Just picked up a Coney Island a few days ago. Started out with no sounds and lots of stuff not functioning. So, I went through all the boards as I do with any Williams/Bally/Stern games to see where the game is REALLY at. All the connectors were re-flowed, connector pins shined up, chips in sockets were removed for the legs to be cleaned up and reinstalled, connector pins were checked for broken/missing pins, checked for any loose/broken wires, and all boards were reinstalled. All sounds are now working. All solenoids are now working except the left kicker, which now works in solenoid test mode, but not in game mode, so I assume it is a switch issue, since there are 5 switches that don't work:

70 - coin switch 1
150 - left sling shot switch
230 - spinner switch for the pony ride
310 - drop target "I"
390 - 50k when lit switch (middle of right side)

Is there one chip or wire that is tied to all of these switches somehow? Maybe you've got some other ideas on this as well....

The MPU looks to be in good shape as you can tell the battery has been changed during it's life time and is not original or leaking, but was also removed during my procedures for obvious precautionary measures.

Also, at some point during my re-flowing or chip reinstalling, non of the feature lamps work now. Is there a single ground for all of these or somewhere specific I should look? They were all on before I went through and did the re-flowing and pin cleaning.

Other than the feature lamps going out, everything else got progressively better.

Any suggestions or information is appreciated.

Thanks!

I've been on a roll with getting machines going lately, Playboy, Night Rider, Superman, Eight Ball Deluxe, Black Sheep Squadron.... so I thought I would revisit this Old Coney Island! gem of mine sitting off to the side in the workshop.

The feature lights all work now. The fuses on the power board in the back box had some oxidation on the ends, so when I pulled them to check of they were still good, and they were, I buffed the ends off so they shine like new and reinstalled them. All the feature lights are now working. Yeah!

I've got a 74154 line decoder on the way to replace and see if the switch issues are resolved. I believe this handles all of the switch strobes....

There are 2 feature lights that are out, and 2 that are locked on. I'll have to address those on the lamp driver board. I've got a hand full of 2n5060's on the way to swap out the appropriate ones to hopefully wrap up those light issues as well.

On Old Coney Island I looked closely at the schematics tonight. All the switches that are out are on Line 6 (spinner, 25k, 50k w/lit, left slingshot). I've tested continuity from all non working switches on Line 6 back to the MPU connector and all tests out good. No shorts or issues with the yellow connector in between the play field and back box either. I swapped out the 74154 at U14 with no change prior to discovering the switches were all linked together as Line 6.

If you have a line of switches out, what is the usual culprit? I would guess either U23 or 17. Any feedback on this? Anyone else have a line of switches out?

As for the 4 feature lights that don't work properly, I replaced the 2n5060 associated with 3 of them on the lamp driver board. No change for any of the lights. I can't seem to find the 50k w/lit light anywhere on the schematics.....

All in all, nothing progressed other than learning all switches that aren't currently working are all on Line 6.

The game boots and plays every time with all flashes on the MPU, so I would assume that U17 is good..... correct?

Just set up my Sharp Shooter II after about 3 years of nothing. I've got one of the new mpus in it from Jim.

At power on the mpu led flashes twice, is out for about a sec, then flashes twice again, repeating. The GI is on, player 1 display shows 4 in the singles digit, the credit display shows a 0 in the singles digit, and player 4 shows a 1 in the singles digit.

Any ideas?

Maybe after sitting unplugged for 3 years the backup lithium is dead on the mpu and theres a bunch of garbage in there that can't be changed till the back up is changed and it comes up in attract mode?

All fuses are good on the power supply. I have good 5v, 12v, and 24v, but the 7v is low at 3.3v. This is just for the feature lights so I wouldn't think it would stop it from booting, would it?

Update on the Sharp Shooter II:

With only J1 plugged into the mpu, the mpu will boot with 6 flashes and the attract mode lights will start moving around the play field. I did a power off/plug in one more connector to the mpu/power back on to see if anything specific was affecting the mpu from booting with the 6 flashes. The board will boot with the 6 flashes with all of the connectors plugged in except for the display card edge connector. I then powered off and unplugged all the displays except for player 1 and powered back on, the board boots with 6 flashes. Then repeated power off/plug in one more display/power on to see if it would boot. When I got to plugging in the 4th player display the board would not give the 6 flashes and went back to the 2 flashes a pause and 2 more flashes repeating again. So, for now, all connectors are plugged in except for the player 4 display itself.

I did notice that the sound board was not booting all the way either. The led on the sound board was locked on solid with no flashes at power up. There are 2 PIA's on the sound board so I swapped them and booted up again. The led on the sound board in the back box then flashed 6 times and stopped. It should flash 8 times if fully booting properly. I've got some extra PIA's here so I'll swap out the 6821 and U5 and see if I get all of the flashes.

Update on the Sharp Shooter II again:

Major progress on this one! Note that all displays are still currently UNPLUGGED. If any displays are plugged in, the game does not operate.

Starting with the sound board, which is now fully working, I swapped out the PIA at U5 and now get all 8 flashes and a start up tune at power up. Perfect!

Now with the MPU (all 6 flashes) and sound board (all 8 flashes) both fully booting, the game comes up in attract mode and plays the power up tune. I can now start a game as well, but remember, all of this is only when the displays are unplugged.

The game is set to free play via the dip switch #8 option.

No ball kicked out and no playfield solenoids worked, but the flippers do work. The power supply fuse is still good. I peeked under the playfield and there is no fuse in the fuse holder by the flippers for the solenoids. After I installed the proper rated fuse and powered back on, all the playfield coils locked on immediately and the power supply fuse blew. Time for the circuit breakers! Installed a 10 amp circuit breaker on the PS (its a 2 lug circuit breaker with a blow fuse soldered to the lugs so you can clip it in a fuse clip and not rip through fuses while figuring out issues) and a 3 amp circuit breaker under the playfield. I changed U1, the sn74154n, on the solenoid driver board and powered the game back up. No coils locked on this time so I started a game. We are now playing a game!

Powered off and back on to open the coin door and go in to audit/test mode. Since the game doesn't work when the displays are plugged in, I just hit the button enough times to get through the audits and into the tests. In lamp test I changed all of the playfield lights under and above, and all of the lights are working correctly. The solenoid test was run, and all of the solenoids are working correctly.

Since the displays aren't connected, I can't see if all the switches are giving the right switch numbers, but when starting a game, all of the switches are working, meaning they all make a sound and probably are scoring. The game rules are all being followed and the correct lights are lighting.

The game is now fully playable without the displays plugged in.

I did notice that the coin door wiring is not right. The connector just inside the coin door for the coin door wiring on the cabinet side of the connector, some one soldered 2 of the wires together. There are 3 loose wires. The right coin drop switch has a diode attached to it still but no wires. The left coin drop switch has no diode or wires attached to it. I would think I should be able to look in my Old Coney Island! to figure out the proper wiring here, and I should be able to tell from the schematics what wires have been soldered together before the connector. I'm guessing it's someones free play hack.

So, down to this:

- correct the free play hack with the coin door wiring
- recheck the 7v test point on the power supply and replace the 7v bridge rectifier and/or the resistor inline on the power supply if need be
- figure out why plugging in any of the displays cause crazy issues and don't allow the game to be played

Any one have any advice on the displays causing the game not to boot up fully? Every time I work on a game plan game all I hear is crickets.

All voltage is good in the game and has been verified at all boards and displays. I tested my old coney island display in the sharp shooter and the mpu is putting out the correct info to all dispalays. I womder wha happened that all the displays got damage to the chips or transistors on their boards. Have to test tbose and chamge whats bad. Should get it up and running good then.

That'd be great! Thanks!

I finished up my Sharp Shooter II this afternoon and got some solid game playing time in!

First the display issues: With them all pulled out I tested the transistors on all 5 display boards and they all tested good. Moved on to the 74LS379's and compared some readings to the working Old Coney Island displays and they were different, so I gave it a shot and replaced the 74LS379 on one of them and everything was working perfect in game and test mode. I ended up replacing that same chip on all 5 displays (adding a socket obviously) to fix all 5 of the faulty displays. I've got no idea what happened to this thing before I had it that would have taken out that chip on all 5 displays, but its all good now!

Here is the break down on the display issues in case someone has something similar happening:

Player 1 display - all digits out and shows nothing, replaced 74LS379
Player 2 display - all digits out and caused mpu to not boot fully, replaced 74LS379
Player 3 display - only showed 1's on all digits all the time, replaced 74LS379
Player 4 display - only showed 4's on all digits all the time, replaced 74LS379
ball/credit display - only showed 0's on all digits all the time, replaced 74LS379

After installing a new ball, rubbers, lights, doing some switch cleaning and adjustments, and cleaning up the drop target bank so it resets properly, we are good to go!

Another project done..... on to the next.