following this excellent thread.

I understand this right up to the point where J3-6 and J1-3 both splice into J1-7 somewhere on the board where all of the load is concentrated. Seems to me that everything feeds off of J1-7 which will be taking all of the load no matter how the wiring is split up.

I also fail to understand why two blue wires are needed on the play field, other than to prevent the crossover of a bare GI power wire string and a bare feature wire string where some feature lights are surrounded by a cluster of GI lights.

I am still learning this stuff. Anything to help my understanding is always welcome.

I understand what you were saying. I am just having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that all of the feature light wiring from the back box J3-6 and J1-3 all converge on J1-7 which takes all of the load. That is not an entirely correct statement, because according to the diagram
J3-6 and J1-3 come in behind J1-7, so J1-7 pin does not take any extra load, but what ever is on the rectifier board sure takes a hit.

( I hope the OP does not think I hijacked his thread because you sure turned on a light---no pun intended).

OK. When I restored and reran the wiring on my Big Game I elected to use copper foil tape for all of the feature lights. In my ignorance, I ran all feature lights from one copper foil "circuit". That was a mistake. There almost 50 feature lights and they get a little dim when all are lit up. So, I need to breakdown all my wiring and re-do the copper foil into two "circuits" that feed both J1-3 pin and J1-7 pin.

While I am doing this, should I split up my GI wiring and run half of the GI on Pin 1-Red and Pin 5-White and the other half to Pin 2-Red and Pin 8-White? Would doing this allow, or cause, the GI bulbs to burn brighter? It sure would be an easy project to set up.

Thanks

Sorry. Bad choice of words. They don't converge on pin J1-7 but all three feed into the same trace on the board that leads to BR 1. So BR 1 is taking all of the load per design. At least, this is what I am thinking. Can I assume that the weak link is all of this is the crimp connector and if the three blue wires were hardwired to their respective pins there would be no current overload issues?

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Thanks. I'll try this.

OK. I understand now. Thanks. Someone did this action with the GI return wire on my Nine Ball. Now I know what's up. Talking about this stuff helps me to understand it.

I installed all LEDs in the Big Game not long after I had it up and running.

Interesting link. Thank you. It almost sounds like I should be hardwiring all of the pins with a pigtail wire and crimping on AMP Mate-n-Loks.

Nice info. on the 4SMD power consumption. I find 2SMD to be bright enough with out being blinding.

I'm not dealing with problem right now. You have been willing to answer my questions, challenge me when I am wrong, and share your knowledge so I just kept asking. I have learned a lot in these last few posts.

It all started with this:

I'm interested in knowing what options the MPU-200 Sterns have in the way of rectifier boards. There is the Rottendog--I have one. Barakandi/Weebly is offering completed boards and DYI boards. Are there any other options for these pins?

I do have a rectifier board in one pin that is getting weak. It is only a matter of time and I am leaning toward the Weebly DYI unit.

I'd love to see close ups. I am always interested in options.

Thanks. I ordered two. Within 15 minutes I was sent a tracking number. That’s fast action.

I have bought terminals on belts before. They are easy enough to strip down; I would have no prob if you were selling the belted ones.

What you call coil shaft is a plunger. The coil sleeve the plunger slides in is self-lubricating. You should not be using lubricants under your play field.

Check the plunger and make sure it has not mushroomed on the tip.

Mushroomed plungers should be replaced but you can file it down a little if you must for a short term fix.

Also use some 220 grit sandpaper on the plunger to make it nice and smooth.

The speech board part number is VSU-100. It uses a chip that may have gone bad. The chip is obsolete. I bought one as a spare from a reseller for my Catacomb.

He had 14 is so in stock before we started buying him out. I don’t know if he has any left or not.

I’ll check my records for info when I get home.

Set your slope to 6%. Maybe even 6.5%. F2K is a fast game.

For stock bulbs use #47s.

To drive LEDs you need an Alltek lamp board.

I've always wanted to try an English pint.

I told you about a chip for your VSU-100 speech board. Here is the info.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/catacomb-club?tq=&tu=gkw

See posts by pinsider GKW. Look at posts # 415, #419, and post #485

#485 gives you this link for a S14001A speech synthesizer.

http://www.gameroomrepair.com/ICparts/ICparts.htm#S14001

It looks like he still has some in stock. I bought my 2 chips and another UK contact also bought. But I got mine cheaper. The seller figured a rin was on and raised his prices to my UK friend.

Once you get it all together and if have no speech this is probably going to be what you need.

I 'm late to this party and need to catch up, or try to. Or at least look I'm trying to. If I am repeating anything already discusses, apologies. Frunch is here so you are in good hands.

1) Connector J1 on the the rectifier board is your lights. The read and white are the GI lights. The blues are feature lights and the blue/white is flippers. Try disconnecting J1 to isolate you don't have any shorted lights.

2) Q-17 on the SDU has Orange/Red wire on the J5 connector at pin 7 located at lower right of the SDU. Pull pin #7 from the J5 connector and see what happens. The wire on the other side is a yellow/white wire on J4-11. That is the small 12 pin connector on right hand side of the SDU. So pull the Y/W at pin 11 on connector J4. This should completely take Q-17 and all of its circuitry out of the equation. No promises. See what happens.

3) You mentioned about having to reach all the way over to get to the connectors on the left hand side. All of your wire harnesses are in clusters. Mark your connectors so you know how they go back. Disconnect all the connectors for one cluster of wires and let that cluster drop into the cabinet. Lift your play field, prop it up, and drag that cluster of wires over to the side and re-pin all of the pins you need to re-pin. Then reverse the procedure and reconnect the connectors. It is much easier on the back.

Most of the connectors can only locate to one set of pins on the boards so they are not too hard to figure out how reconnect. However, there are a couple of connectors that you can mis-locate by a couple of pins and plug them to the wrong connecter but if you do that you will be seeing a couple of open pins.

4) I can't find my road map, but each connector is labeled on the boards. J1, J2, J3, J4, and J5. Each connector on the boards in labeled with how many pins are on the connector. 1-12, 1-15, 1-17, etc. The pin numbers can be left to right: 1-12 or right to left 12-1. They can be labeled up to down or down to up. 1 on top 12 on bottom or 12 on top 1 on bottom.

Hope this helps.