I don't have a lot of experience on this era of game. Got the game without any boards except for the lamps board. Bought a Rottendog Rectifier board and a Alltek MPU. I sourced a driver in working condition according to the person I bought it from.

I repined all the connectors. I unplugged everything before booting up, including the displays. I plugged in J2 on the Rectifier, no problem. I plugged in J3 and powered it up and immediately blew F1 and F4 on the rectifier. I believe the J3 feeds the play field and all its components but even if it does I have no clue as to why these blew. Can someone help me take the next step as to what look for as to why these blew or any next steps? Thanks in advance!

#2 4 years ago

WFC

Billc479

Pinside+ Frequent

Pleasant Plains, IL

9y 79,800 3,137 15

Did you have the correct voltages on the rectifier board when only J2 was plugged in?

#3 4 years ago

TPD

tomdrum

Tom's Pinball

Port Matilda, PA

6y 167K 7,427 16 52

Good info here:

https://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bally/Stern#First_Things_First_.28WIP.29

#4 4 years ago

237

slochar

Pinside member

7y 86,550 6,904

J3 is the backbox. If it's the 20 pin connector, that's the backbox one. 8 pins is the playfield J1, and J2 is the cabinet (which provides power to the rectifier so of course if the first one you plug in).

F4 is the solenoid bus, and F1 is the feature lamp bus.

The way to fix bally's of this era is to use the pinwiki troubleshooting advice, you get the rectifier and transformer working 100%. Then you add in JUST the solenoid driver board, and get that 100%, then you add in the mpu, lamp, sound (if present), and displays.

#5 4 years ago

IBS

ibis

Pinside+ Frequent

Winter Haven, FL

11y 63,150 805 18 1

Slochar, when I plugged in J2 is when I popped the fuses F1 and F4. Mind you, nothing was connected on the game other than J1 at the time.

#6 4 years ago

IBS

ibis

Pinside+ Frequent

Winter Haven, FL

11y 63,150 805 18 1

BTW, remember the rectifier was a brand new RottenDog. I DO assume there nothing wrong with the transformer. It was mounted in the game with no apparent issues visually speaking.

#7 4 years ago

237

slochar

Pinside member

7y 86,550 6,904

Double check J2 and make sure you got the transformer wires where they belong in the board.

If that's all correct sounds like the bridges on the brand new board are bad, you'd think it unlikely that TWO would be bad, but you never know.

#8 4 years ago

IBS

ibis

Pinside+ Frequent

Winter Haven, FL

11y 63,150 805 18 1

Thanks slochar, Ill take a look at it this week and report back.

#9 4 years ago

AMR

BigAl56

Pinside+ Frequent

Palatine, IL

7y 64,800 1,657

If the fuses blow with only J2 plugged in there is a short most likely on the board. Since replacing the board requires carefully soldering a bunch of wires from the transformer I would start by carefully checking those solder connections for accuracy and shorts.

#10 4 years ago

IBS

ibis

Pinside+ Frequent

Winter Haven, FL

11y 63,150 805 18 1

J2 being plugged in seems like it is OK, that is the plug from the cabinet and all my voltages on the rectifier are spot on when I boot the game. If I follow the Pinwiki start-up procedure, the next step is to plug in J3 on the Rectifier and J3 on the Driver. This is when things don't go good. I lose voltage on some of the test points on the rectifier and I have no voltages on the driver. I am to assume something is not copacetic on the driver. May be time to send it into Clive for inspection.

#11 4 years ago

AMR

BigAl56

Pinside+ Frequent

Palatine, IL

7y 64,800 1,657

J3 is the backbox and f4 is the 43v solenoid power. Check the knocker coil. It might be shorted. Try unplugging J4 from the mpu and J3 from the MPU. If F4 still blows it's a shorted knocker coil.
F1 is switched illumination. That should only run to the backbox insert. Unplug that for now while you trouble shoot F4 blowing. It's possible the two circuits are shorted together. Can you post a close up photo of the knocker and power supply connectors?

#12 4 years ago

IBS

ibis

Pinside+ Frequent

Winter Haven, FL

11y 63,150 805 18 1

Big Al, the knocker coil is disconnected. It came that way when I bought it. I have not reconnected it yet.

#13 4 years ago

GAB

WOLF

Pinside member

New Castle, PA

11y 43,650 1,602 2

You mentioned that you re-pinned all the connectors, make sure you got all the wires in the correct location of the connector for the J3 plugs.

Reply

Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.

Hey there! Welcome to Pinside!

Donate to Pinside

Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!

This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/evel-knievel-blowing-f1-and-f4-on-rectifier-board and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.

Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.