Your game couldn't have worked with the way the J2 connector at the rectifier board is wired.
The yellow wire (AC line power) at pin 4 should be at pin 6.

Oh dear...

Is fuse F6 on the rectifier board still good?
Are you getting 115VAC at the transformer?

The Bally rectifier board schematic lists pin 4 at connector J2 as "SPARE".
I'm looking at a Bally rectifier board right now and pin 4 is not connected to anything on the PCB - it is in fact spare.

Rectifier_Board_J2.png

Now, we come to the wiring diagram in the schematics and pin 4 is listed as "SPARE GRND" (as in spare ground).
I can't see how your game worked with the yellow wire there since pin 6 is where power goes to the transformer.

If X-Pin wired pin 4 on their rectifier board to ground, then you potentially should have been blowing/tripping the house fuse immediately on power-up because your active (hot) wire was connected to ground. Only way the fuse would not have blown is if your game has active and neutral reversed - I've come across a number of early Ballys and Sterns that were wired wrong from factory with the games main line F6 fuse being on the neutral side which is incorrect. The mistake usually being at the wiring of the EMI filter in the lower cabinet.

That yellow wire must go into pin 6. You also need to make sure the line active prong on your cord reaches the main line F6 fuse via pin 6 of J2 and the power line neutral prong reaches pin 7 of J2.

Rectifier_Board_J2w.png

Here we see that the yellow wire goes to pin 6 of the J2 connector at the rectifier board:

Cabinet_Power.png

So,

Power comes in, goes to the service outlet and the power switch, and goes to the transformer and rectifier board on pins 6&7 on J2.

Disconnect everything but J2 on the recitifier board.

Use your meter on the test points. Because there won't be a 'load', some voltages might read a bit high, but all the voltages should be there, and none should be lower or 1/2 their value.

Ground is a funny thing measuring on these boards, so that might be why you measured 1/2 the voltage. I'm not familiar with this board, but it appears that you've got a ground point labeled on the board, so use that.

Before anything else, we need to get proper voltages at this board.

After you've got proper voltages with two of the three plugs not plugged in, shut the machine off, and plug in the other two plugs. Then measure the test points again.

Let us know what you find.

To test power switch, UNPLUG game, put meter on continuity test, leads on each tab of switch, turn switch on and off. If it works, you'll get beep when switch is on.

That EMI thing can go bad too and fail OPEN.

Fuse F6 looks a little toasty. Remove it and check it with a DMM to make sure it's good. Two of your connectors have burn marks on them, so those should be redone also. The burnt pins might not have been making good contact so even vibrations can affect them.

The EMI filter is the silver box the main power cord runs to and should have a varistor attached to it.

Dunno if it'd help..but that molex on the bottom left of the purple board is shifted left by a pin....

I'm pretty sure that J1 has nine pins to accommodate KISS, which needs the extra pin. You only plug in 1-8 and leave the other pin empty if you have an eight pin connector, not the nine pin connector used for KISS, and Space Invaders, and Future Spa.

Makes sense. In an earlier post i think it was mentioned that a cable was disconnected and re-connected. Not sure which - but assuming it was this one thought perchance it was not put back on correctly. Aka in tech terms - start with layer 1

EMI = Electromagnetic Interference

I would recommend you do not do continuity tests with the game plugged in. There will be 120VAC on the switch terminals and possibly other places. You could check AC voltages, if you know what you are doing. If you touch the wrong wires, you could damage the game or yourself.

Jumper wire across the terminals, but put the jumper on with the game UNPLUGGED. After the jumper is in place, I would use a switched power tap with a built-in circuit breaker to apply power to the game. I don't like getting shocked.

Yes. They can fail OPEN. It can be bypassed with jumper wires, but make sure you jumper the right wires and don't short neutral to hot. Again, jumper with game UNPLUGGED. If you are unsure how to do it safely, then do more research before attempting.

Why do you want to bypass the power switch when you said a few times early in the thread that the rectifier board downstream was getting 120V ?

Asked and answered. Everything you need to do is in the thread already. If you don't understand, its time to call a professional.

This. If you are already getting 120VAC at the board, then you don't need to bypass anything. If you don't understand, the only thing I can recommend is that you call someone that works on pinball machines before you damage the game or hurt yourself.

I think you should get help. Get a friend to come over that knows about AC, electronics, and taking basic readings SAFELY. You are lucky nothing bad has happened yet.

While I agree that working around 120V CAN KILL YOU...

And the contacts being exposed on that switch make me break out in a cold sweat...

It's not impossible for a home user to find, and fix problems with their pinballs.

The basic "I don't have power" troubleshooting proceeds step by step.

Do I have power at the wall outlet?

Does the plug that plugs into the wall look good or does it look as though it might need some attention?

Does the wire into the pinball look good, or does it need to be replaced?

Power goes into the pinball through the back of the machine, is the wire frayed right there, or does it look good?

On the inside of your coin door to the left is a service outlet. With the pinball plugged into the wall, do I have power to the service outlet?

If you do, use your meter leads. Leave one probe in one side of the service outlet, and put the other on one of the switch contacts one by one, that are exposed in your picture. BE CAREFUL. If you don't get 120V, put the probe that is in the service outlet in the other slot of the service outlet. Now touch your probe to the switch contacts one by one.

If you start reading 120V to one side, or both sides, of the switch with one probe lead in one side of the service outlet, you can now activate the switch. With the switch in one position both sides of the switch should read 120V.

(When the other probe is in the service outlet).

With the switch in the other position, one terminal of the switch shouldn't have voltage on it. You have just tested your power switch for your pinball.

Now, unplug from the wall, and use some electrical tape to completely cover those exposed terminals to your power switch... seriously, that's a killer!

Plug your machine back in, your power switch should be in the 'on' position (if we were measuring voltage, we'd find it on both switch terminals).

Go to the backbox, and find pins 6&7 on J2. Be careful. Put one probe lead on pin 6, the other on pin 7. With power to the machine and the switch on, you should have 120V reading on your meter.

This is the set of steps to find out if your pinball has 120V power.

Sorry if I sounded like a jerk. The questions made me worry that you weren't aware of the danger poking around with live 120VAC.

If you can make or get some jumper wires, you can bypass the EMI filter -- some people remove them altogether and connect the wires. Just jump hot to hot (usually black wires), neutral to neutral (usually white wires), ground to ground (usually green wires). IDK if your wire colors are the same. I didn't see a picture of your EMI filter.

If that resolves the issue, then remove the jumpers and either replace the EMI or bypass more permanent with connectors or wire nuts.

jumpers (resized).png

It might also be an idea to post clear photos of your:
- power cord plug
- top and bottom of the EMI filter showing how it's wired
- pictures of the rectifier board showing the right side where the power wires go to the transformer
- with the cage around the transformer removed, a front photo showing how the transformer is wired
- overall picture showing all the open backbox
- cabling on the lower right backbox area (showing cabling from the cabinet to the rectifier board)

Can you tell us exactly how you're measuring power? - i.e. how are you setting the multi-meter and where exactly are you putting both meter probes when you're measuring at the rectifier board?

Then we might have a better overall picture of what's going on.

I can see the bottom of the EMI filter is wired backwards based on wire colors. If the wires on top are backwards too then two wrongs will make a right.

Been watching this thread and sitting back as I think Quench has everything well in-hand. The EMI filter was required at the time to suppress radio wave interference. Without it the games wiring could accidently receive or transmit EMF interference that would affect local radio and television receivers.

Here is a quick test I do for every game I work on. Plug an outlet tester into the service outlet and make sure it signals good. If it doesn't test OK there then review the line cord and power wiring.

20221210_110900 (resized).jpg

Yeah that's different than I imagined. I think to bypass it you would jump the black wire to the blue wire directly under it, the other black wire to the brown wire directly under it, and the green wire to the green wire on the grounding strap.

Like this...

jump (resized).png

Not to be too overprotective here, but if you try this, make sure your jumpers don't touch or short to any metal on that EMI box...

If that thing is wired wrong, then you should probably not try bypassing until you get better guidance.

If it is like most of the used games I bought, the ground plug was cut off and the plug could go in the wall either way.

Reminds me of a Spot a Card game my dad had in his basement years ago. There was no polarized plug on the game, but the metal on the game must have been tied to the neutral. So you had a 50/50 chance. If you plugged it in wrong, you would get a nice strong shock on your feet through the concrete floor. It really added some ZAZZ to the game.

The first picture shows an aftermarket CPU from barakandl -- a pinside member. Maybe he has some troubleshooting steps for locked LED on his board.

This is for the Bally OEM board, but maybe something here would give you some things to check:

https://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php/Bally/Stern#Bally_.2F_Stern_MPU_Board_LED_Never_Lights_or_is_Locked_On