Need a little help here. I'm having trouble even figuring out which connector runs the flashers so I can see if it's a board or socket issue. I'm new to DE schematics. Also, I'd be interested in some suggestions for a circuit breaker so I can stop wasting fuses.

Thanks!

bump for the weekday crew.

How about just a recommendation for a circuit breaker?

I just got the machine, so they've never worked for me. I've only got 1 5ASB left, so I thought these would be great for not throwing that money away.

Thanks for all the advice and steps to take. Hopefully I can take it from here. Stay tuned!

Progress! (?)

So, I think I found a couple sockets that were shorting and now the fuse isn't blowing in diags. Now in diags during the flasher cycle test, none of the lights come on, but the shooter and right vuk fire.

Would this kind of thing be an issue with the transistors on the CPU board (Q42/Q44) or a diode/resistor on the PPB (R5,D5/R3,D3)?

How would you even test the transistor or whatever to manually light a flasher??

First thing - Does anyone have a copy of the schematics that are actually readable? The text in the PDF version is not so good.

I think my progress was less progressive than I thought. After fixing the shorted flasher sockets and before I started testing this other stuff, I never went through the full coil tests, only confirmed that the flasher test wasn't blowing the fuse anymore. So, I checked Q29 and it seems fine. Correct readings, but grounding it does not seem to make the relay click - I can't hear anything. Pulled the PPB and checked continuity on all the relay legs and it seems fine.

So I go back into diags and discover some coils are not working, and the flasher test still fires those two coils. So now I pull the Flasher Fuse F6 completely, and go into the single coil test to see what's going on. Nothing on J2 works. Nothing on J9 works (they're flashers) - EXCEPT the blk/org flasher on pin7 triggers the auto launch (J2 pin7) and the blk/grn flasher on pin 9 triggers the right VUK (J2 pin9).

err.....???
I will point out that the game played fine minus flashers when I started messing with this, though the only thing I KNOW I've changed is finding two shorted flasher sockets.

So, if the game is trying to energize the Flasher in the top and bottom diagrams, and instead the coil goes, it would seem everything is working fine except the relay didn't flip. So why doesn't coil in the center diagram fire when that flasher or coil is tested?

Does that tell me that all of the CPU transistors for the coils on J2 except those two are now bad?

coilschem.png

No coils on J2 fire now except those two in the flasher test. I reflowed the relay joints but it still is probably bad because shorting q29 doesn't trigger it. It does look brand new at a glance, but that's from an untrained eye.

Coils that don't work:
Top Eject - J2-9
Ball Release - J2-8
Left Scoop - J2-6
Diverter - J2-4
Dino Device Eject - J2-2
Knocker - J2-1

coilschem2.png
coilschem3.png

Edit: Ohh.... the two that do work are the only ones that don't go through J6-3 out of the Relay...

No, all I did was check for continuity on all the visible locations that I could tell should have it. I'd be much interested in what else I should check. Which pins should I check for resistance, and about what should I see?

I'm going to have to pull the board again anyway to check that pin.

Well shit. A friend of mine had a brand new rottendog board he wasn't using so I put that in the game and no change at all. Now wtf?

Ok, so now I found the 32V fuse on the power board was blown. Replaced that and it blew the new F7 3A fuse that was placed on the rottendog board. This fuse is right before the ppb relay coil. So I'm obviously back to looking for shorts, anyone know if I should be looking at coils or flashers at this point? Should I pull all the flasher bulbs out just to eliminate that possiblity?

I went through removing all the flashers and when I pulled one of the bulbs a screw fell out. I don't know where the screw was really sitting, but it was on the bulb between the ramp and the dock on the top right of the playfield. I pulled them all, ran through the tests and nothing blew. I slowly replaced them and everything was working great, so I started a test game, and within 10s of gameplay, I now blew F6 on the RD board... However, the RD board has 3A slo-blow printed on it, and installed, but the schematic for both the RD board and the DE board have F6 as a 5A slo-blow, and Jim at RD recommended that I go ahead and follow that. I'll be trying that tonight.

Ugh.... This is so frustrating. Put a 5A fuse in F6 and it blows the 3A in F7 killing my 32v coils. Pull the 5A in F6 and the coils work but not the flashers.

Remove all flashers and I have no problems. Put a single flasher in any socket and F7 (a coil fuse) blows. Anybody?

Everything is incandescent. I even tried old bulbs that I took out of my BSD when installing LEDs. Same result.

Thanks, I will check that.

Well it was definitely part of the problem. I pulled it away and taped off the wires and they started working again. And just like before, not long into a test game they stopped working again. Sigh.

I do currently have resettable breakers like the above installed, so now my question is, will those overheat after a few minutes use and pop or should they essentially be as good as fuse replacements?

IMAG0595.jpg

Solved!

The circuit breakers saved me another dozen fuses or so. They're awesome. So here we go:

I discovered that the fuse would only blow when the playfield was in the cabinet. We were able to figure out that as the playfield was being dropped down, the fuse would blow. It would happen as soon as the pivot touched the rail in the cabinet. Now, these pivots had electrical tape wrapped all around them for some reason, but it had worn off at the points where the pivot slides on the rail. I always thought it was weird, but now I know why the last person put it on there.

As it turned out. There was a stray washer under one of the plastics sitting right HERE:
flasher2.jpg

You can just barely see a T-nut poking out of the playfield there. The washer was wedged right in that corner touching the T-nut and the ball guide. That T-nut is what the playfield pivot screws into, of course. Now, that alone wouldn't cause my problem, but as you follow that ball guide up the playfield you'll find this:
flasher1.jpg

And the flasher lug you see there was also touching the ball guide. So, flasher socket touching ball guide, through fallen washer, to T-nut, through screw to playfield pivot, to cabinet rail, to ground braid and a blown fuse.

Here's another reminder to FIND WHAT YOU DROP when working on your machine.