Hi guys.

I was doing some repairs on my FT and wanted to repair a broken ground braid, aaaand I messed up. I must've short circuited something because the insert lights lit up like Dulles airport in Die Hard 2 and I burnt the plastic off of two cables in the transformers. The amount of smoke was....significant.

Anyway... I made two "repairs". As I didn't have a second machine available to compare, I did some quick image googling and went ahead. The picture attached is where I did my first fix. I'm fairly certain that this braid should be connected all the way. So I added a strip in between the two where they are at their closest. Can someone confirm this is correct?

The second "fix" was on the left side. For some reason, I figured the braid should be attached almost the same as on the right side. The right side runs the braid from the upper right corner (by the ball launch), through the power/transformers/speaker and so on. The braid on the left side looked like it was broken off next to the start button, so I ran a new braid from this corner down to the braid on the left side (where the lamp matrix schematic is). I believe this was the mistake, yes?

I think the machine survived, but I didn't do anymore work. I turned it off and removed the ground braids I added.

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Yeah I f-d up bad. Things are not working properly anymore.

Upon power on:

- The GI comes on
- I get one "bong" from the speaker
- The DMD is dead
- The inserts doesn't come on
- The reel spins and looks for a ball, but continues checking with intervalls.
- The ball tray kicks up one ball only
- The GI goes off after a while, and then comes back on. But it's not a reset. It doesn't bong.
- LEDs on CPU card is lit and one is blinking. I didn't put any energy in which is which now.

F....me

Thanks for the info and offer for help, but I'm a bit far from NJ (Sweden).

So the short circuit is not because of the stupid ground braid I applied? At two spots:
1) According to picture in first post (connected them where they are the nearest).
2) From top left corner braid (by the start button) to the ground braid on the left side of the cabinet by the lamp matrix note.

As I mentioned, when the thing started burning plastic, the lights went REALLY bright like they were LEDs. The two cables that burnt from the transformer used to be light blue or some kind of gray with a white stripe I think. Hard to tell, see picture. They are right next to each other on the transformer. I reinsulated them with electrical tape.

Also, one of the dark blue/white cables on the other side of the molex connector that runs to J101 and provide 13,3VAC has burnt off and is connected in twin on the other one. But I think this comes from when I by mistake put J101 one pin wrong to the left when cleaning it the first day I got it.However, the game functioned perfectly after reinsulating the cables and refurbishing the power drive board. All caps and rectifiers have been changed and also completely reflowed the board.

I've made two mistakes so far and they probably cost me this machine.

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Also, the blue/white cables running to J101 on one side of the molex seem to be of darker blue than the blue/white coming from the transformer on the other side. But maybe they are the same cable that got burnt?

However if so, it doesn't explain why and where the insert lights got the higher voltage from.

I haven't bought one yet, but I have access to one so I will start measuring up once I get those 13,3VAC cables sorted.

Naturally, I have removed the "braid fix" before I posted this thread. This evidently stopped shit from burning, so I have my doubts on the braid thing not being the cause from the start. But I will be careful and check stuff before powering it on again.

Thank you so much for all your input.

lol, while "wooooah you're not gonna eat that are ya?" and crackling echoing in the distance.

The fuses were checked and changed when I got the machine some months ago.

I have not check them after this incident yet. I'm very annoyed and angry with myself and this sucked the last energy and patience out of me. Discussing this and analyzing the possibilites with you guys is lowering my blood pressure.

But I will provide more answers and info as soon as I can bring myself to look at it again.

Grumpy, can you draw a circle perhaps? I know it's broken off, but I can't wrap my head around where it might've short circuited. Or why (if) my fix was the cause of this ordeal.

Updated topic to better reflect the issue.

Thanks a lot man. A friend is coming over in a few days and we will do some fault tracing. I guess first step is to unplug the transformer, power it on and measure all the leads to check the voltage (carefully!). I guess opening it up and give it an optical inspection also. I'm under the impression that the secondary winding usually has some sort of fuse connected in serial, yes?

Step 2 will be to repin the harness side of the molex and replace the two 13.3VAC leads going to J101.

Once this is sorted I can start focusing on boards and small stuff again, if it doesn't work properly that is.

Thanks Grumpy, I see it now! I will take a closer look and see how it's positioned when the PF is lowered. The slide is obviously what broke the braid off in that place to begin with.

Many thanks for the info thedefog. Yes that's one option, to get something that only provides 13.3VAC to J101. Would it be an issue with two PSU's with two separate main switches? I mean, in a simple installation and if you don't turn them on simultaneously, would it cause issues with the boot process of the machine? For example, lets say that everything get it's voltage straight away as usual, except you flip the 13.3VAC a second later.

That is what I fear too. Especially when I have the machines in the basement. It's unlikely that I will go through with it.
Thanks for your input.

Thanks for your advice Patofnaud. I will follow your procedure, also check all fuses again and measure the braid.

Another thought. What if the plastic around the wires have melted inside the transformer? I don't know how far in they're covered/insulated before becoming a winding. But missing insulation on the cables can be a cause to the short if two cables touch? No?

What does this mean? You mean schematics?

Nope, the powerdrive board repair was done two weeks before that by a friend with lots of electronic and soldering experience. It turned out perfect and eliminated the last reset problem I had and everything worked really nice.

Thanks once again for all your advice. Bare with me if the thread is quiet for a while. I will update as soon as I have more information. Interesting theory with ground braid "workaround" Patofnaud.

Alright, finally got the thumb out of my ass (as we say in Sweden) and started som initial troubleshooting.

The DMD in my FT did not work after the short, so I swapped it to a WCS and it works fine! So I guess it was the 60V or even 100V that got shorted in my transformer? Haven't had the guts to bring out the DMM and do some measuring yet, but it's a start.

I'll keep you posted.

I guess so, but I also has a burnt off 13.3V (I think it is). The two blue/white wires going up to J101 to be rectified into 12V.

I've had it since november. It was a slight fixer-upper. A friend had it sitting with several other machines for years.
The machine is originally imported to Germany. So I'm fairly certain it's 220V, even if I hadn't checked it. Wouldn't have bought it he'd warn about it being 110V.

Hi! Here comes an answer long overdue!

The transformer survived and works nicely still. All the voltages were good. But the two pins for 15V are fried. We replaced the two 15V wires running to J101 (i think) on powerdrive board.

Not a clean replacement though as I did not have new pins or molex connectors for either side. We just used terminal blocks on both ends and bypassed the two straight on the transformers wiring. Not perfect but works just as good until I get the energy to repin the molex connectors.

The game works just as good again. However the DMD controller board did not survive completely. The fuse F602 (3/8 amps) keeps blowing which means we dont get -125V or -115V to the DMD.
I swapped the DMD to a WCS94 and the DMD works good there and it was not the reason for the fuse blowing. I then swapped the DMD board from WCS to FT and it works good there too. So I just need to replace the DMD board or rebuild it. Bestofpinball here in Europe has a rebuild kit for 10 bucks.

Or do you know what component that might be damaged/shorted? Maybe I need a new forum thread for that.

Oh, and the reason behind all this? Not sure but it looks like the left slingshot coil touched the ground braid. It has signs of some burning to it but it works great. Might explain why the inserts lights shined brightly like a nuke just went off.

Thanks guys! I will try a rebuild of the DMD card. Managed to refresh the powerdrive board recently so this might be just as easy.

Thanks for the info on color dmd. It looks great but I think I will sell this FT as I (unannounced) picked up a really nice WWFRR a month ago. Bit of a shame really since I have a secondary stripped playfield which only have minor wear on one of the four main fish. Naturally I planned a clearcoating and swap but I think I will just sell everything as a whole to the next guy and pick up a minty FT in the future.

And here's the reason why F602 on the DMD controller keeps blowing. BR2 looks a bit tired. RIP little guy. lol

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