I just listed my first Doctor Who pinball in the market place.
https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/157212

My second Doctor Who with NOS PF is playing great and the wife asked why I had two of the same thing. LOL.
She has not caught on yet that I am building a third Doctor Who as we speak. This one will have a new CPR PF and new cabinet and boards.

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My upper flipper doesn't always hold and usually double flips. During Upper Flipper Hold test it does nothing, but during game play it will sometimes hold, usually just flips twice and goes right back down. I can recreate the behavior by pulling the switch away from the opto flipper switchboard manually, so it's not that it's not making it pass the trigger point. also cleaned the switch at the coil. Spacing looks good as far as I can tell. Not sure if this is a flipper opto board issue or coil. Thoughts? Thanks!

Played a couple quick games today and then swapped out a few bulbs with LEDs. Fired the game back up and got No CW and No CCW movement. At boot the bi-directional board LED lights up for a few seconds then turns off. Fuses F106 and F110 tested good (out of board), traced some wires and didn't find anything loose (this time). I find it odd the bi-directional board turns on then back off each time. Thoughts? Thank you.

Oh, and I'm going to call myself out here...I replaced one of the flashers under the W while the power was on...don't shame me too hard. Every single light works now...I removed the flasher just as a test, still same error.

Bad opto board?
Blown transistor?
Bad/loose connector on the opto board or driver board?

Opto board lights up, no opto errors. Just CW and CCW errors. Only the bi directional board appears to be an issue.

They do go bad, but they are easy to repair also.
CW amd CCW errors can also be a backwards wired connector.

But yes it could be the motor board.

I think it's a power issue to the bidirectional board. How do I test J107-6, what ground would I use to confirm it's putting out 20v?

The ground braid is the ground for the whole game.

Found a broken wire on a 4 pin molex connector right behind the MPF. Worst. Place. Ever. To try to fix without removing everything. Going to need to buy replacement terminals. Ugh. Could be worse, as long as this resolved it!

EDIT: FIXED! Found a bad ground on J3 at the 2 to 1 connector.

It's not always a bad board!

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Fixed a couple broken wires. Confirmed power is good to the Bi-directional board. Still not working though. The bi directional board still only lights up for a moment then the LED goes dark. Since there are zero Opto errors, I'm looking at ordering a new bi-directional board. I know the opto board was mentioned, but I don't understand why since, again, no opto errors.

New Time Lord!

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Welcome Time Lord !

Getting closer to having it working 100%, but have two last issues to resolve.

1. Left flippers: When I trigger the upper flipper, it sometimes flips twice, and/or flips then goes back down, won't hold half of the time but will sometimes. In test mode hold doesn't do anything at all. The bottom flipper can't fast multi flip, it stays almost fully engaged between fast flips, holds isn't an issue. I swapped the opto flipper board today, no change.

2. Noticed while playing I'll get "second chance" randomly, despite not draining the ball. That then made me realize that while playing I'd randomly lose a ball and go from say ball 1 to 2. I checked the 4 side drain switches and center switch, nothing is holding down the button. Could it just mean one of those switches is likely bad? Guessing disconnect one at a time, play a bunch of games until I notice it stops false ball drains?

Thanks!!

Good to hear that you are closing in on your issues.

I have had both of your issues. And can offer no immediate solution. Only things I have tried. Check the voltages on your Fliptronics board in the upper left corner of the back box. You will see that you get about 70 volts from White/Blue wires from the Power board. Follow that power through the fuses all the way down to the coils. Look at all three flipper coils. See the 3 lugs that the wires connect to? The middle one is Hold power. Note how the 70 volt Flipper power is an orange wire on all three. Your upper left Hold wire on the coil is black with a blue stripe. The Grey wire is the ground that completes the circuit when you press the flipper buttons. Careful not to shock yourself while testing voltages on this circuit. I have included pictures of how your wires should be. I have added Molex connectors to make swapping out coils easier.

Issue #2 : I am still fighting this on my new build. I found several issues that I have fixed but it still persists. I have replaced the roll over switches in the shooter lane. Then adjusted them so that they close the switch when a ball rolls over them. I replaced a couple diodes that were suspect that were coming off the white switches. I replaced the white roll over switches in the trough as well.

Please follow up on what you found worked.

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Things turned south since yesterday. Now getting the dreaded random resets almost every game! Zero issues with that the few weeks I've we had it. The guy did give me a wpc reset fix board. I put it in place, no change. Yesterday I did change out a ton of bulbs to LEDs, that's about it though.

Today I resoldered all three flippers wires. I noticed that the left bottom flipper had a resister that wasn't connected on one end. Also the upper flipper has no resistors at all, should it?

Upon reconnecting the resistor, I didn't see any change in flipper behavior or random resets. I haven't tested the resistors yet either though. I also need to go through your recommendations this weekend too. Appreciate it!

What is the voltage at the MPU board? You can measure right at the capacitor. I've had bad connections on some WPC games and lost half a volt in the connectors. Ended up repinning a couple. Also has the driver board been gone over?

Yes Flipper coils should have 2 "Diodes" between the outer lugs and the inner one. The silver stripe on both face the same way. See picture of old coil I took off.

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Well you certainly have your fair share of troubles with this new toy of yours (quote from wife to me)...
Here is the link to why WPC games reset. In a nutshell, if the 5 V voltage goes low in the CPU board, it detects it and shuts the machine down to prevent a future problem.
https://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php/Williams_WPC#Game_resets:

WPC flippers are, in general, the only coils in the game that should have diodes across the coil lugs. While diodes seldom fail, sometimes the pounding environment that flipper diodes must live within causes solder joints to fail. Ensure that each flipper coil has the required two diodes, that the diodes are good, and that they are soldered to the coil lugs with a quality solder joint.

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D'oh! Long day! Yes, diodes! I tossed two 1N4004 on the upper flipper and...FIXED!! Played five games with the upper flipper working flawlessly! I still don't love the way the bottom left operates. I think I'll replace the diodes on it tomorrow and worse case, buy a new coil.

During my five games, the game rebooted twice and gave a false ball drain once. I'll dive into those issues this weekend. Thanks for all your help so far!!

The WPC reset bandaid board from KAHR.US Circuits shows low 12v and 5v.

Making my way through the wiki guide on the issue.

Notes so far:
- resets when turned on and just sitting there, without starting game. Even after 10mins it occasionally restarts. But also happens during game play.
- ground on power cable to wall is broken off (mention due to guide talking about MPU needing to be screwed down securely)
- rotten dog driver board, so J101 and J114 look good, not that it couldn't be the molex plug. Did reseat a few times.

The adventure continues

A resetting WPC game has failing capacitors and probably failing bridge rectifiers, this is common.

There is no quick fix that lasts, the power supply section needs to be rebuilt.
The little daughter board that is commonly sold is only a temporary fix.

A good ground is important, replace the bad wall plug.

These boards can be fixed instead of just buying another one.

You are on the right track, PinWiki has some great write ups on this.
Follow the trouble shooting closely.

Or, send the board to someone like Chris Hibler if you dont have a repair person near you.

First off, thanks again to everyone offering support in getting this game operating fully again!

Second...Story time!!

Back in 1993/1994 my parents and I went on vacation to Florida. The hotel there had a Doctor Who pinball machine. My dad was blown away at it because of the Expander! Being only 8 or 9, I just watched. For the last 30 years my dad will bring up the pin from time to time because it was so memorable. Back in 2013 my girlfriend at the time introduced me to Doctor Who...after a couple of episodes I was hooked! Around 2018 or so it finally clicked....I called up my dad and asked what the name of that pinball machine was...DOCTOR WHO! At this point I have a half sleeve of Doctor Who, my dad knows I love the series, but neither of us put two and two together that it was one in the same! So last month when when one came on the market, I drove 8hrs round trip and got it! He still doesn't know, but will on Tuesday when my parents come to visit from Tennessee. He's going to...flip...ha!

So I'm pretty bummed that this machine didn't have this issue at first and now does right before he visits. Part of me wants to run to Pinball Life on Tuesday morning, get everything and hopefully fix it before he arrives. Though the other part of me fears...what if it doesn't work at all after.

I'm going to record his reaction, I expect it to be like a little kid getting the toy he wanted so badly for Christmas, lol.

Again, thanks everyone.

The game is/was now resetting every few seconds.

Tested voltage at the board, definitely seeing low power at TP3, TP8, and TP7. Surprised TP2 is almost at 5v given that the daughter board shows low 5v, expected lower.

TP1(12v)-12.6v
TP2(5v)-4.9v
TP6(50v)-66.1v (51 when solenoid fires)
TP3(12v)-10.8-11.2 fluctuating
TP8(18v)-14.2-15.5 fluctuating
TP7(20v)-14.1

I did bypassed the thermistor, didn't make a difference, sadly.

J101, both reds are producing under 4v each.

Here's an interesting kicker, I removed the WPC Reset daughter board and now the every few second resets stopped.I can actually play the game! I'm assuming this means that my 12v is still an issue since the daughter board uses the 12v to create a "better' 5v...so my problem is just hidden at the moment.

This is my findings so far after making it down to "6.18.12 Using a Multimeter to Test the Bridge Rectifier and Capacitors" of the reset troubleshooting guide. The capacitors are the large 5 black ones, right? Where's "BR2"? Not seeing a marking on the board and looks different than the guide, likely due to this being a Rottendog board.

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<opinion>Lots of not so good advice on this forum regarding WPC resets and the daughter board.</opinion>

Test the voltage without load and with load. This will allow you to see if there's something (a load) dragging down the supply. ALWAYS test and measure WITHOUT the daughter board in the system. It is an additional variable that you must eliminate to get the cause of your issues. It causes "interference".

For the answer to this, you will need to ask the manufacturer of the daughter board.

See https://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php/Williams_WPC#LEDs_and_test_points_on_WPC-089_Power.2FDriver_Boards for more detailed information on the test points. This should apply to the RD board.

Almost everybody on this forum mixes and confuses the "12V" supplies. Very, very common to see this with bad advice given related to it. I have written the follow a few times on this forum (other threads not this one). Seems to fall on blind eyes.

• TP1 = +12VU. This is UNREGULATED. Typically, unrelated to digital logic (+5VR) resets.
• TP2 = +5VR. This is output from the 5V regulator. On your RD board this is the small "vertical" board just above the test point rack. This is a highly efficient switching regulator. +4.9VDC is low but acceptable.
• TP3 = +12VR. This is REGULATED. Used by the switch matrix comparators on the CPU board. Also used by the daughter board as the "12V" source that it uses to generate the +5VR for the CPU board.
• TP6 = +50V. Solenoid power. Unregulated. Nominally 51VAC which is ~+70VDC RMS.
• TP7 = +20V. Flasher power. Unregulated. Nominally 16VAC which is ~+22VDC RMS.
• TP8 = +18V. Controlled lamp (matrix) power. Unregulated. Nominally 13.3VAC which is ~19VDC RMS.

Your voltages appear low. Check your line voltage (wall outlet voltage). Also check the VAC entering J101, J102 and J112.

I suspect you are not measuring the VAC correctly. Are you measuring this as VDC?

This is THE fundamental issue with the daughter board. It MASKS other problems on your power board. This is why I never recommend long term use of this board. It is useful to get yourself out of a mess in a pinch (operating a machine and need to keep it running) but it is not a long term solution. This daughter board, of course, only works as a solution if your +12VR is good. If the +12VR is failing then it won't help you. Always fix your power board. Don't use a band aid.

The RD board replaced the bridge rectifier (BR2) with discrete diodes. They should be D51-D54. All the corresponding bridge rectifiers are "X1-X4" where X is the voltage.

• 51-54=5V
• 121-124=12V(U)
• 181-184 = 18V
• 201-204=20V
• 501-504=50V

Since the board is new, it should work. However, two things come to mind.

1. RD is known for very poor quality assurance. Occasionally, someone becomes the unintended victim of this poor quality assurance.
2. If you have had electrical problems, you may have damaged your power board. I do not have any evidence for this.

The one thing almost everybody NEVER mentions is your CONNECTORS. You "replaced" the headers when you purchased a new board but you didn't replace the connectors. This is why you measure the board without load. You want to know what the board produces as a baseline. Then you measure the voltage at the CPU board to see if your connectors have increased resistance and are reducing the voltage along the way.

In my experience, replacing the headers and connectors fixes most every WPC reset. Not all but most. I recommend you replace (re-pin) your connectors. If the connector at the power board (J114) is in poor condition, the daughter board will be receiving a reduced voltage that will cause it to indicate "low voltage".

The above might seem very strongly opinionated (and considered "tough love"). Your right to think that. Your right to ignore it as well. However, I didn't just spend one hour typing all that text for my benefit.

Victor: I appreciate your honest "tough love" approach to pinball problems requested by users. I always seem to learn something new from your posts. I copy the golden nuggets and put them in a word document for future reference.

Totally agree with checking the connectors. On a Judge Dredd with all rebuilt boards it was losing half a volt between the driver and MPU. It was all in the one connector that plugged into the MPU. Can easily identify by measuring at the driver and MPU. Once that was resolved game has been rock solid.

While that little daughter board may help for quick tests and diagnostic it is not a permanent fix. Just shows you that there are other things to fix. Either boards, connectors, or both.

Nice write up!

Its wonderful to have some clarity on these issues, thanks!

Thanks. Agreed, and saw that as a bandaid from the start, I'd rather fix the real issue for sure.

I may have found the actual problem. The transformer at the bottom of the cabinet, it's only outputting 3.4v on red. Last night the game was playable, today, no longer if I double flipper hit. I have 120v at the wall, so it's not a power source issue. Same measurement at J101

At the transformer I'm testing at the lead it, before it jumps into the molex connector. Does this sound like the root cause, a bad transformer?

I'm not ignoring all the other testing, I wanted to go to the source of power to start at the beginning of the power chain.

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Test the transformer off of the lugs on the transformer itself.

The beginning of the chain is the wall power, then the AC power box itself, then the transformer, then the connections/wires, then the power board etc.

That seems low but the actual reading you report is irrelevant if you are not measuring or interpreting it correctly. You could have said it was reading 34V or 3.4V and it would be meaningless if you don't know what you're doing.

So just how are you measuring this? I am 100% certain you are not doing it correctly and are measuring VDC when you need to be measuring VAC. See https://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php/Williams_WPC#WPC_5VDC_Power_Derivation_Path for a better understanding of the derivation path.

So why do I know with 100% certainty you are not measuring correctly? Your DMM is set to measure VDC. Your image shows that.

Thank you for posting the image. It provides evidence for what you are doing. It is appreciated. Seriously! Most people don't provide any useful information on what they are doing so any person trying to help cannot provide any useful information on how to determine what is going on. I have seen people say "I measure <insert value here>" but they don't say HOW they arrived at that measurement - assuming they are doing it correctly. Seen it many, many times on this forum.

"I know I'm doing it right. I can't be doing something wrong because I know exactly what I'm doing."

If you aren't measuring things correctly, every conclusion you make is based on an invalid assumption.

I wanna see that reaction video man!

He was under the weather so his reaction was a bit tamed compared to my expectations, ha. The game behaved and he got several games in during his visit! Will get back to tackling the underlying problem hopefully next week.

Reaction video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12SX7rEW13xEiR6saCp4zM91SJKtfF_78/view?usp=drivesdk

That's awesome man

Imagine if you will that you have 2 working restored Dr Who pinball machines and are working on building a third. You are knee deep in fixing a chopped up wiring harness from a destroyed machine. First Dr. Who #2 decides to stop the MPF in mid rise in a game and not move even in test mode. Second Dr. Who #1 decides that the right Opto in the 5 Opto board in the MPF will stop working and throws a Credit Dot, while you are trying to sell it. That Pindora Box Opto board is less than a year old. Maybe its just a loose connection or light leakage on the side.

It is like they are jealous of me spending so much time on #3. I have ordered more Opto boards, just in case. I needed one for #3 anyway. I wonder if #2 needs a new motor gear box. Machines don't have feelings right???

I HIGHLY recommend replacing the motor/gearbox.

Note: Its wired backwards from the original, as are all of the replacement motors these days.

Replacing all of the wiring of the MPF and opto boards with silicone wire will insure against future failures.

Replacing opto boards and bi-directional motor boards is always a good idea, as well as filter boards.

ANCIENT molex connectors and terrible IDC connectors just "have" to be replaced.

You do great work, Im sure you will sort it all out.

Hello all! Today I joined the club. I've wanted the DW Pinball for thirty years, and I can't believe it's mine!
I'm sorry if this has been covered ad nauseam, but can someone help me find the image used for this great TARDIS interior mod? Thank you!

Screenshot_20230604-225817_Chrome (resized).jpg

Erin_H Here are two versions that I have used of the Tardis interior walls. You will have to resize them in a photo or paint program to get them to the size you want. Then use a glue stick to mount it.

I believe your picture is of pinballinreno machine. I have attached a picture of mine.

Note that both are the updated USB Tardis conversion. That is the same size but much more realistic. It does require a bit of cutting and modification to get the VUK trail to exit. I chose to cut a round hole with a dremel. I also used a yellow highlighter to accentuate the roundells. Switching out a blue led is also a lot better than the blue rubber sock over the bulb on the original.

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Another shameless plug for my recent project Doctor Who #3. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/bally-1992-doctor-who-restoration-build/page/3#post-7612022 . I am still gathering parts, but mostly have the PF rewired with new coils, switches and bulb holders. The back box lamp board is stuffed with bulb holders but not wired yet. The new colored wires have arrived from Wire-Bot.xyz plus all the pins and molex connectors.

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I installed Pinsound on my machine and it sounds kind of terrible. I’m not sure if I downloaded the correct sound package from Pinside. Any ideas on how best to restore the original sound via Pinsound or is there something better I could do sound package wise?

Some people have the Pinsound in Dr Who working well. I tried it and it was a complete disappointment. Used both factory speakers and a whole new Stereo speaker set. Loaded up all the sound packs. Most the audio call outs were really faint. Some said to go in and edit the sound packs to adjust. I can see doing that for new ones but the sound packs posted on the Pinsound site were supposedly working on other machines and sounded fine as is. It was supposed to be plug and play. I didn't expect to have to edit the files to make them sound decent. Also hadn't heard that was needed as part of a normal installation on any other machines. Is the quality control that bad causing that much variance in the boards that the sounds have to be tweaked for every one? Luckily I was able to sell the Pinsound and ended up using the speakers in another game. I just recapped my original sound board and am happy with that.

If I could go back I would have bought the LED version of the ColorDMD instead.

Pinsound does indeed sound different than the original 8 bit audio.
Its cleaner and crisper. There is no hiding audio defects behind 8 bit haze.

It IS plug and play, but like buying a stereo set, you adjust it to your liking.

It does take some adjusting of the 6 dials to get it right.

Better speakers and a bigger cabinet speaker helps a lot, but the original audio files suffer from being low resolution and there is no fixing them.

I agree, the original mix is WEAK. I like the modern mix better but it needs adjusting.

It took me about an hour to find settings that I liked, I started with the modern mix and then the 12 doctors, and then the 13 doctors.

I like the 13 doctors orchestration the best right now, it doesnt need any REAL adjustments. A lot of work has gone into it, its not perfect, but its pretty good.

The modern mix is also pretty good but might need some adjustments in the pinsound studio to get it perfect for you.

The main reason to get pinsound for me, is to install the shaker.

Adding the shaker to Doctor Who, is really good.

Download some of the fun mixes:

Doctorin the tardis
modern mix
13 doctors etc.

The pinsound studio program, once you get it installed on your PC, lets you adjust either whole groups. or individual sounds, if you want to fix something.

It allows you to save adjustments directly to the usb stick.

I didnt find it hard to use, in fact its pretty easy to adjust whole sections or individual sounds.

Pinsound isnt for everyone, its a Mod, you get out of it what you put into it.

I think that one of the biggest issues is that EVERYBODY hears things differently.

Thats why there are knobs to adjust one's radios and stereo system.

No audio system is perfect for everyone out of the box.

Pinsound is a platform to get what you want out of it, but you have to play with it a bit.

5 star restaurants have salt and pepper on the table for people to adjust their food.

Nothing is perfect, as we are all individuals.

I'm sorry but other than the actual installation of the board in some cases it is NOT plug and play. If the same setup is used as other machines there should not be the need to go in and tweak sound packs to make them sound like they do on other machines with the exact same setup. I expected the sound packs to be like what I had heard on YouTube and the examples. When buying a Pinsound that is sort of the image they promote and the expectation. I know it has worked out well for many people but for some like myself the board in no simple terms just sucked. I'm not the only one that feels this way and have heard of others with similar experiences. Until that is fixed and downloaded sound packs are consistent then it is a total pass for me. As it stands now it seems like two or more people could buy the same Pinsound baord and speakers yet not get the same experience. At least that was my experience with these boards and for the cost pretty much ruined it for me. Not that big of a deal since Dr Who was the only machine I have that I had considered using one in.

From prior posts I know it worked out well and I had looked forward to using your mix as well. But it wasn't right on my board and would have been something else to tweak that just should have worked.

The point of this post is to highlight that the Pinsound isn't always what it is claimed to be........

Sadly, life doesnt always live up to ones expectations.

Often when I go see or do something that is highly touted, it leaves me flat and unimpressed. Oh well, thats life.

Like I said before, Pinsound is a Mod, do with it as you please.

Im happy with it, but I also understand that it might need tweaking.

Buying a better set of golf clubs doesnt make me a better golfer either.....no matter how much they hype them.

During my DW resto I had the luxury of having an LCD and a LED colorDMD in my shop.

Seeing them side by side was the only way to chose.

I also liked the LED version a lot more for DW.

Im putting a stumblor wide screen on my current TAF resto.

Interesting thing happened today on my Doctor Who #1 machine. I put in the protectors on the sides of the cabinet walls, to protect the graphics. I raised the PF, to adjust the right flipper and tighten them all up. From all the "Freeplay" activity the game got at Allentown Pinfest, the right flipper had slipped down 1/16". This made shots more difficult. I lowered the PF and turned the machine on. All seemed OK. Then the DMD screen showed a different looking set of screens. More Box like screens, is the way I would describe it. I could still read the usual screens but they all looked different. I thought "How the Hell did this happen?"

Then I hit "Play" button. The right flipper button went full on (HOLD) and would not respond. I turned the machine off and raised the PF again. Don't laugh. Well, OK, laugh at my foolishness. The right protector was pressing the flipper button switch down. Once I moved it off the Flipper board, all went back to normal. Wish I had taken pictures of the alternate screens.

Dont feel bad.

Recently, I repinned the connectors on my Stargate.

I had pulled off the short ribbon cable from the CPU board to the driver board to get it out of the way.

AND DIDNT REPLACE IT.

When I turned on the game:

All solenoids fired at once, ALL OF THEM !

It made a HUGE CRACK NOISE like lightening had struck then went dead.

5 fuses blew, but no other damage to the game or circutry.

After replacing the fuses, all is well with the game.

Who knew that this could happen?

Williams games dont do this...

Live and learn Lol.

Hello, I didn't know where to post this, but I decided to start here!

I recently purchased a Doctor Who, but I'm having trouble with the music. The music gets distorted/static-y, and sometimes drops out completely. The sound-effects and voices seem to be fine, but the music is a problem. It sounds funny in all the speakers, so this doesn't seem to be a speaker-specific problem.
Thank you for any suggestions!
Here is an example of the music cutting out during play: