X-Men (LE)
Stern, 2012While playing a game today, I cradled a ball with the left flipper to answer a phone call, and I guess the machine didn't like that. After about a minute, the fuse near the flipper assembly blew and the flipper dropped. I went down to the store and bought a couple more, but those blew too. They're all 3A/250V. Can anyone give me a heads up on how to fix this? Thanks!
Just got the new code in and barely got a chance to try it, any suggestions at all for a fix? Saw another thread with a similar issue on a LOTR, transistors Q15 and 16 seemed to be the culprits, but I don't see Q16 on my xmen board. Same issue, completely different?
We kept blowing fuse F5 (or was it F7) on the main board? Anyways I think it was the big fuse that handles all coils. It sounds crazy, but after 4 fuses being replace, we replaced the night crawler fuses underneath the playfield and I think F7 (whichever powers the nightcrawlers and aux board) and we haven't blown a fuse since. We tested continuity, and the fuses reported fine, but they looked very sketchy. Whatever we did has gotten us through a few months without fuse issues.
This could be a couple of things. It could be the coil intermittently shorting or a problem with the board transistor.
One thing, you can lessen the amount of current through that circuit by setting pulse power to soft.
If it were me, I'd swap the left and right flipper could (assuming they're the same) and see what happens. I'd probably clean the fuse holder also. Next I would probably replace the board transistor. It will be the one that matches the coil number in the solenoid test. Q01 matches to solenoid 1 etc.
Quoted from Kingoftron:While playing a game today, I cradled a ball with the left flipper to answer a phone call, and I guess the machine didn't like that. After about a minute, the fuse near the flipper assembly blew and the flipper dropped. I went down to the store and bought a couple more, but those blew too. They're all 3A/250V. Can anyone give me a heads up on how to fix this? Thanks!
There is a good chance that the transistor is shorted and needs to be replaced. There are tons of threads about this type of problem.
Quoted from Kingoftron:Just got the new code in and barely got a chance to try it, any suggestions at all for a fix? Saw another thread with a similar issue on a LOTR, transistors Q15 and 16 seemed to be the culprits, but I don't see Q16 on my xmen board. Same issue, completely different?
Different board sets, and you need to find out the transistor number that drives your coil. It is likely way different from LOTR.
LTG : )
Quoted from DCFAN:There is a good chance that the transistor is shorted and needs to be replaced. There are tons of threads about this type of problem.
Or the solder joints or traces to the transistor legs are broken.
LTG : )
Here is some more info to help troubleshoot/fix:
http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/tron-right-flipper-stopped-working-on-new-machine
So to be specific, if you replace the fuse and fire up the machine does the flipper instantly energize? If so, turn off the machine and replace the transistor. Its not clear this is the problem bases on the description.
Quoted from markmon:So to be specific, if you replace the fuse and fire up the machine does the flipper instantly energize? If so, turn off the machine and replace the transistor. Its not clear this is the problem bases on the description.
When I replaced the fuse and turned on the machine, it immediately made a popping sound and the fuse was immediately blown. 5 months old, is it still under warranty?
Ok. Start by replacing the board transistor. If you don't know how to do this call stern and they'll probably replace the board. but this is pretty common. You should have these transistors on hand and learn how to swap them.
In 8 years of pinballing I've never even heard of this issue. Now after doing some research, it's crazy how often it seems this happens. I'll call Stern, but am definitely going to learn how to fix this for future reference.
This sucks, man. I've got tomorrow off, so I'll come by and we can mess with it. I feel bad this happened all because you stopped to answer a phone call... from me.
Quoted from Kingoftron:In 8 years of pinballing I've never even heard of this issue. Now after doing some research, it's crazy how often it seems this happens. I'll call Stern, but am definitely going to learn how to fix this for future reference.
Unfortunately, this problem affects a number of games. I had it happen on my Wheel of Fortune earlier this year. It is a simple repair, yet given that this problem continues to occur on new games, why hasn't Stern changed this component on their driver board? I know one operator that decided to socket both flipper transistors on his games just to make it easier to fix on location.
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