Quoted from pinwiz_pa:It’s a long shot but have you tried changing out the big gray capacitor?
I believe those capacitors are only for a certain circuit (coils/flashers or 18v for the controlled lamps).
(Topic ID: 242025)
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Mousin' Around!
Bally, 1989
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No I have not! I was just looking into that. Most folks say leave it alone - it never fails. But i do have a power problem in that area. I verified the proper voltage at the terminals but didn't verify it's ability to filter. I can go down 10% to a 27000uf/25v and those are plentiful and inexpensive. Popular with Atari games. I'll order one and give it a try. Thanks for the suggestion Pinwiz_pa.
Just ordered a new "big blue". it should arrive by Friday and I'll report back after I slap it in.
I Love This Game! After a typical 2 hour warm-up I am playing the heck out of Mousin' Around!. Two ramps plus the "Geronimo!" shot which has the feel of a ramp, two "ball gobblers", the center target that opens up to a third ramp, etc. One of my favorites.
- Charles
Replacing the 30,000?” µF cap did not fix my problem. Things have gotten worse over the last two days. The game no longer will play. It boots up but no longer warms up. I will have to swap some parts out and figure this out unless anyone has some good troubleshooting ideas.
Me too. I took voltage measurements going into the transformer at it was correct at about 119vac.
Voltages coming out of the transformer are also in range considering no load:
1-2: 92.5 vac
3-5: 10.4 vac
4-5: 10.4 vac
9-10: 14.3 vac
6-7: 30 vac
11-12: 54.5 vac
I don't know what else to check. I guess I'll have to pull the transformer out of one of my other games and see if that's the issue.
Thanks again Crash.
I know next to nothing about pin repair, so take this with a grain of salt, but if the transformer swap test doesn't work I would continue to investigate the blanking circuit area of the MPU. My thoughts:
1) Replacing Q50 in the blanking circuit fixed the powering down issue. The powering down issue seemed to be the exact opposite of the powering up issue you now have, which would lead me to believe they are similar issues, caused by a similar area.
2) You've always had GI turn on immediately, from my understanding a blanking circuit issue wouldn't impact the GI, which makes sense. You'd think a general power issue that impacts everything else would also impact GI (would start dim then brighten).
3) You mentioned replacing C30, but didn't mention if you replaced C57 and C58 which were mentioned in the blurb about the Chris Hibler repair, if not I'd try that. Also mentioned around blanking circuit is U43.
4) Here is another thread that talks about the blanking circuit in a system 11 that seems to be discussing a problem with a Pinbot very similar to what you are seeing, with the game only partially booting, weird display issues, etc.
https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/rec.games.pinball/VYCEd9xcAMA
5) If all else fails, you can try contacting Chris Hibler thru Pinside. He might be willing to give you a target location to look at, wouldn't hurt to ask.
My vote is battery damage on the CPU causing your headaches. Your board has clearly been worked on due to this before, as shown by the socketed U51, missing solder mask in various areas in the vicinity of the battery holder, and tarnished looking component legs in the area of the reset circuitry.
Most likely the alkaline is continuing to leach its way across the copper on your board and into the legs/bodies of the various ICs, which is why you are starting to see the problem get worse. The 6821 PIAs in that area are also responsible for the display segment strobes and the controlled lamps, which explains why you are seeing display segments missing, as well as odd behavior with the feature lamps.
Wilmington, DE
Quoted from Pwedge:My vote is battery damage on the CPU causing your headaches. Your board has clearly been worked on due to this before, as shown by the socketed U51, missing solder mask in various areas in the vicinity of the battery holder, and tarnished looking component legs in the area of the reset circuitry.
Most likely the alkaline is continuing to leach its way across the copper on your board and into the legs/bodies of the various ICs, which is why you are starting to see the problem get worse. The 6821 PIAs in that area are also responsible for the display segment strobes and the controlled lamps, which explains why you are seeing display segments missing, as well as odd behavior with the feature lamps.
Solid first post, welcome to Pinside!
Thanks again to everyone for the helpful replies. The transformer swap did not work entirely. The game is now warming up again and I am slowly getting characters on displays and controlled lamps which had stopped happening a few days ago. I did not replace the other capacitors that Chris had mentioned as they were not in stock over at GPE. I’ll look around a little harder online. Yes, the game had battery damage when I obtained it 10 years ago. It’s been a solid player ever since though we haven’t played it much lately. I tried removing, cleaning and re-inserting all of the socketed chips on the CPU board and installed new roms but that did not help. I will move ahead with pulling the CPU board, reinspecting closely for damage, and order those other capacitors in the blanking circuit. It’s noteworthy that the blanking led is dim when the game first is turned on and would get brighter as the game warmed up. Thanks again to everyone.
Charles
More info. I just put the transformer from mousin around into sworts of fury. It works perfectly with swords of fury.
Quoted from CharlesZ:I have three other system 11 games. A High Speed a Swords of Fury and a Diner. I will experiment with swapping boards this week to isolate the problem
If you swap boards you'll know if the board is the problem. Shooting in the dark seems unproductive so far.
Definitely will do that. There seem to be two trains of thought here, one is that it could be logic-based, and the other is that it’s power supply-based. I was hoping to get that narrowed down to one or the other then really dig in. I will try some board swaps when the opportunity presents itself in the next day or two and get back to everyone.
Chénens
Wow! Have had this issue with my swords of fury!
Took minutes at the beginning to be playable, ended up taking hours eventually.
It is not power supply related => rebuilt it with no change.
Did a swap of the MPU with a prisitine one from a big guns => bam, everything solved!
Also changed the U41 before the swap => nothing changed.
Original board has been sent for repair, as it was above my capacities, but it is clearly lying in the MPU.
Good luck, but also interested in knowing what's up here, will cost me less to save the board.
That’s good information. Thank you. I have rebuilt the power supply as well. Plus replaced some parts on the MPU board. I will look much closer at the MPU board and if anyone has any troubleshooting tips they would like me to check please let me know. I’m anxious to fix this not replace it if possible. Should I focus on the PIAs?? Thanks to all!
Quoted from CharlesZ:Should I focus on the PIAs??
First focus on determining if the board is your problem, then focus on figuring out what part of it needs repair.
Great thread about alkaline damage repair here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stripping-battery-corrosion-with-a-strong-acid
Quoted from Nihonmasa:Wow! Have had this issue with my swords of fury!
Took minutes at the beginning to be playable, ended up taking hours eventually.
It is not power supply related => rebuilt it with no change.
Did a swap of the MPU with a prisitine one from a big guns => bam, everything solved!
Also changed the U41 before the swap => nothing changed.
Original board has been sent for repair, as it was above my capacities, but it is clearly lying in the MPU.
Good luck, but also interested in knowing what's up here, will cost me less to save the board.
Do you recall exactly what the issue with the CPU board was? Was it really acid damage?
Good question Crash. Would love the specific answer to this as well.
Specifically, what on the CPU board could cause power to be slowly distributed to the displays, controlled lamps and special solenoids ? Keep in mind that all voltages are present. And secondly, why would the problem fix itself over time? And thirdly, why did swapping out the transformer have any effect??? I admit that I am very glad to hear that at least one other person has suffered from this problem! That’s why I posted here to see who else may have experienced this hoping the problem could be resolved quickly. Thanks to everyone for pitching in and helping me out. 
Good news this morning regarding Mousin Around. I examined the MPU board but could find nothing obviously wrong. I pulled U15 U24 and U51. I cleaned the sockets. I then swapped U24 and U15 as they are both 6802 chips and turned her on. She came up immediately with no warm-up. I am not prepared to call her repaired at this time but will see how she works over the next few days and get back to everyone. But as of right now, swapping U24 and U15 seemed to have fixed the problem at least for now!
It is dramatically better but not fixed. Had a quick five-minute warm-up before I could play today. Of course it should come on instantly upon turning the switch on. This is an improvement because I had the machine on for over two hours for last week or so and it would not become playable. Will continue to seek out those small capacitors in the blanking circuit as I suspect they are involved. Will switch chips again if the problem becomes worse and get back to everyone.
Quoted from CharlesZ:Will switch chips again if the problem becomes worse and get back to everyone.
Post 58 told you what the problem was,
Post 62 told you how to prove it,
Your own post 70 pretty much shows 
Pwedge was on the right track, the only chips you should be switching are the Mousin' Around! ROMs into the
Swords of Fury MPU
I went ahead and swapped the boards and ROMs to further confirm the CPU was the issue. The problem followed its way over to SOF and MA! is now fine. So we are kind of back to square one. LOL. Anyone with an idea on where to start checking my bad MPU board to figure out what is causing this power problem? This problem has me baffled.
Quoted from CharlesZ:Anyone with an idea on where to start checking my bad MPU board to figure out what is causing this power problem?
You said it has alkaline damage. IMO until you address that completely you're wasting your time because every problem that comes up could be due to the alkaline damage or could be other causes.
I figured I repaired the alkaline damage 10 years ago as it's been a solid player for all of that time until recently after it hadn't been played for a while.
UNODIR I'm focusing on the blanking circuit. The LED is very dim when I first turn the game on and ChrisHibler had replaced Q50/C30/C57/C58 for someone else who had a similar problem with his
Big Guns years ago. I have C58, the 1uf/25v tantalum cap on order today but can't find a seller for the .047pf cap.
I'll replace that cap when it arrives in a few days and just generally buzz the board out, check previous repairs, etc. This behavior has got me confused.
I'll report back if replacing C58 is the ticket.
Continued thanks to everyone who has bothered to offer advice and ideas!
- Charles
Quoted from CharlesZ:C57/C58 for someone else who had a similar problem with his Big Guns years ago. I have C58, the 1uf/25v tantalum cap on order today but can't find a seller for the .047pf cap.
C58 is a 0.047 µf capacitor, Tant, 25v (+/- 20%) found on page 2-5 of your manual. Digikey has many different ones available (albeit only at higher voltage rating).
Quoted from YeOldPinPlayer:C58 is a 0.047 µf capacitor, Tant, 25v (+/- 20%) found on page 2-5 of your manual. Digikey has many different ones available (albeit only at higher voltage rating).
Awesome! I wrote down .047pf which is WRONG, tiny capacitance-wise, and impossible to find!
I double checked and C57 is a .047uf/50v, +/- 20% axial!
Thanks for checking that detail out Y.O.P.P.. 
I will get a few of these!!!
1 week later
That MPU board has been working fine for the last two days so I thought I would report to everyone. While checking the board for damage I had pulled each chip that was socketed. When I went to clean the pins of PIA U51 with my fiberglass brush I observed that pin 37 was dangling and hanging on by a thread. I was able to tack it up back on firmly with a little solder but decided to swap the chip with a spare. After doing so the machine is working fine for the last few days and immediately powers up. Pin 37 is for the IRQ lines. Would this add up as far as causing my slow power up and earlier slow power down?
Quoted from CharlesZ:That MPU board has been working fine for the last two days so I thought I would report to everyone. While checking the board for damage I had pulled each chip that was socketed. When I went to clean the pins of PIA U51 with my fiberglass brush I observed that pin 37 was dangling and hanging on by a thread. I was able to tack it up back on firmly with a little solder but decided to swap the chip with a spare. After doing so the machine is working fine for the last few days and immediately powers up. Pin 37 is for the IRQ lines. Would this add up as far as causing my slow power up and earlier slow power down?
It depends on what it was doing if it was generating a bunch of spurious IRQ signals, maybe. That's really hard to say for sure, and it could have easily been something with one of the other socketed chips you were cleaning. I'm sure you're happy it's fixed!
It was the darndest thing @solchar. I had saved all of the screen prints from 10 years ago when I was on RGP and some great fellers there helped me get this up and running. It was great reading those old posts again. And it was great jumping on Pinside and getting so much help as well. With everyone’s help we’ll keep these old machines running! I don’t know if I am out of the woods yet, but three days in a row with no issues I’m feeling pretty good about it!
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