One of the displays on my d&d machine is showing all lit. There are two separate display units, is one of them shot? How can I start to troubleshoot?
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Hmm... Well I added balls, reset the connector, at first it was still garbled, then it worked! Definitely wierd. Now I have to figure out what is going on with it. Will go into attract mode, try to start, but no coils fire and thus is on the display, all fuses seem correct.
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I checked the fuses with a meter and they were good. I have heard the optos can cause an issue, could it just be any opto? Also, the original battery is still in the machine, the ni-cd, I haven't replaced with double a's yet, I thought I read that dead batteries can cause all kinds of crazy problems with 6803's? Thanks.

Never owned while it was playable... Previous owner bought as a project as well so who knows. As far as the battery goes, I thought since it is one of the ni-cd, it doesn't leak acid. There is no sign of acid damage anywhere. I thought they just discharge, and that lack of voltage causes issues with the game.

I bought what I needed to do a remote battery holder, I should be able to do that later today. As far as what it does when I start a game, it's in attract mode, push start button, says on the display hostile opponent, can you survive (or something like that) has the bell sound and the score shows zero for a couple of seconds, then it goes to the fuse f1 message, no solenoids fire.

How can I test the opto to find which ones it is? I installed the remote battery holder, game boots into attract mode fine, but now start button doesn't start the game... Went into test mode and no solenoids would fire in test, also, there only seems to be one sound being produced, no gi, and none of the controlled lamps seem to work... Gonna be one of those projects. I did see this jumper soldered on the main board, not sure if that's OK, also seems to be a black wire that was cut just floating around, could be related to the topper as mine doesn't have one... Any thoughts.
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My feeling is the optos are bad, but the solenoids would still work in test, so I think I am going to have to start from square one and meter the test points on the power board and so on.

Yeah, I'm going to replace that wire with a 0 ohm resistor as it is a jumper, so the wire should be doing the same as the resistor would, but I am definitely going to replace before I power it on again. I also checked the opto's, checked the transmitters with a digital camera and used a light and the switch test on the receivers, everything checked out perfectly. I metered all the test points on the cup and power board, only the controlled lamps test points on the power board were bad (zero volts...obviously an issue), I had 44 volts at the solenoid test point. I'm thinking to go further I am going to need to use Leon's test rom. Thoughts?

I will do this tonight and report back.

No power at the coils, next step pull the board, check for cold solder joints on the power supply board. Should check the bridge rectifier?

So, kind of made some progress tonight. Kind of...first thing I did when I got home was turn on the game to check some of the test points on the power supply board that I thought I was getting 0 volts when I was checking for DC as opposed to AC . When I turned the game on...most everything worked. GI, controlled Iamps and solenoids. Started a game, still no sound, and there are no flippers. I pulled all of the boards and reflowed the solder on the connectors. Popped the boards back in and still the same, no flippers, only one sound, and now the game keeps trying to kick balls into the ball trough. Guessing that might be an opto issue. In test, flippers don't work...everything else does. In test, only one sound. So why would I have no flippers? Why would I only have one sound? Thanks!

Any ideas? I think the flippers run on a different circuit then the other coils. I checked the EOS switches and they are fine. The flippers go through the relay on the cpu, how can I check the relay?

Yes, I pulled and metered all fuses, thinking it could something with the relay. I need to wait for the manual I ordered to arrive, I can't stand looking at schematics on a computer screen, I need the fold out paper version.

On the CPU board at the top right. I think it's designated K1. I've been searching through old RGP archives to try and figure it out, but I'm not sure how to test this relay. Is it supposed to pop when I first power the game on? Whats the best way to test? I'm not sure of the circuitry because I can't read the schematics in the digital copy of the manual. I have a real copy of the manual on order, hoping once I get that I can trace the problem.

Ok, so I am really at a loss. Started the game up tonight, and the sound works perfectly...no clue why, probably a chip socket, but I will worry about that later. Wanted to troubleshoot the flippers more so here are the facts AFTER tonight:
There is 44 volts at all of the lugs of the flippers
There is perfect continuity between the connector on the CPU and the flipper
The relay works perfectly, tested by grounding the diode next to the relay, this pops the relay on command
Thought at this point that meant it was the transistor at Q7, so I replaced with a new TIP102...still nothing
Also replaced the diode next to the relay
Ended up testing the transistor I pulled out of the board originally and I tested fine, so that wasn't it.
What the hell else can it be??? A capacitor in the circuit or one of the resistors? There are two resistors, one more diode and one cap, Could that cause the message not to be sent to the flipper? Need some help, totally stumped.

Bump so i don't go insane.

Remaining resistors tested OK, guessing a bad cap can cause the problem, since I can't really test a cap with a regular dmm, gotta powder it. Pictured below is the cap in question, there is some discoloration at the top... Heat damage? Numerous caps seem to have the same discoloration but all other coils work.
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Yes, checked connectors, checked the switches etc...it's killing me.