Thanks, I should have mentioned what I have done to this point..... I swapped two IO boards, and the problem stayed at the same location, so I am confident the IO boards are working correctly. I also unplugged everything from the Utilite and plugged them back in. This just feels like a connector issue to me, but I can't seem to find where. When this machine was transported, the head was folded down and wrapped nicely to the body. Are there any connectors going to the head other than AV stuff that might effect this lighting chain?

I think my next step after checking any connections in the head is to pull the large PCB from the right side that the IO board is snapped into and reflow the solder joints where the IO board mates up.

Check the power connectors to Io boards

Can you elaborate a little more? Are you saying that if a power connector is not seated entirely, there is a chance the IO board would only partially work? I did reseat the power connector at that IO board location. Both IO boards exhibit the same behavior when seated in that controller (not really sure what that board would be called). They both appear to be communicating properly based on the leds on the IO board itself. The GI controlled lighting from that board is working properly, as are the switches, the only thing not working is the insert controlled lighting, the two flashers on the back of the playfield, the bonus lights on the back of the playfield, and the insert lighting inside the pop bumpers. Looking at this based on the board stampings, this would appear to be a daisy chain scenario where something is not carrying down the chain? The weird thing is that the inserts for the rollovers DO work, and they appear to be driven by this same board that is driving the other inserts that aren't working.

Thanks again for any pointers....

Does anyone have an idea where the new type LED's (and clear plastic caps too if possible) can be ordered from? Or how they can possibly be replicated? I've got two games stuck on the old 5 SMD towers and would like to upgrade.

The lighting is indeed on a serial chain, so if one light on a chain is loose in its socket or otherwise malfunctioning, it could take out the rest of the “downstream” chain. Try using the Single Lamp test to identify the first light that’s not working properly, and then suspect that light or the one immediately previous. Certainly something could have shaken loose during transport.

That's awesome Joe... thanks, I will run it through it's test and see what comes up. It would appear that these lights are mostly interchangeable, so if it turns out to be a flaky light, I could always put that one at the end of the chain. In the bulb test menu, when it cycles through the bulbs, does this tie directly to how the chain follows along a similar pattern? (I am assuming so, but you know what they say about assuming). I haven't looked at the flashers yet, but I am assuming these are the same style/volt lights, and not traditional flashers with different voltages, correct?

Thanks again, I really want to get to know the ins and outs of this game, it looks really incredible.

Agreed, this is awesome info and will speed up troubleshooting quite a bit. Thanks!!!!!!

Big thanks to Ferret and BCD... because of this info, I was able to trace it back to an LED that has gone bad. No matter where I moved it to, the downstream wouldn't light after it. I pulled a LED from the back right GI that was the last in the string.... don't even notice it.

One last issue... I thought the game was resetting randomly.... It's not. My coils all stop, including the flippers when the ball passes over one particular switch. I have to reset the game to get the coils back. As long as I don't hit the left lane that goes back to the head/figurine, I can play all night..... so, reseat that switch? any other ideas?

Thanks again, I am so close!

There are two switches in the upper loop shot.

Are you able to go into test mode and produce a debug report (under the Actions menu) after you observe the error, but before powering off the game? You'll need to insert a USB stick first then it will write the report there - maybe that will provide some clues? If so PM me with the file and I can try to diagnose it.

The only coils affected by those switches are the two up-posts. Do those work otherwise?

Thanks Brian... I will try to get this done tonight and shoot you a PM. I don't have enough time on a working game yet to know what the normal behavior is for those posts. I haven't run coil tests yet, just bulb tests, and now switch tests. All the switches pass the tests without issue. I will run a coil test next to see what the behavior of that up-post is by the driver.

Hello I picked up a full throttle a couple weeks ago. Everytime I get a high score and go to put my initials in it just goes to this blue screen that says highway pinball and the code. Is there a new code I can update the machine.

20180518_123156 (resized).jpg

I am pretty sure you are on the latest code. Have you tried a full factory reset to flush out any software Gremlins that may be in there?

What does rotating the board mean and what does it do?
IMG_0274.GIF

He just meant to switch the io board with another one of the io boards to see if the problem followed the io board.

I did a factory reset and it worked. Thanks.

All coil tests worked fine. Went back to look over the cpu. The Heighway USB stick felt a little loose. Picked up the cpu, and the power cord fell right out.

I twisted in the power cord and moved the USB stick to another port. Played about 15 games without any issues. I put a USB extension cord in and a blank memory stick. If it locks up, I will run a debug.

Also, I have read where people are having problems making the right ramp from the left flipper. Watching this closely, the ball is hitting the bottom of the upper ramp. I will make a cover for the entrance and report back.

This game is super fun!

I was having the same problem as RalphWiggum. After finding every old tower style LED and replacing it with the newer style LED's every LED now registers correctly and is properly labeled in the "Single Lamp" test mode. <<EDIT>> Forgot that there is one light in the test mode that doesn't show where it is on the map--"Top PF Lights" (C-X6) doesn't do anything on my game. What is that? Also, is it a known issue that the "Left Upper Sling, Left Lower Sling" lights are reversed in test mode? Mine are reversed, but the right side registers correctly--upper lights upper, lower lights lower. Only game play issue left is to figure out the Xeno tongue not working. I'm sure it's been covered before, but once again, how do I test the tongue's motor to see if it's dead?

side comment: ralphwiggum was the perfect person to get my Full Throttle. My heart sank when he started having issues as soon he received it. But, he's been able to diagnose things that I would never have been able to figure out. What a great pinsider. Deal with him with extreme confidence.

It looks like your upper/lower sling lights are wired backwards, at least according to the information that was given to me. The code looks correct. Not sure if all games are wired this way or not. I'll check my game and see what it does. This is the first I've heard of this.

Top PF Lights is a carryover from Full Throttle, which had an LED strip at the top of the playfield. Alien doesn't have this. In the upcoming 1.2 release this was renamed "Not Used" to make that clear.

To test the xeno, go into test mode, Tests, and Xenomorph Test (the last entry). Use up/down to choose the appropriate action. Choose "Shot" to test the full capture sequence. Press enter to start the action; press enter again to cancel it mid-way if necessary.

Shot doesn't activate the tongue for me. It just gives a stuck switch error or retract error. The "Breathe" test also doesn't do anything. The rest of the tests look to be correct, aside from anything that would involve movement of the tongue.

An unrelated issue I've just rediscovered after it not popping up since I first got the game is that the upper right flipper will work fine on ball one but about a minute into ball #2 it will die. Finish the game and start another and it still doesn't work. Turn off the game, jiggle the EOS wire that connects to the large middle board and turn the game back on, it works fine again until ball #2. Strange. Edit: Played a few games trying to diagnose it and thought I had it working. Got to "How did they cut the power" quote and my flipper went out. Added realism there

BCD and Ferret are "insane dudes" and they should be recognised for their efforts.

Took apart my mechanism as well, down to just the jaw being attached. The tongue gear--will the motor still spin that gear with nothing attached or does it require the tension of the tongue bar pressing on it to move? My gear doesn't spin with nothing else attached. The old Xeno's larger gear doesn't spin freely--I can't move the tongue on it without using excessive force. When I put it all back together and activate "Shot" in test mode I can feel the motor activating which should turn the gear, but I can feel it locking up as if it's binding. With everything disassembled, I can place different amounts of tension on how it would all be mounted, but nothing is unbinding it and I'm not seeing anything that looks to be the cause other than the gear still isn't turning, so the binding would seem to be inside the black box.

I have the newer motor. I'll see if that part fixes this.

Before ordering, I would separate the motor from the xenomorph mechanism and try to run the "tongue" in test. If the motor spins freely then you have a mechanical issue with the stepper mechanism or gearing on the xeno head, but if it doesn't and you can hear/feel it trying to actuate than the issue is likely in the motor itself.

I just did that and I can feel the motor activate which should turn the gear, but nothing happens. After reading about stepper motors and judging by how the original mechanism's gear is locked into place while it is out of the machine and has nothing acting on it, I probably broke the motor's ability to lock the gear while it is at rest with nothing acting on it.

How do you think you broke it?

Would manually activating the jaw/tongue parts before it's installed break the motor's locking action? Isn't it supposed to be locked into place and the gear stuck in a fixed position when no power is applied to it? That's how my old mechanism is, so since the new one isn't like that, I would imagine something isn't right.

By manually activating it, I meant via the test menu, not turning it by hand.

If you go into the tests for the xenomorph head on the 1.2 code, you can activate different tests that use the tongue.

I understand. I've done it that way as well. When everything is connected and in test mode, I can activate "Shot" and feel the motor engage as if it should move the tongue, but it doesn't. The gear and the bar that the gear rests on doesn't spin unless I manually move the tongue. The motor never seems to activate a lock function to keep the tongue in place.

I was talking about how when both the old mechanism and new mechanism are disconnected from the machine the old mechanism's motor seems to be locked into place--the only way to move the tongue in and out of the old mechanism is to use pliers to turn the gear which seems to be forcefully grinding the gears of the motor. On the new mechanism, it can be moved freely, so I was assuming that the new motor's locking mechanism is now faulty.

Sounds like your gearbox is jammed up.. sounds like a replacement motor/box is in your future.

Part ordered and for now, that issue will marinate for a bit. Any ideas as to why my upper right flipper would cut out after a game or two? Reboot the machine and the flipper will work fine again for a game or two. Doesn't sound like a connector issue, does it? I was hoping the update to 1.2 would reset any wonky stuff going on with my software or boards, but the issue persists.

It sounds like my machine is a mess of errors, but if the Xeno and this flipper issue are fixed, there isn't anything other than cosmetics and tidying up the wiring under the playfield. Game plays fine for me beyond the two items being discussed here.

When the UR flipper dies, do lights in that area also “freeze” (not necessarily go dark, but stop updating)?

Next time the flipper dies, try immediately hitting the operator Enter button, and let it scroll through the info pages... it should indicate if an IOBoard is missing.

Jesus...with all of those updates this shouldn't be 1.2 but more like 3.0!

I just tried it and as soon as it died, I hit the operator enter button. It scrolled through a few pages but the list of I/O boards all showed as being active--no "I/O board disconnected" error or anything to indicate they weren't all being seen. The lights near the upper right flipper looked normal too. Power off, reboot, and it'll play fine again for a few minutes without even adjusting the connectors or messing with anything else.

I/O boards and IOC are all HW: 1.4 and SW: 0.9 versions.

The team kinda informally agreed that we would label it as 2.0 when it was *done*, when everything we'd imagined was in place. 1.2 isn't quite there, but it's close.

Hmmm, OK. So continuing the same line of thinking, at that point can you try going into coil test and activating the UR flipper -- does it fire that way?

And since you didn't mention otherwise, I assume when the game gets into this state, the other three flippers work as expected, it's only the UR that's inoperative, is that correct?

It fires fine in test mode when it works in game, but once it dies it no longer fires in test mode. It's like it just needs a reboot. It's strong and works as it always has until it ceases to work without any indication. All other flippers are normal and the game can still continue being played as if that flipper never existed.

The upper right flipper is the only flipper on IO board #2, so I suspect something wrong with just that I/O board.

I'm curious if other coils on that board (vent #1/left eject, drop target reset) also don't work. There is some protection circuitry on the IO board that will disable all coils if it detects a fault. This might be kicking in and keeping all the coils disabled until the next power cycle. Sorry but I don't really understand how that works.

I changed back to .08 on the Io boards

The upper right flipper plugs directly into the middle PCB, and looking at the middle PCB schematics that flipper power is routed directly to the I/O board that piggybacks that middle PCB. I would do a complete solenoid test as bcd suggested the next time the flipper goes dead, my guess is the other solenoids are out as well. If this is the case, the problem likely resides with that I/O board #2.

You could carefully try to reseat the USB cables on the I/O board, and reseat the I/O board itself. You could also temporarily swap I/O boards from some other place in the game to validate this. Keep in mind, these connections are known to be fragile so proceed with extreme caution.

It's unlikely that the USB is a problem. A loose USB will cause the connection to reset, which will cause all LEDs to go off briefly and then come back on. It's very noticeable when this happens. This seems to be coil-only, which is either a power connector problem or there was an overcurrent condition that causes the board to disable coils. As it only happens after a while, and it is fine after reset, the connectors are probably OK, so my guess is it's a large power draw at some point that shuts down the board. I'd recommend going into the service menus and reducing the UR flipper power (and maybe other coils on that board too) and see if that fixes it.

Another suggestion on this note. Granted this is rare and likely not the issue, but it doesn't hurt to check as I have run into this once before with a flipper blowing a fuse. It's possible the coil didn't get enough windings when it was manufactured or it was mis-labeled (my case) so it's impedance is lower, causing it to draw more current. With the game off, measure the power and hold coil resistance on the suspect coil and compare to the rest of the flipper coils in the game. If you find the resistance is the same or very close then all is well. I would also check to see how hot the coil is versus the rest immediately after the flipper stops working.

bcd my thought was if it is a "loose" USB that became disconnected only briefly, that the connection could become unsync'd and a reboot would solve it in that case.

I agree an overcurrent situation is highly likely as well.

I reduced the power of everything in the game by at least 5% slings, scoop kickouts, etc--but the troublesome flipper I put at 25% reduced power. I also put 25% lower on everything labeled "Not Used" and made sure beacon, shaker, and other features I don't have on my machine are disabled or reduced as low as possible. No change. If anything, the flipper is dying out sooner than before since now it's happening early in the first game, usually ball 2. Maybe the ball is activating a feature or contacting something on the playfield that is causing that flipper to shut down?

Sorry if this is stated somewhere, but what's the url to get the update? I've searched for it (google, heighway website, this board, etc) but couldn't locate it.

New motor came today. No change, same symptoms, so I'm out of ideas.

Try turning the screw on the stepper board a little bit clockwise to increase the strength of the unit and see if it changes anything.