time no fuses were blown. I have since replaced ALL fuses on the PPB, capacitor links and Power Supply Board. During replacing the fuses I noticed that the fuse clip on one end of PPB F4 was loose . Thinking that might be causing conductivity issues I have temporarily used a tiny binder clip to apply pressure on that fuse clip.
Current Status:
Machine turns on, plays the intro and lights half the board and proceeds to sit unresponsive. Occasionally it will work when I turn it on after it has been sitting for a while, but then freezes up after a couple minutes of play.
If anyone has any ideas about what could be causing this issue please let me know.
- Clinton Diehl