Earthshaker
Williams, 1989Hello,
I have an Earthshaker and the F3 fuse on is blown, my upper playfield and backboard GI are out. I replaced the fuse and it blows out right away. If I remove the connectors to the back board relay and the upper play field relay, the fuse does NOT blow. Has anyone had an issue like this? I am not sure why the fuse is blowing out and I cant see any obvious shorts etc.
thanks and hope all is well
tony
Check those relay boards for any burnt connectors. Likely you will find some pins that will need to be replaced, possibly even have to fix burnt traces on a relay board as well.
Quoted from hkamania:Hello,
I have an Earthshaker and the F3 fuse on is blown, my upper playfield and backboard GI are out. I replaced the fuse and it blows out right away. If I remove the connectors to the back board relay and the upper play field relay, the fuse does NOT blow. Has anyone had an issue like this? I am not sure why the fuse is blowing out and I cant see any obvious shorts etc.
thanks and hope all is well
tony
Check the connectors, then start looking for shorts on those gi strands.
Hello,
Thanks guys,I am working on this now. I checked the relay boards just now PinballManiac40 they are silver and no burning etc, thanks for the suggestion. Dsuperbee, thanks I am checking the strands now. Thanks for the quick reply, I am really stuck on this.
Tony
Also the bottom board in the backbox is the interconnect board. To the far right is a connector with 4 yellow wires going into the connector. Pull that connector out and check for burnt pins there.
Also you would need to pull the 4 fuses off that interconnect board and test them to make sure they are good. These cannot be checked while connected in the board.
DocRotCod, thanks for the reply. it happended out of nowhere, I had it for about a year and i noticed while playing.
PinballManiac40 the header is a little brown but its not burnt up, I checked continuity on them and they test ok.
Quoted from hkamania:DocRotCod, thanks for the reply. it happended out of nowhere, I had it for about a year and i noticed while playing.
PinballManiac40 the header is a little brown but its not burnt up, I checked continuity on them and they test ok.
If the header is already brown, you need to replace it and the header pins.
Quoted from dsuperbee:If the header is already brown, you need to replace it and the header pins.
rgr, I'll have to order some, can you please suggest a good place and the type of connector to order? The headers are intact 100% not nearly burnt up, is it the resistance on the connector thats prob blowing the fuse out? I just started working on pins, I just did this exact same thing on an atari apb arcade machine , but on that board the pins were burnt so bad the case was melted and most of the wires were already broken so it was obvious.
thanks for all you help on this so far,
Tony
Quoted from DocRotCod:Check the transistor at q9 and q16. These are for upper gi relay and backbox relay.
Download the manual from ipdb.org and look at page 2. The upper playfield and backbox gi are on the same connector.
thank you sir! will do, I am heading over with my meter now.
Thanks again for all your help on this, its driving me crazy,
Tony
Quoted from hkamania:thank you sir! will do, I am heading over with my meter now.
Thanks again for all your help on this, its driving me crazy,
Tony
I just checked and they test good, I used the meter on beep test and used the strap to test the transistors, they both are ok.
thanks for looking that up!
Tony
Quoted from DocRotCod:Check the transistor at q9 and q16. These are for upper gi relay and backbox relay.
Download the manual from ipdb.org and look at page 2. The upper playfield and backbox gi are on the same connector.
I just checked and they test good, I used the meter on beep test and used the strap to test the transistors, they both are ok.
thanks for looking that up!
Tony
Quoted from hkamania:rgr, I'll have to order some, can you please suggest a good place and the type of connector to order? The headers are intact 100% not nearly burnt up, is it the resistance on the connector thats prob blowing the fuse out? I just started working on pins, I just did this exact same thing on an atari apb arcade machine , but on that board the pins were burnt so bad the case was melted and most of the wires were already broken so it was obvious.
thanks for all you help on this so far,
Tony
If the header is brown indicating heat (and therefore resistance), odds are the male pins have had their playing worn/burned off. Replace both. I get my stuff via mouser, but Great Plains electronics is great as well, and a bit more user friendly.
https://www.greatplainselectronics.com/categories.asp?cat=37
Disconnect the relay on either the upper gi or the backbox and see if you can further narrow it down as to which one is blowing the fuse. If either blows the fuse, I suspect a short. If one or the other blows the fuse we can go from there.
Quoted from DocRotCod:Disconnect the relay on either the upper gi or the backbox and see if you can further narrow it down as to which one is blowing the fuse. If either blows the fuse, I suspect a short. If one or the other blows the fuse we can go from there.
nice! so with back box relay connected no fuse blow! infact the back is now lit again!! upper playfield relay is still disconnected.
Thanks!
Tony
Check on the playfield GI sockets and make sure there are not any wires touching. Have you LED'd this pin? I have seen shorted LED's do this. Also, start removing groups of 10 bulbs and see if you can narrow down where the segment is and you can start to isolate where the short may be.
I know the bulbs are not easy to get to on this pin, especially the GI. so I would start with just a real thorough visual inspection.
Quoted from DocRotCod:Check on the playfield GI sockets and make sure there are not any wires touching. Have you LED'd this pin? I have seen shorted LED's do this. Also, start removing groups of 10 bulbs and see if you can narrow down where the segment is and you can start to isolate where the short may be.
I know the bulbs are not easy to get to on this pin, especially the GI. so I would start with just a real thorough visual inspection.
Will do, I am looking now. No, I haven't dont the LED yet but I want to thanks for the heads up on that. I was looking all day and nothing seems out of the ordinary. Is it possible the relay board is bad? I am going bk to the machine now to check the GI sockets and to remove the bulbs like you suggested.
Thank you sir!
Tony
Looks like this is the replacement relay board from Marco. $20 not too bad. Not saying that is the fix, but in case we need it you have a link.
Quoted from DocRotCod:http://www.marcospec.com/control/keywordsearch;jsessionid=D74528DF35ED5511C1B81D2B49A1695E.jvm1?SEARCH_STRING=c-11902-1
Looks like this is the replacement relay board from Marco. $20 not too bad. Not saying that is the fix, but in case we need it you have a link.
awesome! thanks a lot! ill order that as a spare and to test, I am checking those upper GI's now like you said. Thanks for looking that up! I'll post asap if i find something on the upper GI sockets
Tony
You can swap the two relay boards to see if it follows the board.
Normally you can see on the back of the relay board some damage.
Quoted from PinballManiac40:You can swap the two relay boards to see if it follows the board.
Normally you can see on the back of the relay board some damage.
Will do, thank you sir. I am going bk at earthaker now.
Tony
I just wanted to send an update PinballManiac40, I swapped the relay with the good one from the lower play field and the fuse went right out. I am still going over the upper GI traces and so far nothing seems obvious. I am going to change out the connector and go over it again. Do you have any suggestions on how to narrow down the short?
Thanks again, and thanks everyone for your help on this,
Tony Moger
Great. So at least you know right now you do not need a relay board. Was the wiring that went to the relay board brown or burnt? You still need to change the wired connector on the far right connector, J6, on the interconnect board.
Personally, I would remove the interconnect board and inspect the bottom side of the board. If you do remove it can you post pictures of it as well? Note any other wired connectors on the bottom right portion of the interconnect board as you remove them, especially J7, J8, and J9.
In the past, I had a Dr. Dude and a Black Knight 2000 interconnect board that had an internal short in the board. I ended up buying another board out of a similar machine and reconfigured it to each game as needed.
Here is a picture of the one of out my Dr. Dude. It kept blowing out a fuse. I determinted there was a high resistance short between two pins, which is really no way to fix other that cut traces and route them externally off the board to bypass the damaged area within the board. Just seemed more reliable to replace it. There was only slight discoloration of the board at J6 that I could see which is why I had pulled it out to inspect further.
The one out of my Black Knight 2000 was way worse that this one.Dr Dude interconnect board.JPG
Hello,
I just got my connectors and header pins to replace, I removed the inter connect board PinballManiac40 and took a pic, the pin is a bit burnt, also the old owner moved the wire one to the left on J9 because it was totally gone, I just realized when I removed it. I am changing the connector and header today.
Hope all is well,
Tony
earthshaker.j9..jpgThank you all! My earhshaker is back to 100%! Upper GI and backback are lit and functioning properly! PinballManiac40 , Dotrotcod and dsuperbee your the best! I replaced the header on J9 and the J9 Connector as well, I had to fix a trace also, and move a cable that the original owner hacked. I attached a pic of the jumper I added.
Thanks again! and please let me know if i can ever help with anything,
Tony
pins.jpgQuoted from PinballManiac40:Here is a picture of the one of out my Dr. Dude. It kept blowing out a fuse. I determinted there was a high resistance short between two pins, which is really no way to fix other that cut traces and route them externally off the board to bypass the damaged area within the board. Just seemed more reliable to replace it. There was only slight discoloration of the board at J6 that I could see which is why I had pulled it out to inspect further.
The one out of my Black Knight 2000 was way worse that this one.Dr Dude interconnect board.JPG (Click image to enlarge)
Thank you all! My earhshaker is back to 100%! Upper GI and backback are lit and functioning properly! PinballManiac40 , Dotrotcod and dsuperbee your the best! I replaced the header on J9 and the J9 Connector as well, I had to fix a trace also, and move a cable that the original owner hacked. I attached a pic of the jumper I added.
Thanks again! and please let me know if i can ever help with anything,
Tony
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