I would check the flipper fuse under the playfield.

Yes similar but buss fuses most likely. You can buy replacements at your local hardware store. Note get the exact value of fuse and pay attention if it is slow blow or quick blow type.

Best of luck

The fuse is located under the flipper. Just lift the playfield and you should be able to locate it right away. If its blown just replace the 1 fuse. My fuse blew on my tron within a week of owning.

I believe it's a 3 amp slow blow. But I maybe wrong. Just check the fuse carefully or take it to radio shack.

best way to check is to remove it and put your ohm meter or DMM on ohm setting and check for continuity. The closer to 0 resistance the better. If it shows some really high number for resistance than it is broken in the middle and needs replaced. Or sometimes visual inspection will be enough to see the break.

Oh crap. Sounds like a driver transistor to me. You need to call Stern & talk to Chaz. Tell him everything you said here,& he'll help you out. You may need board work. Never had this problem on a Stern but sh|t happens.

I bet you fried the transistor I know a guy that held the flipper up for a extended time while in multiball and had the transistor fail.. Sorry for your bad luck . It won't be a too bad to fix if you can find someone to help you with the board repair .

Jim

This is an extremely common problem with stern games going all the way back to Sega whitestar. Holding the flipper button can rarely fry and short the transistor which then blows the fuse. As soon as you replace the fuse, the flipper is immediately energized until the fuse blows. You probably blew the board transistor. I believe it's q15 for the left and q16 for the right flipper (common enough problem that I have these memorized). These are easy to replace if you have soldering skills. The replacement parts you can get for $3 are stronger and won't blow out again. If you'd rather you can just go for warranty. But this type of problem is something you should learn how to solve as a pinball owner

Here are the transistors. I usually stock a few of these and a few tip 102's. http://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=190

LindaN,

This happened on my Tron. Tell Chas at Stern, 1-800-KICKERS. They will advance replace your driver board in the backbox. Easy swap.

You will need to use the key inside of your coin door and unlock the lock at the top of the back box. Then lift and pull the translite.

You'll need to replace the fuse again and you should be good to go.

Yep I've heard the same.

I agree if its brand new you shouldn't need to. But if your expectation is 25 years you are a bit out of line there and should reset your expectations. I own a lot of sterns. I've had to replace the flipper solenoid transistors on either q15 or q16 in:
Tron (bought nib), 24, lord of the rings, Spider-Man (bought nib), Batman dark knight, acdc ( bought nib), maybe more. Last time tron one died I had 40 people over. Yanked the board and had it all repaired and running again inside 15 minutes. It's a very easy repair once you learn it.

Aaaaaah good on you STERN.. the achilles heel of any pinball machine are the coils and from 1977/78 onwards we have had them taking out transistors and sometimes more ( depending on backwash).. this problem is demonstrated perfectly with GOTTLIEB system1.. how those Spider chips fried..

.. Roll on 35 years and modern pinball manufacturer (s?) still dont have this path diode protected.
Holding a flipper button should never blow the transistor.. very very poor Stern

These transistors blow I think because of the way Stern uses a pulsing HV instead of a low voltage for the flipper hold. I have never seen this myself on b/w, but with Sterns, I've seen it here and there, and it's more common than fuses for bad flippers.

I don't like this design. It is what makes the noisy rattling sometimes you here when holding, and I'm sure it results in much faster wear on plungers and stops.

I played my Tron with a dead flipper until the board showed up. It's not going to hurt anything to play it crippled.

And no, you don't have to do any soldering to replace the board. Disconnect the electrical connectors, remove a couple screws, and your all set. You'll be up and running in 10 minutes once the new board arrives.

If I were you, I wouldn't play with a dead flipper...
I'd buy a new pin to help you through this "tough time" until you get ACDC fixed.
: )

If you really want to, you could probably move the tron pro board into acdc while you wait. Then tron would be down instead.

How long had you held the flipper prior to the blown transistor?

If you replace the transistor rather than replace the board, the improved transistor would handle that without dying.

Agreed. This really makes me wonder why Stern hasn't upgraded to this transistor already. Too expensive to redo the board specs? Stern doesn't care enough to make the change? Solution seems easy enough to me, but I must be missing something.

So, here's a question from a technical n00b:

Linda says she held the flipper up for 10+ minutes. Let's say that she didn't do this. If she had energized the flipper thousands of times racking up the equivalent of 10 minutes of a held flipper, would the transistor also die? Or is there something inherently different (and destuctive) about holding the flipping energized for so long.

Does the other side have this problem, too?

Any time you 'turn' a transistor on, there's a chance it can fail. Stuff lasts longer when you don't turn it on.

Maybe they have ~10k driver boards already in the warehouse? Bet they're all the same revision.

While you're waiting for the new board Linda, go into your Standard Settings menu and enable Coin Door Ballsaver. By default, it's turned off. With it on, you can open the coin door in the middle of a ball (to pick up the phone, go to the bathroom, etc), then pick right back up where you left off. Just close the coin door and a ball will be auto-plunged. Timers will run out, but you won't lose your ball.

I'd have him put in the upgraded transistor. Stern will send you a new board but the repaired one would be superior plus it would be done right away. Stern warranty can take a couple weeks or more. Just make sure he will use the upgraded IRL540N rather than the original.

Stern had my board to me in about 4 days. I do believe it is a refurbished board.

Have your guy install the upgraded transistor so you don't have to be without your game for the weekend with the same problem ever again.

My 2 cents.. Definitely bad transistor, however also make sure to ohm out the flipper coil. The transistor frying could also be caused by a faulty coil, and or the locked on transistor could have overheated the coil and melted the sleeve.

Do this. I had this happen on 2 new games. ACDC and Tron LE. No problems after the fix. I felt the same way Linda did about a new game breaking. Since we are not going to motivate Stern to change their board parts, better to just fix it and move on.

Minor issues aside, it's still a really nice product.

Stern

I can't believe nobody has said this, but if the flipper is stuck up when you turn the game on... DON'T FREAKIN' PLAY IT!!! If your transistor is blown, and the coil is getting voltage any time a game is started, that coil is going to get hot, smoke, PROBABLY melt, and then potentially catch FIRE if you continue to ignore it.

I am assuming that the fuse blew, the flipper went back down, and that it doesn't come up any more. If that's correct, then yes, playing on one flipper ain't going to kill anything. Practice backhanding ramps. If it's still stuck up, REMOVE the fuse until you get a fixed driver board. That way you don't damage anything else.

In the first post, it was stated that the fuse was blown and current state is that the fuse is blown with no flipper activity.

If I was local I'd just come over and and do it for you! A friend's Tron had the same exact problem - I put on a new transistor for them, good as new. Any local Pinsiders up for being a good samaritan?

If no takers- you're under warranty - hopefully Stern can get you a new one soon.

Also if you are pulling one flipper transistor, do both. Might as well upgrade them to the 540 transistors. Odds are if you do just one the other one will go at some point.

Warranty is not quite what you might imagine. Although a very objective term, it's no Best Buy return it even if you pee on it type of deal.

Overall, you will learn much more about the game getting it fixed locally and watching the repair.

Tough call. Replace transistors locally and void your warranty, or wait an extended period of time for a replacement board. If it was me I'd already of changed the transistors

Let us know when the game is rocking again.

Pinball machines are servicable. You do not void your warrant by replacing parts. This isn't a blender you buy at target. If your pinball tech won't install an IRL540N because he is worried its not the right part, he is probably too stupid to be working on the machine. Find another. There are no worries about voiding warranty either. If you do the swap you can still get stern to replace the board.

Or he just like the repeat business.

Couldn't agree with you more. Definitely use the IRL540N Transistors. Anything but would be STUPID.

Lesson learned: Don't hold the flipper for 10 minutes while on the phone