Some lamps wont light in attract mode. All lamps should flash in self test though.

What PF pitch do you set your 81 EBD to?

Best game play not toughest

Specials, on Bally playfields, never lite during attract mode.

If you are using 3" leg levelers... I would go half way on the back legs...
Then, adjust from their.

Much better game play.

Dialing in EBD81 restoration.
Right in lane ball bounces off flipper rubber, very little adjustment.

Any solution?
Are cliffy’s ball guides wider to prevent ball hop?

Inlanes should be plastic on bottom, metal on top. You have it the other way around?

Holy crap!

Thanks

Yes it clicks and light flashes. I pulled it and reflowed solder on it too but didn't fix my problem. I just ordered a new solenoid expander board too.

Anyone have a picture of the coil the resets the inlane drop targets? Just making sure my is wired correctly..

I would need time to root through all of my SD cards to find pics. My games are torn apart right no for future restorations.
Do you have a solenoid driver that you can borrow from another game to test with?

My star rollover switch #35 shows shut in switch test and does not score in gameplay. The contacts are open but the switch lugs have a small capacitor on them that does not show in the schems. It's the only switch in the game that has a cap. Soldering job is not original. Why is it there and can/should I cut it off?

The schematics do show a capacitor on that switch - where are you seeing otherwise?

High speed balls over that rollover switch will sometimes not get detected without the capacitor. That capacitor is shorted. Cut it off or replace it.

EBD_SwitchMatrix_Caps.jpg

Also I would verify that the switch itself isn't shorted somehow. If somebody that didn't know what they were doing when they worked on that switch it's possible that they didn't wire it correctly or the blades are out of order.
It's odd that's the only cap in the game. there should be caps on the pop bumper switches, the bank shot and all 6 yellow stand up targets should have them.

Oops, didn't spot that.

Cut it off, checked switch, no change. Installed new cap, no change. Pulled on wires to lower lug, one was not attached, re-attached, got the blinking zero on switch test!

No caps on bank shot stand up and all three pops, but they are there on the 6 yellow stand ups. Sneaky little devils.

Thanks again, friends.

You probably want the cap on at least the bank shot target. Otherwise you will get a lot of hits that don't register.
And considering how hard it is to get to the bank shot, it will piss you off if you hit it and it doesn't count.

Note: On Bally switch stacks, micro contaminates/moister
------ can cause irregular switch readings.
------ Make sure switch stack spacers and tubes are clean, dry,
------ and free of any residue.
------ One can carefully dismantle the parts of the switch stack and put the
------ game in switch test to see if it still reads... when in fact it should not.

Is anyone manufacturing the plastic (lower level) inlane guides ??

I make my own. I use polycarbonate plastic.

bigdaddy1 was selling ebd clear plastic sets on ebay. Including the flipper returns.
I have a set. Pretty nice.

The driverboard is good, it’s brand new.. I think the solenoid is hooked up wrong.

The wiring looked correct to me.

Is it a Alltek mpu?

I’ll leave the troubleshooting to the experts here but here’s a picture of the inlane target reset coil.

DEBA793D-47A7-4FCC-AC9B-B8B0020FC633 (resized).jpeg

Looks good to me.

Question for those that have used the Seigecraft and similar LED flicker eliminator kits on this game. I believe I've seen/read that the standard kit of 3 little pcbs will work and no need to get the extras for the aux LDB. Can anyone confirm?

Thanks, in advance.

Anyone have any used good 555 sockets that would be willing to part with? I am working on an early example of EBD and don't want new sockets. I have several sockets that are beat/broken and I want to swap out! Need maybe 10 long (inserts) and 2 short (GI). PM if you can help out.

Several posts back, someone was selling a complete set.

Yeah I seen that but I don't need a complete set. Thanks for post

The lamps that are worst affected by flickering are those that are first refreshed during the zero crossing interrupt routine. This happens because the feature lamp voltage is still low during it's DC phase and rising. The SCRs for those lamps have trouble latching on because not enough current is drawn through LEDs due to the low voltage at that time.
On Eight Ball Deluxe the early refreshed lamps are those in the centre rack and the worst sufferers being the lowest numbered ball lamps in the rack.

The lamps on the Auxilliary lamp driver board are refreshed after the main lamp driver board. By the time the Aux lamp driver board is handled, the feature lamp voltage will have risen to the point that the SCRs should latch normally.

The type of LEDs you use will also make a difference, higher current drawing LEDs (SMD type) will suffer less from flickering issues.
You will probably find the anti-flicker boards for the aux lamp driver board are not needed.

Thanks for the excellent summary. I use 2smd from Comet, so sounds like I'll be good with the regular kit and may have to add a couple resistors in the lower rack area. All good with that.

Quench, I’ve noticed a very slight flickering of the controlled lamps going up the 2 ramps. I believe they are on the aux board. I’ve noticed this with either the original Bally aux board or the Alltek aux board. I bought both of Alltek’s lamp boards. I’m using Comet 1SMD bulbs. Any suggestions on how to completely stop this?

You mean the upper left and right lane strobe lamps?
What voltage do you measure for the feature lamps? Measure it at the stapled braid wire running to those lamp sockets. Also measure it at the Alltek aux lamp board where you connect the feature lamp voltage jumper wire which is TP3.

Yeah Alltek board, I noticed someone on here had a picture of the in-lane drops coil and i believe it looked different.

The comet LED adapter boards are $75. Seems like...a lot.

That's if you order the specific kit for EBD. I've seen people using the standard 3 piece kit and not getting the other 2 for the aux LDB with no issue. I'm gonna go with the $45 standard kit and see how it looks.

I assume that's what I bought for my meteor (which likely needs board work anyway--LEDs still flicker) so I guess I'll pull those out and ship to my friend to go with EBD, so he can give them a try.

Yes. Most games work with the standard 3 piece kit. And Meteor is a special case. You may need LDB work, but you will likely still need to add a few resistors to problem lamps after that also. I added 8 or 9 resistors to lamps that still flickered after the 3 piece kit and all LDB work was done.

Thanks Quench. Yes those are the lamps I’m referring to. I’ll get back to you.

Yeah I've done zero board work on meteor thus far.. Haven't even swapped out the battery..... Oof

I’m getting around 7.55 volts at TP3 and also at the sockets. I’m using the ground braid in the backbox as my ground for my meter. Is there somewhere else I should put the ground probe? The bulbs flicker or maybe it’s more of a strobing effect. It’s very subtle but definitely noticeable to the naked eye. I tried to video it but it’s very hard to see. Here’s a link to the video. I intentionally darkened it to make it more noticeable.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yp8rnokk9bkia38/Video%20Apr%2016%2C%204%2018%2036%20PM.mov?dl=0

Voltage is a little high but if anything that should help reduce flickering. At least you don't have a low voltage issue causing it.
Do you notice them strobing when in lamp test mode?
Presume you have the same LEDs in the light door behind the back glass. If you take the backglass off do no notice the lit feature lamps on it strobing too when looking directly at them?

Unfortunately my game is in storage so can't experiment.

I have a combination of the same LEDs and some incandescents behind the backglass. Incandescents behind the words Eight Ball Deluxe across the top. There might be a tiny bit of strobing on the feature lamps behind the backglass if I really stare at the bulbs. It’s barely noticeable if at all. It’s difficult to tell during the lamp test mode because that makes the feature lights blink. By the way the MPU is also an Alltek. Pinscore displays. The power supply is original but the bridges have been upgraded.

Incandescents as you are probably aware have persistence in their lighting. The moment you disconnect power they slowly fade out.
LEDs on the other hand have no persistence. Disconnect power and light extinguishes immediately.

The feature lamp voltage on these games is "rippling DC", i.e. the voltage starts at zero volts, rises to about 9 volts then falls back to zero volts and then this cycle repeats. This rippling DC cycle happens at 120 times per second. It's unregulated DC.
It means any enabled feature lamps are switching on and off 120 times per second. Due to the persistence of incandescent lamps you don't see them switching on and off so the light output is stable, but it can be apparent with LEDs and some people are more sensitive to them strobing. I've had people notice the displays in these games slightly strobe for similar reasons.

The upper right/left lane lamps are amongst the last to be refreshed by the MPU board when the DC feature lamp voltage is rising - i.e. those lamps are off for the longest period in the DC cycle. Things get complicated again when the game software sometimes has to postpone refreshing the lamps because it's busy refreshing the displays which have higher priority. <- This is a reason why the usual LED flickering in these games isn't always at a consistent rate.

How do you give LEDs persistence? You need to install a capacitor in them to store voltage so they stay powered on when the rippling feature lamp voltage otherwise dips to zero volts during its cycle.

The Comet "Flux" LEDs have capacitors and might resolve the flickering you're seeing, whether you like their light/LED style is another matter. They have a note that they don't work properly with Alltek lamp driver boards. Alternatively switch those particular lamps back to incandescents

Thanks Quench for the explanation. The strobing is not severe enough to be distracting. However I may experiment a bit and try incandescents back in there. I do miss the glow. Or maybe some clear retro LEDs to see if the effect is less noticeable than the frosted.

I'd give the cap thing a try. Quench, what value cap would fix the issue or improve it? My playfield hasn't made it back into the cab yet, so I'm eager to do as much as I can before then.

Unfortunately it's not that simple, the capacitor needs to be inside the LED circuit, i.e. it's not something you can hook up externally on the lamp socket or anything.

Below is how I modified LEDs for a personal machine years ago where I didn't want to make any modifications to the game to minimise LED flickering. i.e. I wanted the anti-flickering solution to be inside the LEDs themselves. During the slide show you will see a little black rectangular thing inside the LED package. That black rectangular thing is a mini bridge rectifier.
The discussion here of installing a capacitor, it would need to be connected on the output of that mini bridge rectifier where the actual LED is connected so it can hold power to the LED. That's the theory anyway. Maybe one day I'll try it but it's otherwise too difficult to go modifying LED lamps in this way.

output_8xk02S.gif

That's the most informative explanation of led strobing I have read. Thanks for that. So adding a resistor to these would not help? I too have noticed the refreshing of the upper lane lamps myself after a complete restoration on a ebd with all new Alltek boards all new connectors installed. I have always used cointaker leds. Do the comet flux still need the Alltek led driver boards?

I doubt you’ll want to use them anyway. IMO opinion they’re not really for show on the top of a playfield. Really designed for inserts.

Ok