Just when I thought that I had all of the kinks worked out of my Space Station machine. I have another more serious problem. I am hoping for any suggestions or input to help solve this issue.

My switched solenoids have gone haywire. The problem is with 01A -08A. The “C” solenoid ckts seem to work fine.
In the solenoid test I observe the following:
01A- out hole doesn’t fire
02A-ball release doesn’t fire although there is a faint signal to 3 different flasher ckts
03A- left ball popper fires but bleeds faintly to some flashers
04A-rt ball popper fires twice and then 04C starts flashing
05A not used
06A- works
07A fires but bleeds to flashers
08A- rt drop target no fire and bleeds to flashers

Pinwiki gives clues on trouble shooting the axillary power board and A/C relay and all of those tests seem fine.
I had just removed the CPU and replaced the Q31 transistor (ckt 05C) which now works. My problems started just after that.

Any help working through this would be much appreciated

I am concentrating on the Aux power board (#D-11813). I had a suggestion of a frozen A-C relay. I checked continuity and the A side was normally closed and C side Normally open as should be and the relay test worked right.
So then I started checking voltages on the various fuses. Things look very wrong to me. Could anybody confirm that these readings are screwed up. Or that I might be mistaken in my method

Fuse 1- 41Vdc should be 25Vdc
Fuse 2- 41Vdc should be 25Vdc
Fuse 3- 41Vdc should be 25Vdc
Fuse 4- 78Vdc should be 50Vdc
Fuse 5- 78Vdc should be 50Vdc
Fuse 6- 78Vdc should be 50Vdc
Fuse 7- 27Vac should be 48Vac
Fuse 8- 18Vac should be 26Vac
Furthermore I checked the Terminals on 5J11
#1,2 orange controls sol01C-08C It reads 41Vdc should be 25Vdc these are the flasher ckts and the relay should be open, right
#5 brown controls sol 01A, 02A, 08A, reads 6Vdc, these are some of my affected solenoids and should normally read 25v as the A-C relay is normally closed to feed the A side....

Again is this really screwed up?

Thanks Chosen. I have been reading up on that. sounds like the parts are real cheap. I will be practicing my soldering skills on some junk circuit boards pulled out of solar inverters. I still am looking to isolate the problem to try and nail down whats wrong.

I am still having issues and trying to sort things out on my Space Station, 1988 Williams system 11B. This is my first game and was playable up to a couple of weeks ago.

I put off posting til after expo, which I wish I could have attended.

I have found some good tutorials on line and am learning alot about how things are supposed to work.

These are good resources for anyone getting familiar with these machines

Pin wiki has good info pertaining to system 11B games and explains the A/C relay
http://pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Williams_System_9_-_11#System_11A.2FB_.28F-14_to_Cyclone.29

TerryB's site Pinball rehab has a lot of troubleshooting tutorials
http://pinballrehab.com/articles/solid-state-repair/menu/page:4/

This old document from 2000 has great info on system 11 games and trouble shooting they discuss the power auxiliary board which is my current concern.
http://techniek.flipperwinkel.nl/wms11/index1.html

I'll recap my issues in my next post and sure would appreciate any advice or guidance anyone can give me.

So my symptom is that solenoids 01A thru 07A don't fire or hardly fire. This initially points to the A/C relay. I checked continuity through the contacts on this DPDT relay from fuse2 to5J11 (25v side) A is closed and C is open as supposed to be. the same on the 50v side 5J12 A-closed C-open (Although C is not used I can still test). This with the machine off

When I power the game up I get voltage on the C-side and nothing on the A-side. Further more The voltage is 49-50 vdc on the supposed 25vdc ckt and 77vdc on the 50vdc ckt. I can check all of my fuses F1, F2, F3 are all 49 vdc (should be 25vdc) while F4, F5, F6 all have 77vdc voltages. The flippers are fused at F5 & F6 I see 77vdc at those coils as well (and I just rebuilt them).

so I backed up a bit to before the power supplies 25vdc and 50vdc. The two bridge rectifiers that supply the solenoid power (still located on the Aux power bd) I read 31vac and 56vac at terminal 5J8 feeding these rectifiers.

So my first question- does this suggest that the 2 Bridge rectifiers that supply the solenoid power are bad? Chosen suggested in his reply that my power supply was suspect, Are these slightly elevated AC voltages normal?

I still have the problem with the relay coil closing on power up. Testing the transistor Q8 which should control the A/C relay coil appears to be fine. next I pulled the connector on J12 on the CPU (solenoid drivers) suspecting to see A closed at the relay. what followed added more to the puzzle. checking voltages on all 4 poles off of the relay proved that both A and C are lit up 49vdc A & C and 77vdc A&C

How can this happen the relay should be A or B not both.I looked for pinched or shorted wires...

I am scared to even turn the machine on anymore with these voltages in fear of damaging something.

So do I need to rebuild my Aux Power board? is there anything else I should check?

Marco offers a new and improved board for $129 http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/D-11813-552

I think I would rather try a rebuild, any other components I should also replace besides the rectifiers and probably the relay while at it?

I've been reading up on testing electrical components. Terry B has excellent instructions at
http://pinballrehab.com/1-articles/solid-state-repair/tutorials/120-electronics-tutorial-transistors
Following his instructions I tested my Bridge Rectifiers on the Aux Power board with my DMM. They appear fine. I then went o to check all of the diodes and TIP36c transistors, Oh My!

D33,D35, D39, D41,D4,D7,D23, D12, D14 all tested ~.5v in the wrong direction (red probe on the banded side)
D17, D19, D20, D21 test .04v both ways
D10 1.12v wrong way
D11 2.6v wrong way
D5, D22, D15 all under .01v wrong way. I assume this isn't good

My transistors Q1 Q2, Q3, Q4, Q5, Q6, Q7, Q8 all of them test around .22v both directions on the two outer legs. Terry suggests to expect .3-.9v and only one direction. I am tecting with them in the board.

So my latest questions are:

Would all of these bad diodes and transistors cause the problems I am experiencing?
What may have caused them to go bad all at once? They seemed fine a month ago. are these problems a cause or a symptom of something else? what else should I check?

That Marco replacement board is looking better all the time.

I could sure use some input on this

So could the 25v and 50v circuits be backfeeding on each other? or something like that? Would this contribute to my high voltages?

Well, when I had the CPU out for repair, I had turned the machine on a few times to test for some of the weird voltages that I was trying to trouble shoot. A couple times there was a loud buzz somewhere, turn off and then on and no buzz. I can't believe that would blow the board.

So where else should I look for clues?

So might this explain why while my A/C relay is NC to A-side with power off gets the coil energized power on? I don't see much on the A side with power on. This coil circuit should be isolated. But I still have the problem when I disconnect the J12 connector at the MPU. so that relay isn't firing from there.......

Are there any things I should explore off of the power supply?

Thanks Chris, for your assistance.

So I pulled the Auxillery power board from my machine and ran all of my tests again. The Diodes all checked good, no shorts, this time. except for D12 and D23 both appear shorted. these are associated with Solenoid 12 which fires the A/C relay. this might explain my issue with that.

All of my tip36c transistors read funny. I get .20v reading between left and right regardless how I situate the probes between left and center I get .49v. Are these shorted? they all behave the same

Looks like I am back where I started

Since they all act the same I doubt that is bad

The D12 is a N4003 Diode, I can't seem to find those anywhere, is there a replacement I can use? It looks like the N4004 has a higher spec and should work

So this weekend I replaced diodes D12 and D23 on my aux power board. Firing up the machine I had the same issues the A/C relay was only feeding the C side. I ran through the solenoid test which confirmed this. I stopped at solenoid 12 (controls A/C relay) for a moment and I could feel the coil in the relay clicking as one would expect. so it seems that those two diodes didn't help much infact testing them installed on the board they both appear shorted. furthermore when I turned the machine today the A/C relay continued to click as if in test mode. if I unplug J2 coming from the MPU the clicking stops. Is there a good way to test the Q12 on the MPU? or where else can I look.

In addition I still see ~40vdc on all of my 25v ckts and 77vdc on the 50 volt ckts. TerryB suggests that is open circuit voltage with no load and might be as expected. can anybody else confirm this? I hate to burn up flashers and coils. I disconnected all of the connectors to the Aux PB (except J8 coming from the power board) and still have the high voltage readings and the A-side of the A/C relay is closed as normal.

I am clueless as to what to do.....

well this is a relief, at least I don't have to fear cascading problems from that. Thanks a bunch WayOut

you are right. although it is solenoid 12 the tip is Q8. previously the A/C relay was staying locked on now it is clicking and only happened after I ran a solenoid test, pausing on Sol12. If it with the logic do I need to learn how to use a logic probe?
so I also tried the the CPU Diagnostic switch SW1 I get ten blinks which is supposed to be U27 ROM failure but the display says MEMPROT FAILURE.

I am now more lost than ever. gone are the days when I only had to rebuild flippers and pop bumpers

The machine is working now. I am not quite sure of what I did to fix it. I hate not finding a definitive problem and definitive fix. But I did find a disconnected fuse on the bottom of playfield that protects the A-side 25v coils (out hole and ball shooter) which explained why some of the solenoids didn't fire. This might explain why my a/c relay was repetitively firing if a closed switch was calling for it.

I replaced the couple of diodes on the Aux board mentioned above, that may have helped. after those two fixes all seemed good except for the three mechs that use optos were acting funny. the 3-bank drop, single bank drop and the revolving spaceship, wouldn't work at first but seemed to start working once warmed up. I assumed that the 12v power might be suspect being common to all three controls.

Since I was starting to replace some molex connectors, I pulled the power board and decided to reflow some of the connector pins, they needed it. and that GI power connector was fairly burnt. Now the optos are registering perfect. I am proceeding to redo connectors elsewhere in the machine

It is a good feeling. I have changed some bulbs three times getting them right. and continue to tweak some of the leaf switches.

And finally got some good wax after giving up on biltz and three canceled orders. The chemical guys xxx seems to work well.

and in the last few days of play we have hit Mission Accomplished a couple of times

So truly Mission Accomplished

Thanks for everyone's suggestions