Do they light up in the camera test?
Do they show a resistance change when light is shown on them?

Do they work if you pull them out of the carrier, and completely out of the MPF (fish the cable out etc...), and manually touch them together in edge test?

If so, you have an alignment problem. They are either always on or always blocked.

If not, you have a wiring problem.

In the carrier make sure each opto is pointed to the center of the interrupter, not to each other.

When I contacted Pindorabox, I asked specifically about reflective properties and they assured me the narrow 940nm IR's would NOT have that issue. But like everything else, they were wrong.

I dont think they imagined a blue or white or red opto carrier.

their tests were most probably on a standard carrier.

We use yellow colored carriers at my job with IR recievers and emitter and have zero issues. This is why it perplexes me as I service the equipment anf we never worry about reflectivity, only out of alignment or just broken IR's

I didn't jump anything, i'm looking at the schematics and the switch grid shows that the opto carrier goes up to the CPU board and is supposed to be plugged into J206 and J208.

Oddly, mine are plugged into J207 and J209 instead.

Is this normal?

Also, yes, all LED's light up when viewed from cell phone camera and resistance changes occur on all 5 photo transistors.

image0 (resized).jpeg

What can I say, a piece of manila folder on the back side killed my optos.

A spritz of semi flat black fixed it.

Flat black and the ledges removed did the trick.

you can put the plugs into J206 and J208, they are in parallel.
It should work the same.

I think that you just have an alignment issue, point the leds to the center of the interrupters better or loosen and slide the boards over a touch.

the system is very sensitive.

Pull it all apart and see if you can get the switches to activate out of the carrier and out of the MPF.
This will prove that they work.

YAY!

Its possible that the ledges/shroud is causing some light bounce with the pindorabox boards.
They seem bright as hell and super sensitive.

Id like one more person to try them before asking swinks to make an adjustment.

Either is okay mine are on J206/208.

Please jumper your mpu points to prove out you MPU is working 100%, then you can narrow it down

The ledge was easy to remove. I say leave it as it is and only offer black as a color.

Agreed!

Although the blue sure is purty.....

I have my swinks and pindora led boards ready to go together. I have the black carrier. I’ll report back on my success or lack thereof. Probably get to it tomorrow.

It did look really nice installed

Thanks!

It must be an alignment issue, cause removing it from the opto carrier and moving the boards side to side slightly did cause all switches 71-75 to periodically register in switch test. I hate this opto carrier design. I'll see if I can try get any movement out of the photo transisters, I didn't leave any play to them so I might have to solder two new ones and leave a little bit of room for movement of the photo transister to see if I can magically get an alignment that works.

if they work it might be easier to just open up the opto holes in the carrier a little to get a little movement out of them.

I had to press one board left and the other to the right before screwing the down with the #6 screws.

this was to get the leds to point to the center of the interrupters.

Other adjustments are to gently nudge/bend the led more the the center after the boards are installed.

It really helps if they are 1/32" off the board so you can bend them a bit.
if you cant bend them then I would raise them a little.

its not really magic, but it seems so when it works.

they just have to point the the center of the interrupter

I finally got 71-75 to work. 75 fires sometimes randomly but i'm just hoping thats ambient light causing problems. I had to pushed the LED's in by desoldering them a bit which give them much more left/right bending ability. It's with that bending ability I was finally able to get them to work. What a pain!

The Doctor Lives!!!!! Everything working 100%. Thanks to everyone in the group for all the help. Video to follow soon of the game working.

Congrats!

A looooong job done well.

Dont be fooled by random firing.

Fix it now.

It really has to be 100% before you reassemble.

Flip the flippers during test to see if you have phantom closures.

Put the black paper shroud on it and test again.

If its 100% then you are good to go.

Maybe tweak or bend the leds tiny bits more.

quick question:
Does anyone know if the 20v that feeds the flashers from the power driver board also feeds the motor driver?

Yes J107-6

Much obliged!!

i had the same issues with the red opto carrier so I cut pieces of black plastic tubing that fit over the optos and used A touch of epoxy to keep them in place . Original boards btw .it has worked so far . I really like the colored carrier and mushroom buttons so I was going to do whatever it took to make them work.

Ok, will test 75 with the shroud a bit more to make sure no random firing.

Here is the picture of the lock insert I accidentally lifted a bit. Can't seem to get the white bubble to go away. Ahh well.

image0 (resized).png

It will be good to hear your results after the paint dries.

If you are dealing with IR then having the inside pained black and completely opaque should help. I learned that lesson on an unrelated IR project. For an old robot I had to model up and 3D print new optical encoder discs. Initially printed in black and they worked great. Tried out colors like red and blue and while on the bench it seemed they may work they failed and caused all sorts of issues when installed. I think they allowed some IR light through. Going back to the black ones fixed it.

You wont see that at all.
Its too tiny see when assembled under glass.

Shine a flashlight under it.
The bubble will disappear.

Use dual head flex leds under the lock inserts, cool white.

Painting the inside black should do the trick, if you have to take it apart.

Right MPF will lock, then kick the ball out, or it will just kick the ball out, then raise MPF. Opto registers in T1. Switch test. Is this a dirty opto?

It might be a weak opto.

I changed all of my lock optos.

Also it could be doing a ball search if the opto or some other switch is flakey.

Test all switches with a ball.

I replaced every single opto and switch in the game.

Still i had to replace 2 switches when the game was finished.

The brand new ones were bad/flakey.

I put in brand new optos and I have credit dot as well, which I did not have yesterday. I will do a switch test on all switches next

All switches work in T1.Switch test.

One of the most annoying switches was the upper right pop bumper.

Impossible to see, hard to reach.
I adjusted it by hand, avoiding touching the siderails lol. Its a little tingly...adjusting with no tools live etc.

I think i just got it right last week lol.

Ive adjusted it 50 times.

Finally its working exactly right.

What a PITA.

I though it was maybe a bad switch, but really just had to be adjusted better.

What switch error gives the credit dot?
Is there a wire or someting in the opto path?

The right lock opto wire is close to the wall.

It is not giving me a test report, not sure why

Reset the factory settings.
Then power fail and reboot.

I had the CPU confused for a bit.
Test menu wouldnt come up.

I thought it was a bad coin door wire or switch.

Restoring factory settings fixed it

I think all of the testing and tweaking messed up the bad switch compensation software.

nope, did not work

Do you still have a credit dot?

In mpf test do the lock plungers work right?

Left is left, right is right?

Does the center target work right?

In a game do any mpf plungers keep running?

you mean Auto Burn in test?

Definitely right lock flakey.

Looks like poor performing opto.

Loose opto wire, hanging by a thread.

Crispy. Cracked opto wire.

Bad solder joint.

I think vibration from the kick out and second ball finally triggered it.

It should have seen and locked the ball immediately.

Try reheating the wires on the right opto.

You can do this without removing the MPF completely.

I made new wire ends out of flexable silicone wire for my right opto after it broke off the second time.

The dried out insulation plus old corroded wire made it unreliable.

I agree with you, I am gonna take out the MPF examine. I have a spare new set of optos. I have that silicone wire, works great.

Is this in the manual?
I didn't catch it.

Ok, I have never seen this. I will try it

I dont think its the opto per se.

More likely crappy terrible wire.

But you never know.

Definitly vibration related.

I've been meaning to get those 2 headed flex bulbs, pinball bulbs don't have those, so ordered from comet. Just wish they had the RGB color changers in stock, would have loved to put that up in the dalek topper.