Interesting.... My shroud doesn't have "sides"..... But then again, I'm past the point of believing what I see is what should be there. When I took it apart, I also found small pieces of cut up credit cards being used strategically when light must have been interfering with an opto. Classic stuff.....

Yep, or a huge pile of greasy decaying electrical tape....

eyeamred2u You said you didn't use the shroud? You still need it from the looks of it, otherwise the insert lights will cause interference. The swinks opto still has an open back side that is directly open to the insert lights. Can you elaborate?

Read my post.

I ended up putting it on.

Leds are very bright

I don't need it. I have zero light interference. Swinks carrier has individual baffles, so the only thing you have to block are the outsides, which electrical tape does a nice job. The shroud is too thick anyways and can get in the way of re-assembly and fit for the MPF. Hey, if you think you need it by all means use it. What works for one may not work for another.

I absolutely agree.

These time expanders seem to each have their own personality.

What works for one might not work as well for another.

2 things that I think are universal:

Swinks opto carrier is an absolute must.

High quality and verified 5 opto boards!

My firm choice is the pindorabox.com ones.
They worked well for me. They are very bright and strong.

(Dont get me started on the gulf stream ones... they didnt work for me at all.)

Sounds good, I did get the pindorabox ones

I just got mine last week. Was sitting there for almost 2 weeks...

Too bad. They will get it thru. Lots of problems there now.

I used comet 2smd frosted sunlight LEDs.

I did too. they are really nice.
I also used the 5smd towers for all the flashers in the game, they are amazing!

I've heard there are issues with the cliffy's pulling away from the MPF. I'm thinking of sinking the tnuts down slightly (just 1/16 of an inch or so), and filling in the four front holes with clear epoxy and sanding it smooth for even more contact with the adhesive. Additionally, this should prevent tnut movement tearing up the cliffy protector adhesive strip in the event I have to do opto service work again and unscrew the opto carrier from the MPF.

Overkill?

yes.

Utimately the cliffy will get replaced.

Dont worry about it.

The MPF takes an amazing amount of abuse.

Just replace the Cliffy when its time.

Nah, if you clean it properly, the Cliffy protectors stay in place. The Tnuts are a non issue. I have taken out the mpf so many times, those tnuts aren't even in the way. I have seen a case where I did a service call on a DW and the owner tried to service the MPF and unscrewed it and then raised it up, ripping the cliffy and peeling the painted pf, now that was a disaster.

I can see what you mean about trimming the MPF, the new one has about 3-4 mm of extra length on the front compared to my old one. You can see that is fairly apparent just by looking at the holes on the cliffy on the old versus the new.

New Playfield Cliffy (resized).jpeg

Old PlayfieldCliffy (resized).jpeg

Yep, a lttle rework and drill a couple holes.

Put a mylar on it.

Yer done!

Any tips on doctor who test report is saying no clock work movement. Not sure what to do at this point we have put all new optos. Made sure the time expander is going up and down smoothly but still the same issue thanks.

Edit found the problem bad diode on the bidirectional motor drive board.

Nice detective work.

20181226_144721 (resized).jpg

It just seems that the front of the time expander assembly always gets the crap beat out of it no matter what you do and will consistently need maintenance and/or cleaning after hundreds of plays.

not really constantly, but it does take a serious beating!

any progress on that thing?

Let's take a step back. With Cliffy's protectors, sleeves, and a proper Faz's guide rebuild, the unit will hold up longer than what was originally designed. If you add Ulf's linear kit and the new motor controller, even longer. The mushroom targets take a beating for sure, but they are replaceable now with 3D printing. I am not minimizing the beating it takes during gameplay, but remember, if it is a game you are keeping, routing cleaning and care will make the game play for another 25 years.

Do they flash with the coin door button pressed, in test?

White Coin door button pressed during test?

Door open disables high power.

On DW some stuff works, other stuff does not with the door open.

Its a little weird. Later games disable the coils too with the door open.

They have 2 door switches.

DW has only one interlock switch.

Have all transistors been tested on the driver board?

LED 5 on driver board is for 20volts. No LED 5 lit, no flashers.

Look for cracked solder pads.

Maybe coin door switch is bad, can always bypass it and see if lights turn on or blow F111

Get out your multimeter and manual and start checking for correct voltages on Driver board and connectors.

Check voltage at J107 pin 5 for most flashers or pin 6 for power

J126 and J125 for data.

sounds like you have no 20v circuit.

Maybe Br4 or a bad cap there? or both.

Pinwiki time!

Check for continuity between the negative lead of BR4 and the negative lead of cap C11. Hard to believe BR4 is bad here

Figured I'd share my Mini Playfield (MPF) mylar cutout DXF and Fusion 360 files.

Additionally, there is a ready to cut project publicly visible for a Cricut Maker if you have one.

This one is smaller then the one that was on there originally (factory??). The one I had was cut too large, and went over the T-Nuts, which allowed for dirt / grime to get underneath the mylar. This one does not touch the T-Nuts.

Here are the links:

Fusion 360 and DXF files:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1iTLH7fyO-5GCHlFhgvk5jZjf5SBj_5aP

Cricut Project:

https://design.cricut.com/landing/project-detail/5e893b768e77390cd0f3ec1f
IMG_0291 (resized).jpg2020-04-04_21-08-46 (resized).png

The original mylar was wider, did you consider making it wider?

It is a tough component that does not often fail here. Usually C11 blows or prior board work in this area fails and may have to jumper C11 and BR4

Yes the original was wider, but the problem with the original was that it went over the T-Nuts, on mine the dirt got underneath that area and started lifting from the MPF. So I figured it would be better to not have it go over the T-Nuts.

But now that I think about it, if I ever want to remove it, it's going to be harder. Hmm.

I just measured the original. It appears to be 140 mm wide. Mine is 131 mm wide.

IMG_0292 (resized).jpg

Just make it exactly like the original.
Its ok if it goes over the t-nuts.

Id just replace both, 30 year old caps and parts....

The diode check on many meters should help determine if that bridge is ok. While those large caps can definitely age I don’t usually see any of those bridges fail unless overfused. I think it was mentioned that it was slightly overfused. Even so if the higher value fuse was less than the current rating of the bridge then there is a good chance it’s ok.

If you replace the caps be careful not to damage the board or through hole plating. Safest method I’ve found is add extra fresh solder on each lead so there is plenty for heat transfer. Then use TWO irons and heat up both leads. Have a helper pull the cap. You can use the desolder station and solder wick to clean up afterwards. Same goes for the Large two caps on the sound board. So far I’ve never had any issues this way.

I’ve fixed a few driver boards and a lot of the sound boards. On those with prior work almost all were damaged when someone had tried to recap or install bridges. The leads on the caps are often press fit and even trying to desolder first the plating gets ripped out. Doesn’t seem to happen using the two irons method.

Here is the 140mm version which mirrors the original.

Fusion 360 and .DXF:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1G0_o8Fxh-45FBu_hch0gUJMPJ3yBVrih

Cricut:

https://design.cricut.com/landing/project-detail/5e89d2d7de49110b747b6fe4

IMG_0293 (resized).jpg