Hey Pin Folks,

Still trying to work out a few issues with my Totem machine. One of the insidious ones involves it not wanting to start the game when I hit the front button. Instead I get a taunting whistling sound. Mind you this only happens some of the time (after a successful boot up sequence) but it seems to happen most often after turning the machine on after it's been off for a while. In addition, once it does start any subsequent games seem to start fine.

A little background to give people the full context. The dude I bought it off of performed this mod on it to effectively put it in free play:

http://www.pinrepair.com/sys1/#free

I emailed him and he responded with this:

"I have seen it on other system 1 machines if a ground wire is not making a good connection on the MPU. One of the connectors should be reseated possibly"

I also added a small movie clip of the phenomenon so we're all speaking the same language:

Anybody got any ideas, things to try, etc?

Thanks!

When you say contacts are you referring to the pins on the main chip to the socket, or are we talking the quick connectors from the master board, or both?

What about "sanding" down the connection points that are on the board? Has anyone done that? Dude I bought it from said he had re-pinned a lot of the connectors. Not saying it couldn't be the pins on the connector side, but I'm wondering if trying to lightly file/sand down the connections on the board is something that can be done.

Also seeing what looks like it could be corrosion on a couple of the bottom left legs of the main Totem chip. See attached pics.

IMG_0946[1].JPG

Can any Totem owners attest to what the sound in the video I attached is supposed to indicate? Is that the coin-up sound? I've tested the continuity between the game start button and the diodes (diodes on the bottom board all measure around .2) and then the diodes to A1-J6 and they seem fine. Can someone speak to what actually kicks off a new game and sends the ball into the shooter lane? I'm guessing it's some signal coming out of the driver board (perhaps to the game over solenoid below the play field) but I'm not certain.

Another clue is that the problem seems to go away after the machine has been running for a while which leads me to believe it's time (and therefore heat) related. Perhaps the characteristics of some component changing once the machine warms up.

Also, former owner put a jumper across two of the diodes to put it in free play mode (per the pinrepair.com suggestion). Should I undo this just to see if it changes any of the behavior?

Any theories or things to check would be greatly appreciated.

Does anyone know what the diodes on the bottom board should read? Mine were between .2 and .3 I believe.

Does anyone know what it is that actually starts a new game? Is it a signal coming from the driver board to the Game Over solenoid? I think I may be un-jumpering the 'free game' mod next just to isolate the coin and start game paths.

Thanks for the eraser tip, I may try that. Can anyone respond to Post#13? Trying to isolate what may or may not be happening to result in the game not starting.

And it's fixed -- not surprisingly something stupid. After all my tinkering I tried hitting the start game button switch with my flex stone file and it seems to be working fine now. I'm a bit embarrassed but I must say the behavior was very odd. Funny that (a) it would coin up but not start the game and (b) that the problem of it not starting seemed to go away after an undetermined amount of time powered on. I guess all's well that ends well. At least I learned some things. Time to fix a few other minor things with Totem and actually get some games in. Thank you to everyone who replied. Great community.

Looks like it was a cruel coincidence. Still experiencing issues. I just cleaned all the contacts on the driver board. Didn't seem to help. Can anyone say if a game is started by a signal coming from the driver board that energizes the Game Over relay? Is there a way to test that the signal is getting there?

Almost gave up and finally decided to replaced the 7404 and 7405 inverter chip. That did it. Must have been a bad chip. Oddly enough, the two I replaced were socketed. I' m not sure if the original board was configured like that or someone added the sockets after the fact knowing that these chips fail often. Thanks for everyone's input and help.