Quoted from ApplePie:I haven't shared half of the mistakes I've made
Lol! I know the feeling! 
(Topic ID: 186679)
Linked Games
Firepower
Williams, 1980
Topic Gallery
1 month later
Calgary, AB
Well, I've managed to get back at this over the past couple of weeks and have made some good forward progress. I can't seem to get the photos off my dying Iphone anymore so I'll write a bit on the computer then post a couple of pictures straight from my phone. Looks like I'm going to need some "what to try next" advice as well so I'll save that for the end.
Current status is that the playfield is fully populated and installed in the cabinet. The topside is all completed as well right down to the plastics and scorecards 
Looks like a beauty for sure. I've got the drop target modification fully completed now, which I'm pretty excited about. And I've got the Pinduino controlled GI lamps and playfield embedded LED's up and running with some pretty basic test coding.
I had a faulty 5V regulator on the power supply earlier which I replaced with a PSU5 5V switching regulator, so that's all good now. I slowly powered up each individual circuit fuse by fuse and found that the CPU didn't want to boot up but all other circuits came on fine (GI, solenoids, lamps). I haven't tested the flipper circuit yet, leaving that for last. So, take a little time to read up on system 6 board booting problems and eventually decide to pull the CPU and driver boards and recheck all my work. Turns out I missed soldering in a column of pins on one of the ROM sockets when I replaced these many months ago (I just tacked the corners and forgot to solder the rest in. Whoops, that cost me about a week of troubleshooting). So now we have a booting CPU which is a pleasant sign to say the least.
So I'm currently going through the process of identifying what is working properly and what is not working properly. In the working properly category, the pin appears to boot up to attract mode with playfield lamps flashing away and the occasional synthesizer sound emanation from the sound board (not sure if this is normal or not). I can get into the test menu with the auto up/down and advance coin door buttons. I can't start a game, which doesn't surprise me in the slightest at this point. Some things worth noting from my initial run through the various tests (going from memory here):
1) I've installed Pinscore displays in the backbox. The first and last digits on the player 1,2,3, and 4 displays do not light up in any of the various tests including the display test. I self admittedly know nothing about what drives the display digits. Any advice on where to start with this problem would be appreciated.
2) During attract mode, the "right outlane special" lamp and the "1 can play" lamp on the backbox are locked on and do not flash (both of these are on lamp drive column 7). The remainder of the lamps on column 7 do not light. When I run the lamp test via the coin door all of these lamps flash as you would expect. Is this normal behaviour?
3) In the solenoid test, it appears that all of the solenoids fire except the top left pop bumper. I'll double check the solenoid wiring under the playfield before chasing this back to the driver board.
4) I ran the switch test and see that it is reporting a couple of stuck switches in the top rollover lanes. I'll double check the switch gaps there and give the rest a once over before spending much time chasing down anything else it could be.
5) I went through all the options on the menu and set number of credits in #18 to 0 to get into free play mode. Also adjusted a few of the others to what I think make sense for starters. Are there any suggestions for any of the settings from fellow Firepower owners?
And finally, I'm not certain that any of the errors I've identified so far would prevent a game from starting, unless a stuck switch would do it. So, that's possibly going to take some work as well.
Houston, TX
2 years later
Quoted from ApplePie:So I'm currently going through the process of identifying what is working properly and what is not working properly. In the working properly category, the pin appears to boot up to attract mode with playfield lamps flashing away and the occasional synthesizer sound emanation from the sound board (not sure if this is normal or not).
Yes, the a random sound effect will play every 9 minutes or so.
2) During attract mode, the "right outlane special" lamp and the "1 can play" lamp on the backbox are locked on and do not flash (both of these are on lamp drive column 7). The remainder of the lamps on column 7 do not light. When I run the lamp test via the coin door all of these lamps flash as you would expect. Is this normal behaviour?
Yes, normal, the stock attract mode on williams system 6 games only includes the first 6 columns of lamps to save space in the code (although they didn't really need to in most games). It just has a set of lamps to copy each step so I guess over 40 steps or so, saving 1 byte per step saved them 40 bytes. This has been fixed in various rom mods.
3) In the solenoid test, it appears that all of the solenoids fire except the top left pop bumper. I'll double check the solenoid wiring under the playfield before chasing this back to the driver board.
Try going into audit/test and just activating it via the skirt. The solenoid test uses a different path to activate the special solenoids.
5) I went through all the options on the menu and set number of credits in #18 to 0 to get into free play mode. Also adjusted a few of the others to what I think make sense for starters. Are there any suggestions for any of the settings from fellow Firepower owners?
You might not like the way the freeplay works - no credits added or subtracted, ever. But at least you can set the credits to 01, then set the freeplay option, so it always shows at least 01 credits for a show or something. Again, rom variants available that fix this to some other way so you can still chase winning credits.
And finally, I'm not certain that any of the errors I've identified so far would prevent a game from starting, unless a stuck switch would do it. So, that's possibly going to take some work as well.
Firepower needs to see 3 and only 3 closed switches where a ball would normally sit to start. The 3 switches have to come from 4 places - left, middle, and right ball trough, and the shooter lane. If all 4 are closed, the game will not start. It will also not start if you have the left trough closed and the shooter lane. The stock software has some good multiball handling code (although it's not perfect) which for the very first solid state multiball game turns out to be pretty solid.
4 months later
Birkenhead
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