Great work Per. Thank you.

Per_ I think a good place for that would be pinwiki:
http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Heighway_Pinball_Repair

Very good work !!!

Great !

Great job Per! Thanks for sharing.

Scott,

Do you know if anyone plans to test one of these computers out on FT? I'm willing to buy your last one if there's a good chance it will work on FT.

Can someone confirm for me which board is I/O 1. I believe it's the one that goes to the xeno mech, but not positive. My game keeps saying it can't find board 1. Trying to figure out why. Thanks

I don't think it will be compatible with FT. I just need someone to get some good info on the hardware so I can see if we can get some ordered and built. I don't have an FT, so I have no clue what is in them.

There are a few I/O boards in the game. If it says it can't find one, I'd try the usb cables first - try re-seating them then if that doesn't work, try replacing them. Cheapest and easiest option to do first.

Yes, board #1 connects to the xeno mech and most of the upper playfield devices.

Check the USB connection between the IO board and the computer - most likely the end on the IO board has come loose.

Less likely, the board itself is bad - you could test that by swapping with another IO board and see if the problem moves.

Good luck,
Brian

Sold out of alien computers again, but still have 5 spare ssds pre-loaded with software.

Got another request for spare computers - If I can get 3 more commitments, then I have enough to purchase another batch to build.

Scott

ran another batch of io boards and sensor boards

also have complete xeno assy

Could someone point me to where I can find the Alien v1.2 software download? I'd like to try and update my game and have searched without success for the location of the download.

Thanks

It's on my website with instructions

http://weirpinball.com/alien/alien.html

Scott

Awesome. Thanks Scott.

Hey there! We’ve got an alien pinball machine thats been out of commission for a while because the playfield screen and related boards over heated and cooked. We thought it was just the boards, but have now found, after replacing all of the relevant parts, that playfield lcd’s goose was cooked as well. Does anyone have any idea where we could acquire a replacement monitor?

See this post..
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/weyland-yutani-dedicated-to-keeping-3-alien-specimens-alive/page/10#post-4739683

Genius work again Per

SunKing pm sent!

Problem with slingshot-LED from TimeBandit:
Very strange. Today I installed the slingshot-LED pcb´s from TimeBandit. After swap I bootet the machine and played a game. What a difference !! Great !
In the game suddenly all 4 pcb get dark. I went to lamp test in the mneu, all lamps work expect the 4 slingshot lamps.
I raised the playfield and connected to one side the ole single-LED pcb ... and all other 3 double-LED pcb´s worked. I changed the single back to the double .. all 4 pcb are off again ..
I checked the cables and connectors ... no difference. I guess the I/O boards dont like for any reason the double LED??!!

Please advice, would like to get the 2 lamp pcb all back to work.

Thanks
Tom

IMG_2351 (resized).JPG

Tom,
the LED chips are connected in chains. If one chip of a chain fails, all following will get no data anymore.
The sling LEDs are all in the same chain B of I/O Board 3 (see http://pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Heighway_Pinball_Repair):
3-B7 GI Right Sling Bottom
3-B8 GI Right Sling Top
3-B9 GI Left Sling Bottom
3-B10 GI Left Sling Top
So if B7 (right side bottom) fails, all other sling LEDs will stay dark. During your test you replaced (by luck) the defect LED - so all were working again.

I had the same problem with the double LED boards from TimeBandit: one LED almost immediatedly stopped working. I replaced it and since then everythings looks good.
Those LED Chips are really cheap stuff - You can buy 50 of them for 3$ inluding shipment. So I am not surprised about the short life of (hopefully only) some of them.
LG Per

Thank you Per !! Due I am over 50 years old I do not think in bus systems

By mistake I ordered 4 complete sets of this pcb´s in stead of one set with four pcb´s ... and this was my luck. Even the newly mounted pcb has one of two led´s not working. The lightning is bright and great !! I played some games in complete dark and could see the ball on the playfield !

Recommendation: Order more than one set due to the cheap and faulty LED´s. The kits are very fair priced and helping a lot !!

Question: I will recieve this days my The Munsters. This pin seems to be little dark in the lower area ... would it be possible to use this pcb´s also on Munsters ? Open the slingshot , adding the pcb .... ??

Check that your switch leaves are not touching a capacitor on the board. They are covered with an insulation layer and should have clearance anyway. But the only problem I’ve seen with them going out is when shorted by a switch leaf.

The second batch I did have a smaller capacitor that should never go near the switch. But check this point out anyway.

Alien boards won’t work in any other manufacturers’ games.

Thanks for advice !!
This might happened that I came to a switch leave

parts are no longer available thanks.

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EB29CE8E-3C2F-4582-8174-41512ACC7552 (resized).jpeg

9C98192E-8FBC-4529-8D96-87ECB570C133 (resized).jpeg

Hey everyone..... I purchased this entire lot of parts as I wanted to keep a few spares around for my FT. I already have a spare IO Board I bought from Pinbackpacker (the one that works with Alien and FT), so that will be available for sale, as will some of the parts from this lot. Let me know what you need, and we can split this up a bit based on what you need, and what I want to keep as spares.

I'm a new full throttle owner. It was working fine but now when I turn it on the bike wheels start spinning immediately it will start a game but it doesn't feed a ball into play and the flippers don't work. Holding the left flipper does "rev the engine" for the skill shot. I'm a little intimidated working on the heighway machine. Any help would be appreciated.

Reseat all of the usb cables, on both ends of each cable. I am assuming it was working properly before?

It was working before.

I reset all usb cables a few times, no change.

It sounds like it doesnt know where the balls are at.... what does the switch test show?

Active switches show all 6 trough switches, nothing else.
If I remove a ball it says one pinball missing and won't start a game.
With all the balls in, it starts a game but doesn't eject a ball. It never goes into ball search just ends the ball after a while.
All fuses have green lights.
The three boards are all showing the orange and red power lights, have blinking green "live" LEDs and cpu connect LEDs.
I tried switching out the usb cable, no change.

You are on the right track.... in coil test, does it kick a ball into the shooter lane?

No coils work in test. The wheels keep spinning.
Coils don't work when you start game either. Pop bumpers score but don't pop.
I made sure to pull the coin door switch to power the coils. Machine shows coin door switch closed in active switches.

Check the pinprog logs. Plug in a micro serial cable. SSH to the thing admin/no password. Poky around.
Try a new uSD with a fresh image. Funny file systems on these games.
Be very delicate with the Utlitie if change uSD card. Very, very delicate.
Update the uBoot env make it boot from mSata or USB.

Have you tried a factory reset already?

Do any coils work? It sounds like the high voltage isn't present at all. I would focus more on the cabinet PCB than the I/O boards.

Go into test mode, select TESTS, then I/O BOARDS. Press the up/down door buttons to cycle through the 4 boards. Use the flipper buttons to cycle through the data for each I/O board. One of the pages shows the voltages that the I/O board is receiving. This is helpful to know if a problem is specific to a board, or if all boards are suffering then it's probably upstream at the cabinet PCB.

Also, I had a bad fuse early on and my bike wheels would spin (slowly) at power up, so it still might be the fuse, even though the LED says otherwise.

I've tried factory reset.

None of the coils work. Wheels spin pretty quickly.
I'll check each fuse and I/O boards in test.

When you say you checked fuses.... just visually, or with a meter? One could be blown but still have just enough to light the LED.

Ok, I checked all the fuses with the meter. F2 was no good. Replaced the fuse and that stopped the spinning wheels. All the 1-X and 2-X coils work in the game and in coil test. All the 3-X coils (flippers, kickers, ball eject, etc) don't work in game or coil test.

The IO3 status is showing 70V IN: 0 mV

Looks like you are working through it.....I cannot overstate the importance of consistent connectivity at both ends of the USB cable. Thought I had all of my strain relief proper, then 1 at the cpu became intermittent. switched ports to isolate this indeed was the culprit, not the I/O board. Then used an adjacent DVI cable to wire tie the usb cable to, holding in place. Game plays perfectly.

I have a spare cpu, as well as I/O board. I'm going to take them through our in house engineering, to see if there isn't some way to convert this connectivity to a shielded CAT6 connector/ cable, which would provide a physical lock. Something of this sort has to happen, imho, to keep these things connected, as the normal vibration, shake, etc. of the machine will definitely prove troublesome longterm.....

You should see a reading of approximately 70000mV on each I/O board. None of them show that. Even on boards 1 and 2, you're only seeing about 12V.

I would check all of the wiring that carries power to make sure it is firmly inserted everywhere. Also might be a good time to pull out a multi-meter and probe where the voltage is falling out.

Where did you get a spare CPU? I'd like to have a drop in spare ready to go if anyone is selling.

https://www.free-play.se/en/electronics/circuit-boards/alien-full-throttle-io-board-v14b.html

I'm putting some more together as soon as I get another batch from China. Should have 6 in a few weeks.

Ok i have a spare I/O board. I thought the issue with a spare CPU was the compatible software is not available for release?