Solar Ride
Gottlieb, 1979Hi,
I'm booting up solar ride for the first time
I purchased all new boards, 2x niwumpt cpu and driver, and new power supply. New cable and connections going to cpu from power supply. It will play a game but many targets and solenoids will not score and energize. Any help appreciated.
Try cleaning all the switches first. With power off take some contact cleaner, spray it on a business card put it between the contacts on each switch squeeze the switch together and move the business card in and out a few times until the contacts look clean. Do this for all switches. If it is a new game it probably hasn't been played in a while and the switched aren't all working.
So this is what is happening, when you press the start button it will try to kick it out to the shooter Lane. It tries to reset the drop Target solenoid but not enough power. The drop Target solenoid is cleaned and if I press it with my finger it moves easily, The non computer controlled switches work, just one or two of the computer-controlled switches work. I cannot activate any CPU controlled solenoids during play via switches. Once the ball has drained it will score bonus and kick the ball out and after 3 balls the game ends.
I was reading another post about bad driver transistors and I was looking for the number and mine do not match the bad ones, brand new driver board driver board Steve Young copyright 2017. I have attached a picture of the LEDs that are on before and after the game can someone tell me if they should be on or not. Three LEDs are always lit on the driver board.
Thank-you
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blbarchik When I put a new Pascal Janin all-in-one board in my Solar Ride, it only partly worked, too...Have you re-pinned all the connectors from the game to the boards? I just "assumed" they would be good, because they all looked OK. Some things would work for awhile if you reseated the connector. You might notice if they slip on a little too easily...if they aren't really snug, the pins are worn out and have lost their grip. Lots of discussion on Pinside showing what parts you need to get, and how to do it. It takes some patience, but with the proper tools it's pretty easy and very satisfying. 
I figured out which pins were bad and just repinned those first, so we could play the game. Worked great! You reminded me that I need to finish that job
SolarrideConnectorsPinside (resized).jpgSolenoids not having enough power is a sure sign of bad connectors or grounding problems.
Switches not working may be connector problem, but check also the diode boards under playfield. Gottlieb used germanium diodes that have a small forward voltage drop but are not very tolerant of overvoltage/current. Remove connectors from CPU board, set your multimeter to diode range and check every diode for voltage drop of about 0.2-0.3 volts.
I will repin all the connectors on the plug going from cpu to driver bd and see if problems go away. I will also check diodes.
Does anyone recommend doing ground mods to new ni wumph cpu and driver? The new power supply had a terminal to ground built in.
Since I replaced a1 j7 and a1j6 connectors and pins on cpu board and if I'm getting no switch closures on some switches then it would have to be an issue on the playfield.??
One thing I discovered, if the outlane switch is pressed and held it will continuously score almost like its closing other switches.
99% of my problems are gone, what it was was I had to set the game model with the new CPU board, I had set the game but I didn't advance to when it says"Done".
All the switches work now and the kick out holes work except for the drop Target reset coil, like I said before it will try to energize and I can hear it but there's not enough of power to reset all the targets.
Might want to check the mechanical assembly for the drop targets too. Mine moves up pretty easily, I just tried mine and it takes about the same force to rotate the reset arm as it does to pick up an iphone or two with one finger. It looks like there are 5 springs the coil is having to fight against to reset the drop targets.
In addition to the above post, note ni wumph has gotten bad batches of transistors for some of their boards, and that can apparently lead to problems like this. If new connectors and a rebuild of the assembly still doesn't cut it, you may have to ask them over at ni wumph.
KenLayton posted this last week on a thread where a system 80 owner was having a drop target reset issue as well here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/genie-weak-drop-target-coil-intermmittent-reset#post-5590777
The driver board is definitely from a bad batch, I got a lemon! I replaced all of the pins on the CPU and the driver board oh, it's still giving me the same issues now the one kick out hole doesn't even work!!! What the heck!
As far as the kick out hole, I'd double check the wire for it at the connector to the driver board just in case of a bad crimp or loosely fitting plug or something.
I'd send ni-wumph an email about the board and get their input.
Good luck!
Have you tried measuring the resistance across the coil?
https://www.flippers.com/coil-resistance.html
A-17891 = target bank reset = 3.35ohm
A-5195 = right outhole = 11.6ohm
Conclusion, for the issue with the right kick out hole, my bad, I made a bad crimp, I crimped it too tightly and the wire frayed.
However the same issue with drop target reset solenoid not having enough power.
So i purchased a new ni wumpt driver bd. Installed it and now drop target reset works. So if anyone has this board with Fairchild or 'On ' semiconductor transistors and is experiencing same issue with drop target bank I would suspect the board. Pictures of faulty board attached.
PS.
new driver bd uses transistors from different manufacturer.
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Benton, PA
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