U really screwed the pooch on that one lol just kidding u will be fine . Looks like you cooked the transistor and all the predrivers and everything on that section.goodnews is all them things are readily available cheap but its not that easy to do especially if you have no soldering experience? ? First thing is disconnect the wire you attached bc something wasn't right also pull that fuse , and without doing more research or asking someone with more experience that was a big no no but live and learn , we all have believe me lol.

Also what that red wire for it looks cooked also?

Things like this do happen occasionally.
I think you're still good with that driver board, but your coil for the drop target may be shorted, so buying a rottendog board won't solve that, if that's the case.
(you'll actually blow that board up too!)

I would replace that section of burned parts on that driver board and order a new coil, and you should be good to go.

My drop target bracket broke and I had the same short but mine burnt a hole in the board! It is fixed. Yours is easily fixed too. Try and find someone to help or you can mail the board out for repairs. My board was a lot worse!

First I think we sld see if he has the wire in the correct spot so it dont happen again after the db is fixed .maybe the transistor was bad and coil was fine and thats y it was unhooked .definitely need more pictures and info to point in the right direction. More likely the coil is bad and now that section of the board needs done also usually the fuse will go but not necessarily.

We've all been there some point in time, don't feel like it's an failure. More like a lesson, don't give up on repairing.
If you don't have experience with soldering, let a pro do it.
This board surely is solvable
Get your multimeter out, measure the Ohms on the coil. Hope it is fried, so you are sure this is the culprit! (if it's not, measure the wires for continuity and check it's not touching other wires)

Replacing the boards without finding the cause will definatly harm the new boards as well.

First step, check that coil!

(PS don't feel bad, you will get this baby back on it's feet, and then you will have a whole other feeling about it )

correct, knowing the wires are right is important. Something fried up that section more than just the transistor being bad.

Send the board out. There are a handful of great people here that do that.

The wiring on your coil looks correct. Somewhere there is a short though so you need to find it. I suspect the wire may have been pulled off in the first place becasue is was shorting somewhere.

From the picture, that coil looks a little brown- The coil could be bad/shorted

The coil is shorted, no doubt about that.

What I'm wondering is how did that coil smoke the driver board and not blow a measly 3a fuse?

Okay - so that board will be fine and is certainly repairable.

First, don't blindly replace things without testing them in the hope you have corrected the problem or you will end up costing yourself a lot of cash, get very disappointed, burn more shit up, be overwhelmed and quit the hobby. It is highly likely that your coil is fine - although it never hurts to have one around for a spare.

For reference - I hold multiple degrees one of which is a degree in electronics (with a specialty in digital electronics) and spent 10 years of my life as a digital bench tech for fortune 500 companies doing component level repairs on micro, mini, and mainframe computers and other electronics.

That said - I'm pulling out my schematic and give you a real idea of what you need to do to repair the board. It is something you can do yourself - but I would recommend you buy some tools. Start with some cheap ones and if you stay with it - upgrade them. I'll provide a few recommendations.

1. Harbor Freight - pick up a Cen-Tech Digital Multi-Meter - you can get these FREE with a coupon if you buy something else. I wouldn't pay more than $5 for one. (Alternatively you can pick up a cheap one for $3.99 at MCM right now if you get a soldering station). http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/72-7940

2. Solder Sucker - Radio Shack - http://comingsoon.radioshack.com/radioshack-45-watt-desoldering-iron/6402060.html - this is $15
OR http://www.amazon.com/ECG-J-045-DS-Watt-Desoldering-Iron/dp/B00068IJSG

3. Soldering Iron - If you have a pin - you will need a decent one. I picked this one up from MCM on sale for 39.00 but this one would work to start out also at only $20 (MCM Site is slow for me tonight and will post urls when I get it to respond)

This is the one I use - and got it on sale for $39 but it's listed for $49 right now.
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/21-10115

This is one that is on sale for $19 right now and will do the job just fine (you may have to call them to get this price - but just got a new catalog #SC46AB today)

http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/21-7945

I would recommend buying a small chisel tip for whatever iron you end up with and a brass coil tip cleaner.

That is your power driver board.
The damaged components control GI and Flashers – I’m guessing that you connected the coil circuit (higher voltage) to them inadvertently when you connected the loose wire.

What wire did you find that was loose? (What is the color of the wire and the stripe) Where did you connect it?

You need two manuals for T2. I recommend buying hard copies as they are handier than using them online - but you can also print the schematic or info you need from here:

http://mirror2.ipdb.org/files/2524/Williams_1991_Terminator_2_Judgment_Day_Manual.pdf

Download the manual - and the "Terminator 2 WPC Schematic Manual" also - you need the July 1991 version - not finding it on IPDB.org - but I know I have found it online somewhere - just do a few searches and find it.

I've always used Chris Hibler for board repairs which were out of my league - stand up guy, quick shipping, great communication - highly recommend him as one of your choices.

There are some great board repair people available, coin op cauldron is great, but usually backed up... so waiting is part of that one..

K's Arcade in Maine does a really good job as well

Boraguard (spelling?) is great

Also, very local to me is Allan Davidson, has a full test station for Bally Williams stuff, and is a fast turn around I just use him now, because he is 20 min away and fixes while I wait.. cannot be that one.. [email protected], he is located in Bellingham MA

And I would get a new coil as well.. and so you know, switch 77 is the switch for the drop target coil, I have been collecting manuals and just checked that out. So, you might want to order a new switch when you order the coil, and a diode for the switch.. just to play it safe.

Do not even attempt soldering on a circuit board without a temperature controlled iron. A 25 watt iron is just not forgiving enough for that type of work. The Hakko 888 will cost you $95, for example. In addition a desoldering gun (while not mandatory, dramatically improves your odds of success) is going to cost about $300 (and you should never use a 45 watt desoldering iron on a pinball circuit board). Then you need to spend a few hours reading and watching videos to learn how to solder. Then practice on something other than a valuable pinball board. Even after all that it is likely you will lift a trace or destroy a through-hole (they've already been damaged by the heat). Most of the board repair guys won't take hacked boards so it's very possible to turn a repairable board into one of no value.

Just want you to understand the possible outcomes--repairing a board in that condition is not for beginners.

Have a local pro help you. Sure it will cost you money but most are super nice and will walk you through their testing and repair process. The knowledge you get will be worth the price alone

The free version is if you have a local friend that can do the same thing

Chris Hibler, John Wart to name a few (they're here I believe). Done business with them often. Great guys and quality work.

^^ Agreed 110%, Chris is awesome and reasonable.

Not sure anybody answered this one. Those both look to be slow blow fuses. Difference in element can simply be due to who made the fuses (e.g. Littelfuse versus Bussmann - now known as Eaton).
Are there markings on the fuses such as "313" or "MDL"?
313 = Littelfuse
MDL = Bussmann
There are a myriad of other manufacturers as well but these are the two biggest of them.

Guys - he was talking about replacing his boards with rottendog boards. Everyone has to start somewhere to learn.

Perhaps I just have no respect for electronics anymore because there is not much one can do that cannot be repaired.

Plop - don't be freaked out by all of the negativity - I truly believe anyone can repair electronics.

Terryb - it is not likely someone with no experience will buy $300 worth of soldering / desoldering tools. Solder wick is too tough for an inexperienced person to use properly without lifting traces and spring loaded solder suckers don't work well on those old boards for a novice. There is nothing wrong with using solder sucker irons as a newbie and he is most likely to have the best results with that.

You are also correct - one needs to practice on crappy old boards first - and when (if) we got there I planned to walk him through practicing on an old board before he tries it on his pinball driver board... in any case - please chill - this is not rocket science or brain surgery - its a 20+ year old PC board and those who would freak out and make this seem like such a daunting task only serves to intimidate people who may wish to learn. It is a hobby and should be fun.

If plop wants to send his board out for repair - that certainly may be the fastest and easiest thing to do. If he wants to learn how to do component level repairs inexpensively himself - I was just offering to walk him through the process - sheesh!

Most of the people I have met who live in Alaska are pretty fearless and independent people. There is not a lot around there - so one has to be resourceful to live there.

Anyway - my other point is that we need to determine what happened, test the components to see what is bad, and then replace things. Not just blindly say things are bad and need to be replaced.

Please save the drama - it's not necessary.

This is incorrect. The damaged driver is indeed for the drop target coil. Q20 and R25, the burned components, engage the drop target. There was not likely any damaged flasher or GI circuitry on the board.

If the board has been damaged, it will need to be dealt with as well as the bad components. Carbon scoring of the fiberglass of the PCB will cause future issues.

--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
borygard at gmail dot com

Pinterest I couldn't agree more!!! I learned with a spring solder sucker and a sh1tty Radio Shack soldering Iron. I am no board repair Guru but over last 4 years have become decent and eventually upgraded my equipment and can now make 95% of my own board repairs. Have at her Plop only one way to find out if you can do it.

Your right - J122 Pins 4 and 9 are the Sol. 28 - the drop target - I looked at the wrong J122 connector. Thanks for correcting my mistake. In any case Rob - I was not advocating NOT using anyone's services - just that it is not impossible for someone to learn to repair a PC board. You learned - yes?

Definitely not commenting on any advice for or against any options in this thread. Just wanted to be sure the correct info was posted on the burned components.

My personal opinion on this particular board however, would be not to let anyone touch it without a great deal of experience with board repair and specifically burn damage to a board. If carbon scoring into the PCB is not properly dealt with, the coil, driver, and related circuitry WILL fail again. Inexperienced hands on an already damaged board will only result in further damage.

--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
borygard at gmail dot com

I certainly have no skin in this game just offering to help someone learn.

So Rob - in the interest of adding additional value to the discussion - and helping others learn - how would a professional address the carbon scoring on that board to prevent a future failure?

You literally have to removed the carbon scoring. If the damage is actually burned into the fiberglass of the PCB (it often is in multiple failures like this, I've actually seen quarter sized holes burned through a board, just amazing!) it needs to be removed. Most folks don't realize that carbon conducts electricity. Carbon scoring on a PCB is carbon, and conducts electricity. I've developed my own techniques for doing this, but bottom line, if the PCB is burned and carbon scoring exists, that section of the board is not viable any longer.

A really good demo of carbon in a pencil conducting...

http://www.popsci.com/adam-weiner/article/2008-09/when-carbon-electrical-conductor

That's only 13 volts, imagine voltage being four times that, the voltage of modern pinball coils!

--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
borygard at gmail dot com

Thanks for participating in the conversation regarding this. I agree carbon is indeed a conductor.

How I have dealt with this in the past is to first clean the area with denatured alcohol, and then use a fiberglass pencil to clean off any remaining carbon. In most cases I have found this to be effective. Often much of the carbon cleans right off with the alcohol and what is left can typically be cleaned off with the fiberglass pencil. the board is already damaged and will not work without repair - so it's not too big of a deal to use abrasive techniques if needed but while being careful not to damage any traces not already involved. When the carbon is clear you just remove the protective covering further back on the trace and use leads from an old resister or hook up wire to re-connect the burned traces. Most of the time the damage looks worse than it is and often trace repairs are not even required.

On the rare occasions when I have had to use a dremel with a ball mill or grinding tool to grind out the carbon I have just used epoxy to fill in the previously damaged area.

Yes, but you're talking about the smoke damage from the burning components, I'm talking about actual carbon scoring of the board itself. The fiberglass is literally burned and black.

If the black all comes off with some rubbing alcohol and a fiberglass pen, then the board wasn't actually damaged. A first time failure that was caught fairly quickly, that will likely be all that's needed. I don't think that's the case here. I think there will be damage into the board.

--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
borygard at gmail dot com

Sorry Rob - updated my post right after you posted this. Yeah on a few occasions I have had to grind out burned areas of the board and then fill this with epoxy. It happens sometimes. My go to tool is always a dremel lol - every board is different and I know there are other techniques used also. I have also used a wire brush on the dremel to clean up this damage - you just have to be careful not to go crazy and dig through the board. It takes a light touch.

On that point we agree*, and that's why I wrote the following series of articles. As borygard pointed out though this is not the type of board for a beginner to learn how to solder on.

http://pinballrehab.com/1-articles/solid-state-repair/tutorials/167-soldering-tutorials

The best way for a beginner to tackle this type of repair (ignoring the carbon issue at the moment) is to cut the components off the board and then remove the leads using an appropriate iron and a solder sucker (solder wick also works fine as long as you add some flux to the solder wick). The problem with the 45 watt soldering iron is it is way too hot and will most likely lift pads (almost guaranteed in a case like this).

* Actually I agree with most of your original post--I think the OP should focus on not frying a second board. BTW: Being a native Californian I am naturally chilled.

rob usually knows what he's talking about. He does this for a living. just don't have him show you local pizza that he thinks is great.

back in the Intel 486 (Maybe Pentium) days. They locked the chips by cutting one of the surface traces. You could just buy the slower chip then use a pencil to reconnect the trace to unlock it to run faster.

At first glance, it appears the tieback diode may be connected incorrectly on your T2.

The tieback diode is necessary, as T2 uses Q20, a transistor typically used in WPC games for flash lamps, to reset the drop target.

The flash lamps use a different circuit than solenoids. It's similar, but it's not the same.

Solenoid transistor circuits are set up with a diode in line to prevent reverse voltage spikes from taking out the transistor and more things upstream. Flash lamps are not set up this way.

The board is set up so it can use a tieback diode to prevent the reverse voltage spike. The tieback diode is connected by that small purple and orange wire you see on the reset solenoid for the drop target. That little wire should connect to J122-9. If it's not there, the tieback diode is out of circuit.

I did a nice job repairing a set of WPC boards for a customer's project T2. He plugged them back in, and ended up smoking Q20, Q19, D5, R24, R25 and U2 because the tieback diode was in the wrong place on J122.

I'm not saying that's the case with your board - but it happened to *his* board. Always test parts and confirm they are bad before replacing them, and as stated here, don't dive into this job head first if you don't have the right tools, experience and skill to tackle it. Practice on something cheaper first

Yep - I would have gotten to the most important tool - for beginners and experts alike - the flush cutter!

Love these things! http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B002PI4BV4/ref=dp_olp_new

See! We agree on this too!

I still think that a solder sucker iron is the best bet for a newbie to actually have success in removing the pins that are left. If you add a bit of fresh solder to each of the pins before you use the sucker - it works quickly and does not damage anything - it is just really important to not hold the tip to a trace (best practice even when using a de-soldering gun) and to not overheat the joint. I won't argue with you that it is not my tool of choice - I use a Hakko. In any case - I have seen more newbies hack up boards trying to use solder wick than any other method of de-soldering. I don't like solder wick for that reason.

Have you ever tried one of those irons? I did - years ago prior to owning my own de-soldering equipment. (86% of those who bought them rated it 4 stars or better). It actually works pretty well and I really don't remember it getting as hot as one would expect a 45 watt tool would. Maybe mine was not 45 watts I don't remember but I do remember I got it at Radio Shack. (I think my first real de-soldering station was a Pace back in the day because that was what we used at work).

Your last sentence made me laugh. I spent a decent amount of time in S. Cali in my youth.

Thanks for having a sense of humor and I really do love your articles - lots of great stuff there. I thought I remembered seeing your name somewhere before - I read all of your soldering articles on Pinball Rehab - they are excellent to be sure!

I heard his bad pizza finding skills are legendary!

LOL!! It's funny 'cuz it's true!

BUT, my good pizza finding skills are legendary too. With my travel schedule, I think I know some of the best pizza places in the country, and unfortunately the worse too. You can't kiss a prince without eating a lot of frogs... or something like that.

And for the record Neo (I'm pretty sure I've said this before), I never said it was great. I said I called it Chez-Wiz pizza, and most of the locals say it's great. I still say it tastes pretty good, but it's not pizza.

--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
borygard at gmail dot com

Yes I have, and if you know what you're doing you can get decent results. Hell I repaired a buddy's board with a twenty year-old iron (unknown brand and wattage since there wasn't even a label on it) and a rusted, deformed tip (I did sand the tip down though).

The issue is that most beginners need every advantage they can get, and they are going to jam the tip down onto the pad no matter how many times you tell them not to--when in doubt apply more pressure .

I have a unique perspective in that I've taught soldering at several universities (side-job) and over time you learn what the common mistakes are and learn that what you and I find as obvious (even after we explain it) is not to others.

Some things that are natural in other areas (like the more pressure the better) just don't work when it comes to soldering. It got to the point where when I covered desoldering stations I had the students hold a toothpick under the tip to keep from pressing down on the pad. That was the only way I could get it across to a lot of them.

All's cool--taking the boat out to Catalina this weekend (just wanted to make you jealous).

next time you are by me, we are ordering pizza at our local place.

Hey Pinterest,

Now you've got to try my solder wick technique, which I normally don't recommend because it takes a little technique. First dip the solder wick in some liquid flux. Then overlap it on the joint by about 2 inches. Make a sandwich (joint, solder wick, soldering tip--not touching the joint). As the solder wick fills with solder slowly pull it towards you (that's why you need the overlap). You'll be amazed how well it works.

I bet borygard knows some good bbq joints though.

Cheater!

But have you ever eaten Four Brothers Pizza in Pleasant Valley NY? (I'll be impressed if you have - but you would fondly remember it.)

Please forgive my ignorance. I'm relatively new to the hobby. In particular I'm new to repairing boards and reading schematics and wiring. I read (and re-read multiple times) johnwartjr's reply. I was trying to figure out exactly what it meant by correlating it to the photos posted by the op. I don't know much about tieback diodes so I was reading this to try to understand what they are and how they're used. I guess I have a couple of questions about reading schematics and wiring that have come out from following this thread.

The solenoid wiring diagram on page 3-6 of the Terminator 2 manual shows the violet-orange wire from J107-2 connecting to solenoid 28 (the drop target reset solenoid). All the other flash-lamps and solenoids in the wiring diagram have a single drive wire with the exception of solenoid 28. That has two wires. The blue-yellow wire is the drive wire returning to J122-4. The violet-orange wire is the tieback diode returning to J122-9. From the wiring diagram I can draw the conclusion that both the blue-yellow and (small) violet-orange should be connected to the same lug of the AE-26-1200 solenoid. I hope I am reading the wiring correctly.

When you look at the first photo by the op the small violet-orange wire is loose. When you look at the second photo by the op the small violet-orange wire is connected the same lug as the big violet-orange wire and not the same lug as the blue-yellow drive wire. When I take a second look at the first photo the wire "memory" indicates that it probably should have been connected to the same lug as the blue-yellow drive wire rather than what you think would be the correct wire (same violet-orange color).

Did I read the wiring diagram correctly? Or should I just take another hit off a joint? If so can someone with more knowledge than me explain why it caused the damage on the board and why the fuse did not protect the damage (I would assume the fuse protects correct wiring not incorrect wiring)?

No DumbAss, ( ) as you can see in the picture below, the diode is protecting the TIP102 if it is together with the other Violet-orange.
Together wit Blu-Yel it would have no function
sol 28.jpg

LOL, I just realized his handle was dumbass. Thats' awesome. Still love your diagrams.

couldn't resist to answer this way.