Diamond Lady
Gottlieb, 1988You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider Pinball-DOOD.
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Hi! My system 80b Diamond Lady is not booting its sounds board when I ever I initially power up the game. However, manually resetting the board at SW2 will make the sound board work perfectly fine. I have established that there are no breaks in the wires from pin 24 of the control board to the sound board. This game has a Swemmer control board and I’m not sure if I should blame that board for not sending the reset. Any help would be deeply appreciated!
Quoted from the9gman:if you have a MA766 sound board I have been doing a lot of research on this board , I don't have a diamond Lady but I have three system 80Bs . there is a reset line from the cpu that resets the sound board at the start of the game but at this point all the sound lines are held logic high at 5v sound 1,2,4,8 and 16 in my machine. if the game has been played there is another way the cpu can reset the board by setting all the sound lines low at the same time. system 80Bs are really interesting when it comes to the sound card and how the music and sounds are created. My Raven had issues with the sound card and would sometimes work and sometimes not reset like yours and I removed the SP0250 speech chip and now it boots every time. The chip makes some percussion music functions
so its really not a big deal for me to run without it, mine was socketed so it was easy. However if that chip is bad on yours they are ridiculously expensive and hard to get. I intend to document all my research when I start my re-theme of the Raven Machine to 007 Skyfall
Hmm, gotcha. Thanks for the response. Would your sound work fine after the manual reset?
Quoted from MarAlb:The display controller and the soundboard are sharing the same reset signal. The display starts correctly? What happens if you disconnect the displayboard - disconnect the edge connector at the displayboard. Is the soundboard starting correctly in this case?
Ah, good call. Let me try this
Quoted from Pinball-DOOD:Ah, good call. Let me try this
Tried it! Still no sound board boot. What do you all think?
Quoted from the9gman:sounds like what mine was doing, my vote is still on the speech chip
yes in most cases there is the DROM and the YROM and in some cases there is a third eprom depending on the game
Ah, so were you ever able to find the speech chip? I’ll have to probe it
Quoted from the9gman:the card will work without the speech chip but there is a listing on ebay for 75 bucks plus shipping. There is another guy in Germany but he won't ship to the US .
the speech chip is labeled GI SPO250 and it is usually socketed so if you take a thin screwdriver you can lift one side and then the other slowly to pull it out and not bend the pins and you can try the board without it to see if it boots ....if it doesn't make a difference you can reinstall it just like you would a new eprom
Thanks, man!
Quoted from the9gman:the card will work without the speech chip but there is a listing on ebay for 75 bucks plus shipping. There is another guy in Germany but he won't ship to the US .
the speech chip is labeled GI SPO250 and it is usually socketed so if you take a thin screwdriver you can lift one side and then the other slowly to pull it out and not bend the pins and you can try the board without it to see if it boots ....if it doesn't make a difference you can reinstall it just like you would a new eprom
Could you provide the link to the EBay ad just in case? Thanks!
Quoted from the9gman:ebay.com link » Sp0250
here it is
Thanks! I guess would I have to burn the speech on to it?
Quoted from the9gman:thats an 886 board, different animal , is used in later 80b systems, my bad doesn't have the chip that the MA766 has
this video may be of some help, this board is a lot more difficult to repair your best bet right now is to get your eproms verified you need a
ebay.com link » Gq Prg 109 Gq 4x V4 Gq 4x4 Universal Eprom Programmer Eprom Uv Eraser
then you need to get a hold of pinside member Inkochnito send him a pm and ask him nicely if he may know where you can find the sound ROM info
the GQ-4X4 programmer is very easy to use to verify your eproms ...if its not the eproms its probably the ram on the card (most common source of failure) but you would need marco's chips to troubleshot the board
you would probably be better off to send it off for repair
https://ksarcade.net/board-repair.html
cause by the time you spend the money for the programmer and other equipment you would have paid for the repair
A new MA886 with ROMS is 175 bucks
just to replace the chips on this board is a real pain because the traces are so small and easy to damage , you have to buy a chip quick solder kit for 20 bucks to even think about replacing a chip without damage
Sounds good, I may just send it in to K’s Arcade since Chris Hibler is backed up. Thanks!
Quoted from the9gman:one thing i would check before sending it off , make sure that you do not have a sound line shorted to ground. at the beginning of the game they should all be high 5v .....sound 1,2,4,8 and 16 and or 32 if used. usually sound 16 comes from the driver board if the driver is locked on it will be a ground ....and it would actually be a problem with the driver board transistor. If any of those lines are not high your reset will have no effect... just something to look at
Hmm, gotcha. I’m wondering if it is a short? Now when I thumb through the menu, once a hit a certain point in the menu the knocker will go off and the displays will get all garbled. This may sound totally silly, but how should I go about testing with a meter. Where should I place the leads? Thanks! Sorry haha
Yeah, when I hit the number of “Specials” in the menu, it appears to freak the game out and start firing the knocker over and over. Sounds like a short and maybe this is the culprit of all the issues?
Quoted from the9gman:basically all system 80s have the test function switch and it should not set off any coils or switches until you get to that part of the test. sounds like an MPU problem . the self test should come up with book keeping functions and then light tests and then solenoid tests then display tests then cpu checksum and memory tests so makes me wonder if your main eproms are ok. I don't have any experience with Swemmer control boards but it seems like that is the most logical place to look since all the self test functions originate there. Can you get it into the solenoid test .....that would be the best place to start troubleshooting
then watch you bumpers, ramps, drop targets and sling shots and if one is not working that is the place to start to find the culprit from what you have stated so far the knocker driver may be suspect .....sometimes a shorted driver can screw up your whole game...also and a BIG DEAL .....did the previous owner do all the ground mods?
Hmm, unfortunately I can’t even get to the solenoid Test anymore. I may call K’s Arcade and consult with them! Do you think they could be of any help? And yes all ground mods have been done!
UPDATE: I sent the control board and sound board off to Keith at K’s Arcade. By doing this, I can at at least ensure that the boards are working fine. I will keep you all updated!
Getting my boards back from Keith over at K’s arcade! He is thinking I should buy a new 40-pin connector and a driver board. I have a Rottendog in currently, are they problematic? 
Quoted from the9gman:think I would at least test all the transistors on the driver board before I got a new one at least that way if you find a bad driver transistor you can troubleshoot that circuit for perspective shorted coils or parts or lighting circuits. That way if you do go with a new board it wont blow up right off the bat.
Me, I would try and fix the old board first, but then again I have been an electronics tech for 40 years and its just my nature. New driver boards are not that expensive.
and no I personally have not seen too many people complain about Rottendog driver boards
The new 40 pin connector is a good idea because they definitely go bad and cause intermittent problems
Thank you for the feedback! Ah, true. Are the schematics for the original driver board applicable to the Rottendog? I have never dealt with aftermarket boards. Thanks!
Quoted from the9gman:the output and input connections would have to be the same specifications so they would have to use a similar type transistor to activate coils and lights for the game to operate correctly
Perfect, thanks 
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