Sorry, the rest of my post was cut off, IDK what happened. I will re-post it later.

Are you saying to unplug this connection?

unplug (resized).jpg

Yes - pretty sure vec-tor is suggesting to eliminate the circuitry on the coin door (which is what is on the MPU J3 connector) for a test. If things start to behave, something on the coin door (slam switch, perhaps) is interfering. A few folks here have seen that before.

Well, I'll be damned! I did as you suggested and not only is the one-ball / three-ball problem solved, but the multipliers are working fine too!

Of course, it's a pain to have to keep opening the head to plug that connection back in just to put up credits on the game, so I do have to narrow it down further.

If it's a problem with the coin door (all the wires look Ok to my untrained eye), or the cabinet, where should I look next? I really appreciate your suggestions!

BTW, I did swap out LEDs into the coin slot sockets--could that have caused a problem?

Well, it wasn't the LEDs. Swapped back in the incandescents and still have the problem.

Have you tested all of the coin door, tilt, slam, coin switches in the switch test, might help narrow it down.

I'll have to look at the manual. I went through some of the self tests and saw drop targets dropping one by one and resetting, but I don't recall anything happening with the door.

Ok that sounds like the solenoid test, the switch test is where you remove the ball, put all drop targets up and can then check if each switch registers, see if any are stuck closed or falsely showing closures, wrong switch number(s) registering, etc. Five self test button presses and you’re in it.

Make sure the diodes on the slam switch and credit switch are not touch the metal plate of the door. All the metal parts of the cab are tied into a common ground. You can also try removing the slam/tilt switch from the circuit and see if that helps. I have purchased many used Bally doors and have noticed many times that the slam switch was removed or wires snipped. You don't need that switch in a home use game anyway.

To add to this, press the red button slowly 5 times. If there are no closed switches, the ball in play display will flash a "0". If any switch is closed there will be a number of the closed switch flashing along with an audible chime. If you do encounter a closed switch, you need to investigate why. First verify that the game has no ball on the pf and that all drop targets a fully reset. Match the number in the display to the switch via the chart and go to that switch. Make sure contacts are open and that whatever activates the switch is moving freely and not stuck, eg. roll over trip wire, stuck star roll over etc.

If that passes, then you know you have a switch matrix issue. And now that you have narrowed it to the coin door, hopefully the switch test will reveal which switch is the culprit, I'm betting on the slam switch. But also since you changed the coin door slot lamps, you may have caused something to short since you need the bend the tabs of the lamp sockets to change those bulb. Inspect the area for anything touching that it should be touching.

I pressed the button 5 times and a flashing "0" appears in the ball-in-play display.

The diodes on the coin door look good. I don't see anything wrong there.

Try activating all the door switches in the test just to make sure those show up correctly.

A diode may look ok but doesn't mean it's good. You have to remove them from the circuit by clipping one of the leads. You need a good VOM with a diode tester. You can easily dab some solder on the lead to reconnect once it's established it's a good one. A flashing 0 is good but you still should follow the switch ID chart and close each switch one at a time and verify the matching number appears in the display. This includes dropping each target one at a time and resetting each one before going to the next. Don't forget to close each tilt/slam switch as well. 4 total including the one on the coin door. I think your issue is with the tilt section. I'm not sure but unplugging the coin door fixed your issue so maybe that eliminated the cabinet tilt switches. There's a capacitor on the tilt bob circuit in the cab. Cut that one since it's not needed for home use unless your playing habits warrant it. That cap if shorted can cause a switch issue. I would also disconnect the coin door tilt as this could be your problem. I often see them removed and not needed in a home setting.

The numbers 16 (slam--inside of door), 10 (add credits), and 6 (use credits to play) lit up when each button/switch was activated. There is a coil and diode on the inside of the door that doesn't activate in any way. It's on the mechanism that accepts coins.

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The coil in question is the coin lock out activator. This is known as a constant coil. It is part of the solenoid circuit. It should pull in briefly during the coil test. Sometime you will hear it buzz. It prevents credits from being added after a game starts. If working, it will get fairly warm.

So the correct switch numbers appeared in switch test?

Just wondering if anyone has paint code for limited edition cabinet. Just need the gold. Thanks in advance!

You should also get a ‘9’ for the other coin switch. If there is hack visible maybe it’s from that added ‘free credits’ button.

Coin switches are definitely something to focus on. Given that somebody made a change to that area (good bad or indifferent) it would be a good idea to disconnect them from the circuit to eliminate that possibility.

Dave

And the red hack wires routed thru the jagged hole in the door bracket? Not good.

good catch

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll be out of town for the next week and won't be able to do much more, but I'll probably have more questions then.

Also you have a diode on coin switch #09 - my schems show no diodes on the coin switches. But I’m guessing that would not cause a problem vs. a diode missing that *should* be there. (?)

Greetings! New EBD ‘84 owner! Is there a way to turn off the background music...without losing the speech?

Advance your self test position to ‘18’ using the self test button (little red button inside coin door) then use the credit button to set the value to ‘02’. Or set it to ‘01’ and will be same except alternate sound effects (manual says it is chimes w/background but apparently is a typo).

^thank you frenchmarky

Since it seems like I’ve owned my baby forever, here’s a pic. I put in an NOS pf in the 90s, no clearcoat, perfect original bg. Fave things about EBD are that the 8 ball and multiplier shots are so sweet but not gimmes, and how you can backhand pretty much every shot, and once in a blue moon when you *really* get the thing rolling with all five Specials lit, maybe even simultaneously... and you HIT ‘em all! Or completing the DELUXE targets for Special AND the carryover for 3 knocks and maybe even a threshold knock to boot, with a single shot. Never noticed it’s had the wrong card apron all these years until last month but meh, I like how the color scheme fits anyway so it’s staying. - Mark

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It's a Star Trek apron.

Yeah, if it actually had Mr. Spock or the Enterprise on it I’d be bugged. Besides she and I have been living under the same roof together so long we are both too old to change. 8D

Looks green-ish in the photo with red decals....could be a Mata Hari apron.

I found and fixed this issue on my EBD this afternoon and thought I'd document it and share in case someone runs into something similar. I've had this EBD for a little more than a year now and tinkered around with it enough so that it has been extremely reliable for the last 9 or 10 months (including re-pinning most of the connectors into the backbox PCBs). It gets daily use and is one of my favorite machines.

This afternoon, we noticed some lights were out on the playfield. When the machine turns on, you can see all of the lights flash and sequence for a few seconds. Then, the X and the second E in DELUXE flicker and go out. When those go out, all of the lights in the left orbit lane go out and stay out as does the Special and 70K lights for the in-lane and all the white strobe lights except for the top ones. Plus the pop bumper lamps as well. Watch the short video for a visual.

Same lights don't turn on in the Lamp self test.

Since all of these happened at once, I did not suspect burned out bulbs or loose sockets or anything like that. There had to be something common between these lamps and whatever the issue was, it was somewhat intermittent as cycling power always got them to work for a few seconds, then the same lamps would go out again and stay out.

I eyeballed all the wires and sockets under the playfield that controlled the affected lamps. I wiggled wires, wiggled sockets, and pressed on connectors for the lamp boards underneath the playfield. I did find some poor wiring jobs from previous owners under the playfield that I did not like but I'll sort those out later as they likely don't have anything to do with this current issue.

I pulled out the schematics to see if there was anything electrically common between the affected lamps thinking maybe all of them were on the same connector or something and I could focus on that. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case - looking at A9 Aux Lamp board where all of these lights live, it was spread across 2 connectors (J2/J3). Still, it was possible there are multiple connectors with problems but it just seemed unlikely that this would all happen at once. As I stared at the schematic some more, a pattern jumped out at me that connected all of this together - the same sequence of lights that work and don't work appeared on each of the 4 decoder chips U2, U3, U4, and U5. See the diagram below - I put red hash marks next to the lamps that don't work. Notice there are 7 lamps for each decoder chip, and the sequence from top to bottom for each chip go 2 not working, 2 working, 2 not working, 1 working. This is an addressing problem! Looking at the binary bits for each of those 7 lamps on each of the 4 decoder chips:

000 (doesn't work)
001 (doesn't work)
010 (works)
011 (works)
100 (doesn't work)
101 (doesn't work)
110 (works)

Anything with "0" for bit 1 doesn't work. If a wire is open, it'll default to high (on or "1") which would explain why some lamps work and some don't, and it's the same lamp position on each of the 4 decoder chips.

Addressing is controlled by AD0, AD1, and AD2 (upper left corner of the diagram). AD1 is for Bit 1 addressing, and it may be open. AD1 is Pin 1 for the J1 connector on the A9 Aux Lamp Driver board. And it's one of the board connectors that I DID NOT re-pin last year when I got the machine. I pulled off the connector, pulled out the wire and pin, and sure enough the clip on the pin was brittle, oxidized, and bent. I re-pinned just that one pin and put it back...works like a champ now.

Family is getting a lot of use out of this machine during Spring Break this week, so I'm going to leave it as it is (working) for now and will plan on re-pinning the rest of the connectors soon.

While the above is documented for EBD, the basic principle can be applied to any SS game, Bally or other, and not just lamps (solenoids come to mind, like when you have seemingly random or out of sequence fires). It's just good practice to re-pin *everything* on these 30-40 year old machines, something I get reminded of often.
Aux Lamp Board (resized).jpg

Especially the aux lamp J1 ground pins, they get really cooked, before I fixed ‘em the bad connection was even making my Alltek CPU to go into overvolt status for some reason if I just tapped the connector.

Good call Mathazar ! I re-pin every connector in a game that I restore. I re-pinned 3 EBD's so far, even replaced housings. I even replace the 24 pin coin door plug and the 9 pin for the horseshoe drop to pf harness. It takes many hours to do but well work it to make the game reliable. I love tossing out the IDC connectors from EBD. I believe they have caused many issue over the years I'm sure.

For sure, that end of J1 gets warm alright. : )

vec-tor

I am not at home now, but I can see schematics show J1 pins 13, 14, and 15 are all ground. Pins 13 and 14 are unused. J3 shows 5, 6, 19, and 20 are all ground and none of them are "used." Based on this I see your comments about one wire for ground on J1, pin 15.

Schematics show all these pins tied together, I assume by the board traces. I also remember noting that a board trace in the upper right hand corner passes under the mounting screw.

Last night I checked and the board mounting bracket is not grounded so the mounting doesn't add to the ground circuit.

What did you guys do to add more ground....?

I can see running a ground braid to under the mounting bracket and thus giving the traces that path?

Otherwise, run some wires (one to J1 and 2 to J3?) to the unused pins and then back into the harness to a common ground location or the braid?

Dave

Interesting. Definitely sounds like great redundant routes. I did something similar using ground braid screwed into the aux board bracket and across to the hinge screw and back box ground shield.

I will also look into adding more ground routes for the main lamp board.

Dave

What was goofy is I added a ground wire from the head to the aux bracket because it looked like the board screw holes grounded to that bracket. Then I checked and still no continuity between them. Turned out only ONE hole actually does ground to the bracket, and on mine that one hole’s trace was too worn off to make contact! So I just bumped that hole trace up with a little solder. So if you do this, make sure that trace really is making solid contact with the bracket.

Sounds like adding an additional ground path to the aux bracket is the smart thing to do.

Dave

I am in the middle of PF swap. It has cointaker #47 frosted LEDS for all GIs.
As I was putting on the new clear plastics I notice the frosted LEDS are to tall.

What are other people using for LEDs or incandescents?

That's odd. Which socket did you use?

#47 socket

That's weird. I have used CT frosted in many Bally games with no problems. On 2 EBD swaps I changed the 555 sockets to 47 for the switched lamps but kept the 555 on GI and the chase lamps on the upper part of the pf under the plastics. The 555 is closer to the top of the pf surface and the bulbs still fit under the plastics. Did you use the staple down type 47 socket? Can you post a pic or 2? There's about a half inch clearance under the plastics so it's hard to imagine the bulbs touching.

47 stapled for the GI under plastics.

Will post pic tonight.

I have an LE cabinet that I am swapping an original playfield into. Has anyone here done this? I am looking for some help on the wiring under playfield

The one difference is the harness for the auxilary lamp driver. The plugs are different. If you remove the 2 plugs from the aux bd you can remove the pf completely. I just used a ebdlmted as a test rig for an ebd standard swap. The only difference was yhe aux lamp driver harness.