Fish Tales
Williams, 1992Just bought a new rottendog power driver board for my FT and I'm having an issue with it resetting. I purchased it without the power board, so I'm not really sure if this is a new issue or not (I'm guessing not). When it first powers on it takes around a minute for it to reset, then it progressively gets quicker. Is this the normal WPC reset issue? I wanted to make sure before I went through the troubleshooting steps. Thanks.
I see the CPU is resetting, but the various LEDs on the driver board are on.
How do the voltages at the various test points on the driver board look? Are any of them not where they should be?How about the +5 at the CPU board? Measure at pin 32 of the game ROM.
Are any connectors tarnished or burnt? Like J101 or J102? I know the board is new, but the connector pins on the wiring harness are not.
Quoted from johnwartjr:I see the CPU is resetting, but the various LEDs on the driver board are on.
How do the voltages at the various test points on the driver board look? Are any of them not where they should be?How about the +5 at the CPU board? Measure at pin 32 of the game ROM.
Are any connectors tarnished or burnt? Like J101 or J102? I know the board is new, but the connector pins on the wiring harness are not.
+1 on all that, and contact Jim @ RottenDog.. super customer service - he even picked up the phone one sunday and helped me with one of his products once.. I felt super bad it was sunday but was awesome he did.
What made you buy the board to begin with? I just had both my CPU board and Driver board repaired at coin op cauldron and both had lots of small issues. They are old boards and I wouldn't doubt if it was not the rottendog, the game could run without the driver board.....
Thanks for the feedback, I'll try and give Rottendog a call when I get home this evening, and also look into the tips from johnwartjr.
Northvibe, the fish tales I purchased didn't come with a power driver board. The story I got was that the owner purchased the machine working, then when they brought it home it no longer worked (not sure what that meant exactly). He was trying to fix the power driver board and had pulled it from the machine, then couldn't find it when I bought it (it was at his friend's house when I bought it). Thus I don't really know if this was an issue before or not.
Thanks for the input, I'll let you know what I find out.
Tried to call Jim @ Rottendog but got no answer, will try again in a little while. In the meantime, here's what I found out:
TP1 +12VP : 15.52
TP2 +5V : 5.05
TP6 +50V : 77
TP3 +12VD : 11.77
TP8 +18V : 16.6
TP7 +20V : 22.95
Pin 32 on game rom: 4.98
Still no luck getting a hold of Jim, I'll try him again tomorrow. Don't know if this helps with the troubleshooting, but I disconnected J113 from the power board (the ribbon connecting the power board to the cpu board) and it still resets, although it takes longer (say 5 minutes or so instead of 1 minute). The heatsink right above the test points is very hot, although that very well may be normal. I'm guessing since the ribbon was disconnected, the CPU isn't telling the machine to reset, the power board is doing it?
You called him at 6-9pm depending on his time zone.. Give the guy a break haha Try email and calling during normal hours!
Was it burnt before? That normally happens because of a poor connection and high amp draw. No biggie .. But to be perfect you want to replace that plug as it will only get worse from this point on.
J101 is part of the secondary harness. That particular pin is bringing in 9 volts from the transformer. BR2 rectifies the 9 volts down to 5 volts.
I doubt that particular burnt pin *alone* is causing your problem. Your voltages actually look pretty decent. Your +5 makes it all the way to the CPU at 4.98, that should be adequate to keep the CPU running, unless it drops a huge amount under load.
The 12 volts looks a little low, but I don't know if it's low enough to cause resets.
Discoloration like that means that the connector is massively compromised and current passing through will be minimal at best. Replace it with properly crimped Molex and I'm betting you'll be good.
--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
314-766-4587
Pin 11 on J121 was also burnt. I'm ordering the parts from GPE. I checked the outlet voltage, then checked TP2, TP4, CPU Rom pin 32, and CPU U10 pin 1 while it was resetting and all had the proper voltage. We'll see when the parts come in. Thanks for the help.
Replaced both connectors and converted J101 to a molex, still didn't fix the issue (although it needed to be changed). Picked up a DM this weekend, pulled the power driver board out of it and put it in FT and that fixed it, so it looks like my new Rottendog board was defective. At least that's finally straightened out.
Also the start button on FT wasn't working, and the entire column 1 in the switch matrix wouldn't register. So I put the CPU board from DM (switched the game roms) in FT and it works fine as well. So looks like I've got a bad U20 on the CPU. I'll have to send that off for repair.
Anyway thanks for all the help, looks like this one is resolved.
If you need a recommendation on the board repair, try Clive at coin op cauldron. Awesome guy and imo went above and beyond repair on my boards. He put a updated rom, remote battery pack, touched up any and every hack/replaced part so it looks factory. Amazing job.
Another vote for Clive. I'm sending a board out to him tomorrow and haven't personally had work done by him, but all the great things from people here has been fantastic. He's also been really good with contact which is a big deal to me.
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Kingsport, TN
