Hosted a pinball meet last week, which went very well. I am currently going over my machines though and have noticed that Getaway's Supercharger was no longer working. Checked the opto's in test mode and all 3 are showing as disabled & closed. I checked fuse 103 and it was blown. Replaced it and reset the game, and it blew on charge up. I checked connect J106 and the wire looked pretty loose. Re-did the connector and tried again - the fuse blew again on power up.

Ive never had to work in a supercharger before, what should i be checking next? I haven't got a circuit breaker so can only test by replacing F103 - so trying to avoid multiple blows if thats possible

UPDATE: i unpluged the 3 coils/magnets in the Supercharger and replaced the 103Fuse and re-booted it up. The fuse has not blown, which i dare say narrows down the issue. Any advise on how to further pinpoint this without blowing multiple fuses would be fantastic

How would i do that? sorry, im still learning with the MM

Im not 100% sure how to test the magnets with a MM, but basically just went with putting each prong on the connector leg of each one and got a result of 3.2ish across all three. This test was done with the power off.

Ive individually been re-plugging the supercharger magnets in and the fuse is only blowing when the 3rd and final (1st on the right) plug is reattached. So I have plugs 1&2 in without the fuse blowing. Does this mean the magnet is stuffed or is there another issue causing the problem?

We meet again Frunch
so when you say 1 & 5, you mean put the MM prods into one of these each with the power off?

When i tried to test the female side of J6, i dont seem to be getting anything through all points. Surely i am doing something wrong.

The first thing i did notice however was a black patch on tge outside of the connector casing. Perhaps the transistor parrell to it has burned out?

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In saying that, the actual transistor looks reasonably good & i guess i cant discount the burn mark is from a previous, already repaired incident

thanks again mate, will do that now and come back with results

Removing the board, it all looked ok.

I got some reading from Q9, Q6, Q3, Q2, Q5,Q8 & D9, which were the main ones i thought i needed to check. Some were rating very low tho, ie Q9

Testing them was troublesome as was hard to get prods on leg. Is it required on the actual leg, or can we use the appropriate solder point for each leg on the back?

I will need te replace Q9 either way as the leh snapped off while trying to get good contacg on Q8, d'oh

20200815_212840 (resized).jpg

20200815_212848 (resized).jpg

Arhh, sorry - brain fart

I am but can i confirm which lead should be going to each leg? And does the reading number matter?

So i replaced the Transistor which broke and oddly, the new transistor does not test out on the righthand side. All the transistors i got as spares also do this - not sure if they gave me the right part or nott - says TIP-36C on the transistor.

When replaced it is now working again without blowing a fuse, but SC speed is slower than i remember. It is now around 150-172, so well below the best speed.

How is the best way to now diagnose the speeds?

UPDATE: Checking the Manual, it would appear i can assume the board is now ok. It states that if you are consistently getting scores around 145 or higher the issue is

- a opto has gone bad
- a magnet has gone bad
- The diverter is not operating properly
- a wire has come loose from the magnet or opto
- ramp not mounted correctly

conducting the SC test and opening the opto's one by one, i am thinking the issue is still in opto 3 as the ball does not seem to propel itself at all when its just that one open. The other 2 seem to get a couple of loops at least (with 1 being the more powerful) - but opto 3 is not capable of pushing the ball through for another lap outside of natural momentum

Is it your opinion that i am best to keep checking opto/magnet 3 for a loosey? Is there a good way to check for a faulty magnet?

Ao DRWE

Hey Frunch, Thanks again for all your input. I came across this great video which i followed to a T and have come to the conclusion that magnet 3 isn't working and there still must be some issue on the accelerator board. I think the wiring around the SC is also a bit iffy, so might try to get them bunched up a bit tighter and cleaner.

Why the fuse stopped blowing i am not sure. Swapping the transistor stopped that issue, but Magnet 3 is still buggered. The transistor replacement i got appears to be the right model, but only tested successfully on one of the flanking legs, not both. I purchased a few spare ones and they all test the same. Perhaps it is not quite the right model, or perhaps they have a faulty batch at Jaycar the supplier - not too sure.

The chap in this video was able to fix his issue by replacing the Accelerator board with a new Homepin replacement board. Instead of taking my one to a locla board repairer, I might get a new homepin one. Where i live here in Brisbane happens to be very close to the new distributor of the Homepin boards & pretty sure he has them in stock, so thinking for the sake of approx $90, i might just get a new one when he re-opens on wednesday. Once i install the new board i will report back with an updated speedtest. I still expect my speeds to be a little bit less than most as my magnets all tested at 3.9, which is a bit off the 5.5 the chap in the videos tested. Mine has clearly been well played in a previous life. So for now i am going to park the repair until i get the new board.

Anyone having speed issues with their supercharger though, this video was really great and helped me a lot.

Thanks for all your help, as always. Will let you know how the new board goes

Hey mate, I am doing this right now & tried this. when all magnets are plugged into their approriate plugs, only mag 1 works. When we plug Mag 2 or 3power connector into 1, no activity. We tested the power to all 3 magnets and all range between 55-63V.

Cant figure out though why we cant get magnet 1 cant from any other source other than the one associated with 1.

Also, we are getting a burning smell from around the SC. We thought it might be from the acc board underneath, but definitely appears to be more around the SC plugs or magnets.

Also F103 is blowing occasionally, but seems likely to be from arcing while we work on it.

Can anyone offer direction - this has us stumped.

We tested the trannys on the Acc board and they all tested the same. real mystery this one.