Hello to all. Just acquired Firepower II and working out the gremlins. Players 1 and 3 first digit is out, but my bigger concern right now is that all displays strobe from left to right. I will post a video link later, but it you imagine in attract mode the displays might strobe from left to right over and over. Even coin and player displays do this. Not sure if it is supposed to. But once you start a game I woukd think the displays should go solid, but they continue to strobe at all times. You can read the scores but it is annoying. It is not like a loose connection or a flickering, they all light up bright and fade left to right in unison. The machine does have a Rottendog CPU/driver board. Could this be programmed this way intentionally? It just seems too uniform motion to be a failing component, but my experience with solid state games is in its infancy.

Any tips / insight would be most appreciated.

Thanks for the input...

The blinking/stobing affects every display. I started with a look at the HV section of the power supply. The traces the caps are soldered to are coming away from the board.
The +100v is outputting 97v...
The -100 is only outputting 48v...

Please let me know if I am correct in thinking I should replace the power supply before I even bother to proceed. Even if I can and could try fixing the board with jumper wires, I don't like it. I ordered an XPIN power supply and I will see if it was just the low voltage causing all this. Than I can maybe upgrade to Blue led displays and skip the HV all together.

2 of the displays have the ones digit out, I can see about trying to fix those in the meanwhile, if that is even possible. Was going to move them to player 3 and 4 since they will hardly be used there.

The article even states that one of the HV caps was only producing 50v, like mine, and that it gave the displays a lagey, strobe like effect. Now I feel very confident this is the problem.

The traces one of those caps solder to is peeling right off the board. I could just jump it, in fact the cap could be okay but losing power because of the board. I just don't want to mess with it. Not that I couldn't read up and fix it, but if I caused damage to the other boards, or even worse, a fire? The machine has a rottendog cpu/driver board, and a modern replacement sound board. With the Xpin power supply, this should be a very reliable pin.

1 and 3 player single unit out...both are strobe 8, traced schematic back to the connector at driver board, reseated the connector and they are all working now. Getting closer.

Success!! The XPIN arrived today. The GI lighting connector was broke off the old supply and the wires were soldered straight to board. I wasn't about to hack the new one so I hooked up the appropriate connector and installed it. Perfect, all the displays hold solid as they should.