I need Help diagnosing what happened and what to do. My Fish Tales was in storage for about 5 years. It worked fine before storage. I replaced the batteries (It has a remote battery pack), turned it on, set the time and date which was asked for on the display, set it to Free Play and played for a couple hours, with no problems other than some lamps out.

The next day I turned the machine on and the DMD was only half lit (on the right side) and it slowly continued to degrade until there was nothing displaying at all. From what I could make out, it said to set the time and date again, but I wasn't able to do it before the display totally went black. There are no lamps lit, no activity at all except leds lit on the boards. I turned it off and on a few times and nothing happens. All lamps out, no sound, no activity and no DMD display.

After a bit of research, I checked the leds 19-21. 19 never lights at all on startup. 20 flickers (not a 1 second blink) once when I flip the under cabinet power switch on and 21 is always lit. There is a popping noise from the speakers when flipping the switch on and a bit of static out of the speakers continuously.

Only one time, when I turned the power switch on and off a few times, led 20 started to flash always as I think it is supposed to do. There also was one bong sound. The DMD also had 3 dots lit up in the bottom right corner. The machine lamps all came on so I pressed the start button and to my surprise a ball came out. Sound also was working. I launched the ball into play and it seemed to work except the flippers were dead and still no DMD display. Once I turned it off, I am unable to get anything to light up again. Only led 21 and other board leds 1,4,6,7 are steady on. I checked all cables to make sure they are seated firmly, but no change.

I am not able to do any board soldering work, but I can do stuff like change the boards, cables & part replacements. Just wondering if anyone has any ideas on what could be wrong and where to start. I'd like to know before I call someone if it's something I can't fix myself. But I don't know where to start without a DMD to run diagnostics.

Thanks a bunch,
Dan

Here's images of the left and right. Hope this helps

IMG_2606 (resized).jpg

IMG_2607 (resized).jpg

Hey maniac,

I tried reseating those connectors and the cable, still nothing. I did order some new cables for the machine as these got black marks on them. I don't know if you can test them, but they are almost 30 years old and I figured that it couldn't hurt to get new ones

No, LED 20 is not blinking. I disconnect the cable and then the top Led 19 comes on for a bit and now the middle led 20 is blinking and all the lamps on the machine are lit. Does that mean a bad cable?

And still no DMD

Also, I can start a game and it is the same result as yesterday. Flippers don't work, no sound effects, and no dmd

I only disconnected the top two ribbon cables above the leds, and the machine boots, no flippers or DMD

I'll try that now. I just measured test point voltages:

TP1 14.54 should be 15
TP2 4.99 should be 5
TP3 11.93 should be 12
TP6 70.8 should be 75
TP7 0.59 I think this is problematic- should be 22 although I don't know what this controls
TP8 16.49 should be 18

After pressing on all the ICs ,and with all the cables reconnected still nothing, no boot

New readings after connecting all cables
TP6 is now 73.6
TP7 is now reading 51.1
TP8 is now 17.99

Here it is

IMG_2613 (resized).jpg

The last pic had some shadows, here's a brighter one

IMG_2616 (resized).jpg

So I checked the fuses and did find a problem. The top fuse was blown. F111 - 5A
I put a new one in and it instantly blew when I turned it on.
The card says Flasher Secondary

Any ideas?

IMG_2617 (resized).jpg

IMG_2618 (resized).jpg

how would I know if there is a shorted flasher socket? Do you mean a lamp flasher? I'd like to check those first before I pull the board out. I think that all the lights that are supposed to flash are doing it. There are a bunch of 906 bulbs in the topper that are not doing anything. I can't remember if these are flashers or not. Everything else seems to light up ok.

Here's a photo of the top. you can see all the 906 bulbs not lit or flashing

IMG_2622 (resized).jpg

I unplugged all those and the fuse is still good. I plugged in J106, then J107 and fuse is still good. Next I did J103 next to the fuse block and still good. J102 is the only one left. It says secondary on the board next to the fuse block. I plug it in and the fuse blew.

How do I know what J102 controls and what to do about it?

I don't see on the chart like you posted in the manual showing the connections for J-102

The wires on J102 are 2 red/white and 2 black/yellow wires

This is all I could find, but it doesn't mean much to me. How about you?

Screen Shot 2021-08-29 at 9.31.31 PM (resized).png

And BR4 is what?

Bridge rectifier correct?

Thanks guys for all you help. I'll try these things tomorrow. I've gotta get some more fuses for this~

Hey Roamin, do I want to pull the connector off of j115 or just probe pin 1 on top of the connector?
Also, I have no connector on j108. Is there supposed to be one?
Thanks

Stupid question maybe? Do I want to turn power on before testing?

I checked the wires as mentioned
All came up with readings around .460-.465
EXCEPT
GREEN PAIR : Red probe on pin 1 or 2 of J102 / Black probe on TP7
-This had a reading of .000

So, I guess it's time to send in the board. I've never done any board soldering, so I would rather not test my skills on this!

Does this effect the DMD not displaying anything or is that a separate issue?

Again, Thanks for your help
Dan

The original orange. Display showed stuff on the right side until it just went out totally. This was the first sign before the game went dark and wouldn’t boot. I got new cables coming but if that doesn’t do anything, could it be the board? If so, I’ll send it in with other one and get both fixed at the same time

Hey Maniac,

Thanks, I'll do that
I saw from another post about checking voltages on J604 for the DMD
I did and most seemed within range except the brown wire pin 8 was like 4.35 volts

Do you happen to know what would cause that low of a reading cause it's supposed to be 62V?

I measured at both J604 and on the connector on the DMD and voltages were about the same

Orange (-125V) mine 118.7
Blue (-113V) mine 100.3
Gray (+5V) mine 4.95
Gray/Yell (+12V) mine 12.25
Brown (+62V) mine 4.33

The values in Parentheses are what a chart in another post said they are supposed to be