I would always recommend replacing a fuse with a blue print fuse. If the blueprint fuse keeps blowing then you have something that needs fixed.

Fix now. Play later.

Get 6 washers. Take 3 of them and tie them to a piece of string evenly spaced. Take the other 3 washers and tie them to one string.

Lay out one set of washers on the table and stretch them out. For the piece of string on the right side tie another piece of string to make an T.

You have just made a 3-washer matrix.

Make another T by tying the second set of of washers to the string that is common to the 1st washer set.

Now you have a 6-washer matrix. 2 washers represent your flipper coils, another 2 rep your 2 sling coils, and last 2 rep your pop bumper coils.

You have just made a solenoid matrix. Like this one. Up in the drawing, to the left of the solenoid matrix, is the switch matrix. Your washers are now switches.

Every solenoid has a switch.
Every stand up target has a switch
Every rollover has a switch.
etc.

That's all switch matrix and solenoids matrix represent. Things wired together.

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I found a video on youtube where a guy was diagnosing a similar issue using an alligator clip attached on one end to the braided ground wire and would tap the other end against the top of each transistor on the solenoid driver board to test that each solenoid was working. When I do that, each of the solenoids fires properly and drops reset properly, but when I run the solenoid self test or trigger them myself on the playfield the drops still don't reset and the left side slings still don't fire. Not sure what that means.

That test is grounding the transistors. The board connects that ground signal to fire the coil. If the transistor fires the coil, the coil is good, the transistor is good, but there may be an issue getting the ground signal to that transistor. It could be a bad trace or a chip not working properly. I had a Sorcerer board I sent out to be serviced for the same issue. Got it back and the issue was still there. All of the traces showed they were connected with a resistance test (i usually use diode mode because it makes a beep), but it was too weak to fire the coil. I jumpered the ground signal on the board with a wire and suddenly everything was working.

I think it means you have a crappy ground connection in one of your connector wafers. I don't which connector pins are your grounds. This will need research. In the meantime, pull every connector and look inside at the pins.

1) You could have a deformed/collapsed pin that is not making contact with the connector post.

2) You could have a pin that has a cracked solder joint on the back side of the board. You will need to remove your board and get your magnifying glass to find such a break in the solder.

3) You could have a pin that was replaced and whoever did the job did not get the pin crimped correctly. Sometimes a weak crimp will allow the wire to pull out and into your hand. Fortunately, in this case, the pin will remain inside the wafer and you will know where it goes.

3) Your pins could just be dirty. Take a secretary's ink eraser and rub it across the connector posts/pins on the boards. Or do this with a piece of Scotchbrite. To clean them up. But if you have a bad pin inside a connector, cleaning the posts will not help.

Anyone know why when my sound board is plugged in on my flight 2000 the machine boots, i hear start up pings, but then the MPU restarts? I just did a capacitor replacement and replaced large chip because mpu was locking up. I've connected the ribbon cables the wrong way a bunch of times, but didn't figure 5v would kill anything. Pretty strange.

If you are running the original driver board does it have the updates to tie the two 5v lines together and optionally the grounds? Without those it relies on a jumper in the cable. If you have a bad pin or connection you'll have issues.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/bally-as-2518-club/page/31?gallery&galleryp=4

jumper is there. no luck. any other suggestions? seems strange that the sound board works sometimes, but other times locks up the mpu. What message is the mpu getting from the board that things are not okay?

My Flight 2000 project has come to an end. I've put way to much money and time into trying to bring it back to life. I'm going to part it out if anyone is looking for something. Sad day, but I need to cut my losses at this point and no one is going to pay me for the machine in the state it is in.

PM me if there is something you are looking for.

Put up some pics so we can see what you have.

I'll try to post some pics in the next couple of days. I have someone interested in the cabinet for a virtual pin. The drop target mechs and the apollo ball lock mech have all been disassembled, cleaned and tested. All pop and sling mechs are available. playfield parts etc. I'm going to keep the playfield and have it repainted as it is in pretty rough shape. I'll post that when it is done.

Help. My F2K resets after about an hour of playing. I even turned it on, and in attract mode it reset an hour or so later. Any solid tips? Thanks!

Change caps for 5 volts on your driver board, when hot it become unstable

I'd also check the driver board to see if it has been updated with the extra jumpers on the back. There should be one to tie the 5v lines together and a couple others on grounds.

http://pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bally/Stern#Solenoid_Driver_Upgrades

Before you part it out there may be someone on here that would buy it as is.

I have too much in it and it is in really bad shape. If someone wants to make an offer, knowing what it needs please feel free. I would prefer to never part out a machine. This is a first for me.

Here are some pics of some of the parts from the machine.

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My right spinner just bust (arm came off). Anyone know where I can get one?

Just got home and found this.....my 13 year old son got a little bit proactive today and separated all of the wires in the wiring harnesses. Was thinking I would do this anyway and use the wire for projects in the future......but......

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Pinball resource will probably have a replacement.

Is there any way to test a 7 digit display in a 6 digit machine?

I am parting out my Flight 2000. It breaks my heart to do it, but I invested a ton of money in it and was still going to have to invest a lot more to get it up and running. I'm trying to get back some of the money I invested by selling some parts.

I have listed several parts on Ebay. I'd be happy to provide a 15% discount to anyone on pinside who wants to buy these off of Ebay. Let me know. I'm not selling them cheaply because I need to try to get back as much as I can.

ebay.com link: itm - new 7 digit pinitech displays

ebay.com link: itm - Transformer

ebay.com link: itm - Apron

ebay.com link: itm - Large Drop Target Unit

ebay.com link: itm - Apollo Unit

ebay.com link: itm - Sling shot Kicker Assemblies

ebay.com link: itm - Apollo Kicker Assemblies

ebay.com link: itm - Original Pop Caps

ebay.com link: itm - Original Displays (don't know if they are working or not, for repair)

ebay.com link: itm - Original Pop Bumper assemblies with plastic rings

Hello, I am new at Pinside, I own 2 Flights and will bring them back to life. I was more than a year Looking for a Flight and finally I found one early this year. The Flight 2000 was my favorit when I was a young guy. Last week I got an offer for a second Flight for a very good price, so now I own two. For the restauration I am looking for scans of the plastics and the backglas. I want to produce the broken parts by my own. May someone can help.
Best regards Wolfgang

You can certainly do this on your own, but everything you need can be bought new.

https://classicplayfields.com/shop/pinball-plastics/flight-2000/

https://classicplayfields.com/shop/pinball-backglasses/flight-2000-3/

More progress this past weekend. Hope to finish her up this weekend.

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Where are you at with F2K these days?

My F2K was resetting and now that I brought it home and set it back up, it does nothing. I assume this is a ps problem for the 5v to the mpu. Can anyone tell me where this 5v comes from and which caps would be responsible? I seem to get no voltage at the test points on the mpu at this point.

I'd guess your power rectifier board is toast. They are notoriously bad. I built a new one a few months back. Posted photos in this thread.

Looks like that thing has had a bunch of work done on it. Do the test point voltages check out there?

5.4 tp reads 6.27
230v reads 250
11.9v tp reads 11.07
Not sure to test 7.3vac
43v tp is missing it seems

Sounds like you found your problem. Buy a kit and build a new one.

Thanks. I will do that and report back.

Still seems like the mpu should boot though without solenoid power. I dont get any beeps at all.

No, it won't boot. The 7th and last flash of the led on the MPU only happens if you have that 43v solenoid power.

There is a ton of details on Pinwiki about it.

http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bally/Stern#How_to_make_a_Benchtop_power_supply_for_the_MPU_board

Gotcha, but I do not get any flashes?

Then back to basics checking for voltages at the MPU. If you're not getting any flashes and you have all the correct voltages the there is an MPU issue. You should get at least the first 6 even if the 43v is missing.

Sorry, should have updated this earlier! Main issue seemed to be some battery damage on the MPU that I missed early on. I've attached a picture for reference. I'm assuming this can be repaired fairly easily as it doesn't seem to have spread too far? Have a new Alltek MPU in there that solved that. Also had an issue with an outhole switch that caused it to keep resetting after I swapped the board out. I've been up and running for a few weeks now and about ready to tackle more of the minor issues/adjustments. Huge thanks to @cottonm4 and @crazylevi for their patience and help getting me back up and running!

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Working on my playfield. Hoping to finish it soon.

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Are you painting that by hand?

by hand and with an airbrush.

That is looking really good, keep us updated as you finish it, amazing skill to be able to do that.

Thanks. I'm having fun.

I've been wanting a F2K for so long but every one I've seen within reason $$-wise has a beat up playfield. If there's ever a hardtop made for it or a run of CPR playfields, I might dive in. I just don't have the artistic talent to do major touchups or complete re-paints to take on something like that! Really looking forward to watching your progress....you should start your own F2K resto thread!

That was my issue as well. When someone offered me one for $350, I said sure. I'll fix it and do the art. Tons of money later, I learned that some machines aren't worth the money you'll have to put into them. The one i bought was horid. Almost everything under the playfield was rusty. Boards didn't work and I couldn't fix (though I tried).

I'm not that far away from you. We could probably work something out if you need some art at some point.

I may. I usually document my stuff on my blog and then post some here. My blog is canoncitypinball.blogspot.com

So I am not getting voltage readings on any of the test points on the right side of the board, on the sol driver board. I am stuggling with these schematics. Does anyone know the voltages I should see at the connectors and test points of this board? I am getting 180v and 250v at the high voltage test points, but that is it.

If I am not getting 5v at the test points on the sol driver board, where should I be looking first? Any help appreciated.

First thing to do is measure TP1 on rectifier/power supply board. If you have between 4.8V and 5.4V there then your're good. If not, check fuse with a meter. You may have a problem with your connectors and the connection from the rectifier to the SDU is breached.

If you have any burnt connectors at the rectifier board, replace them. Try to use Trifurcon connectors on the heavy wires. Actually you should replace all the connector pins at the rectifier board eventually to make the game reliable.

Make sure the connectors are fully seated on the rec board. Check ground (important) between the rect ground and SDU J3 pin 10, should have continuity. Make sure the ground braid from the cabinet is connected to the ground screw at the bottom of the backbox. Remove SDU J3 connector and re-seat it a few times. J3 should also have a jumper wire ( brown/white) between pins 25 and 13. If that's missing you need to replace it.

I'm looking at the 5V section of the SDU schematic and it's confusing to me. I know TP1 and 3 should be 5V but I'm not sure which one is the regulated 5V. I'm leaning towards TP1 being the regulated 5V. So if there's 5V at the YP3 and not 1, I would say the regulator (LM-323) or some of the 5V regulator components are bad, C24 and/or C25.

For all other TP values, go to pinwiki.com Bally/Stern section 3.21. The Baly AS-2518-18 rectifier value are the same for Stern TA-100.

Ok, I am getting power on the rectifier board but it does not make it through the solenoid driver board.

Btw, the lockdown bar still looks great!

I'm regretting selling you that lock down bar LOL. Do you have the manual for F2K with the schematics inside? Do your feature lamps light up at all, even when first powering up? What is the game doing when you power on? Do your connectors look healthy, this includes the header pins? Do you have another game with the same SDU board that you can swap for testing? Bally and Sterns are interchangeable. Check your ground as I suggested. See if there's any voltage at SDU J3 pins 13 thru 17 and also 25 on the connector side, not the header. You may need to insert a small pin or finish nail into the connector to make contact to your meter leads. Get a replacement 5V regulator at least. LM 323 or equivalent. Any Voltages at the MPU test points? Refer to Pinwiki sect 3.21

I will go through all of that and report back the outcome. Thank you!