I did a playfield swap last year, and tried to diagnose a GI short "my way" (staring at stuff, poking prodding etc...) vs the right way (removing bulbs and
disconnecting wires to narrow down where the problem was).

I would have saved myself a decent chunk of time had I just gone to do it the right way rather than trying to figure it out otherwise. And in my case there were 2!!! GI shorts. Disconnecting wires allowed me to find them pretty easily.

I am not sure what tools or experience you have with soldering, and wait until others fact check me here, but if I was in your shoes I would use my desoldering gun to remove a socket from the GI string, then test for the short on either side of this "break" I made. Assuming I am reading a short in the string right now....

Always be open to this being something else, but if it looks like an intermittent GI short, sounds like an intermittent GI short, and acts like an intermittent GI short definitely rule that out. A lot of the PIN problems I have initially thought were electronic were actually mechanical (mangled sockets etc...).

He has already found that taking CN15 off clears the problem, so the area that needs to be checked is clear and fairly small.

Yeah, I think so too, but I was trying to get Tim back to a known good working point, in case his other cabling changes (tie-wraps unbundling, etc) affected it. Surely sounds like something in the string of 154's at the end of CN15.

Tim, take a look at each and every socket in that string.

Have you tried switching the node boards around? I had this exact same issue on a brand new TMNT and I switched the nodes boards around (they will reprogram themselves on boot). Fixed my issue. Seems not all nodes boards can handle the same currents etc.

Might be the cause, but this is A> more advanced and prone to introduce more issues if done wrong and B> way down the road on diagnostic steps. As scattered as he's been, I was trying to keep him on a step-by-step elimination of potential causes.

To the OP, I think you need to revisit LTG's comment and take an ohm meter and look for shorts again.

Someone mentioned a wire possibly rubbing up against some metal. Given then intermittent nature of the problem, I'd definitely grab a good set of magnifying glasses an look for some worn insulation on a wire, especially around metal that has a sharp edge (i.e. a corner, etc.).

Minding sending a screen shot of the other area that vireland highlighted (see below)?

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Ok, I dug a little further into the issue, especially given you trough issue/comments. I looked up what appears to be the node board (520-7017-72) schematic. I haven't worked on the Spike system, but I am an electrical engineer. But first time looking at this, so a bit of a WAG as I sort thru it. Looking at the first schematic below, I see the FET drivers used to power the GI lights, going to CN15. There's also a line called 'COIL_RTN2' that goes to the current sense line. That line (circled red in the 2nd picture) is what monitors the current and indicates the fault. On that current sense line is also some of the flipper drivers. But looking at the CN7, those might be spares. Looking at the blue circled part, that's the current monitor that watches the trough (and other things too). Then it appears the two current monitors are combined together since the each current monitors output is an 'open collector' in the chip - resulting in a single fault line for both chips (black circle). The thing I don't know is what is powered down when a fault is tripped. Nor do I know how it figured out the trough is an issue.

Translating: It might not be the GI causing the over current, but rather the trough...and the lights just shut off as a result (not the problem). Or I could be wrong since you appear to be finding a short at times in the GI wiring (don't know what your skill set is. ). If you really do see a short in the GI wiring, then wiggle the wires until you narrow it down.

Again, first time looking into this, so I might be off in left field. But it might be beneficial to look at the trough for something obvious.

Link to what I think is the schematic: https://sternpinball.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/520-7017-72D-Core-Node-Hall-3amp.pdf

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Removing CN15 (which ONLY handles GI, 1-3 is power and 5-7 is the returns) removes the problem and clears the error. That almost 100% means it's just in the GI. Could maaaybe be the node board, but swapping them isn't advised when the GI possible causes haven't been eliminated. Focus is the problem here, and all these other possible causes are doing is stopping the progression that will eventually fix the issue.

So the situation is likely the other way round from what you posit - that the GI short is causing the false trough error. And since eliminating all the possible causes of that short hasn't been done, everything else is a waste of time.

Yep, I was even editing my comment about that after rereading the OP's comment about seeing a short at times. But you snuck in before I was done editing.

I do think it is worthwhile looking around the trough though. I just don't know how they determined the trough is at fault, unless all the supplies are shut off if it sees a GI fault, resulting in a false trough fault.

Perhaps the OP just leaves CN15 unconnected and plays a bunch of games and see if it still throws a fault eventually.

It won't. Pretty sure the trough fault is a ghost error due to the GI short. I've seen that kind of thing before. Unplug CN15 and you won't see either error again, but you also have lost that GI. Better to just buckle down, stay focused, and finish tracking down the short in the GI. It's a very small area to check, relatively speaking. Resisting doing the steps because soldering is a pain is just delaying resolution.

I do find it kind of hard to believe the trough vibration causes the wiring to short. If that was the case, I would think normal game play would set it off too.

timlah 79, is this a plastic piece or metal? Might be a good idea to take off the plastic up top and look for shorts around the light sockets if you can't find it anywhere else.

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Im betting its socket.

Tim-

I hope I am not losing track, but with all the bulbs removed, and the cn15 connector disconnected, try to use a meter between the points I circled on GREEN on each of the sockets. You should see NO connectivity, regardless how how much wiggling you do with the wires.

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Where the arrow is pointing, is that solder? It shouldn't be there, and if it's running down, it could be making a short.

Also, the area highlighted in red is the metal plate for the playfield rail to slide and rest on. Is the GI wiring over that area in the picture pulled away from that and tied back before the playfield is lowered so it's not pinched? That would DEFINITELY cause a short, and if it was pinched at some point in the past, may have created the short you have.

Also, have you tried power on with the playfield up and CN15 plugged in? Does that work? If it DOES, try wiggling each segment to see if one segment causes the GI to go out.

For the record, the yellow wire is the voltage lead. White is the return.

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I love these threads where pinheads come together to help out and fix ones issues. I especially love the ones where Pin Monk lays down the wisdom with shit like "Stay Focused". lol

Good stuff and progression being made Tim - you will be up and running in no time.

Swap the node board...easy thing to try...

Wait. So you're saying WITHOUT CN15 plugged in, you have gotten the overcurrent error?

If this is the case he should definitely swap the node board.
Also, typically the wiring / bulb would be the issues - but if he truly exhausted this, then maybe by putting a "load" on the board ...it is showing a fault in the board (kind of like a car battery saying voltage is good....but it is a bad battery).

I'm waiting for confirmation that is really what he meant to say before saying anything else because it's extremely hard to keep him focused, and I don't want to be doing this forever.

It's the first time he's said this. Prior he's always said if CN15 was unplugged, the error never happened. Which points directly to GI short.

Great news. Fingers crossed.

i hope you got it sorted Tim

Please share a pic of the issue....bad socket insulator? etc.
SO GLAD you may have found it!

Hope you find the specific problem, like a bad socket, because some part broken can be easily fixed and is definitive. Clearing an error by jiggling wires, while short-term satisfying, just kicks the can down the road.

LET US ALL KNOW, what specifically you found.

That is EXACTLY what we expected you would find. A short in one of the sockets powered by CN15. That copper wire between the tip of the bulb and the casing is NOT supposed to be there. And it's the kind of thing that would yield intermittent issues, depending on vibration or heat expansion or almost anything that could cause it to bridge that air gap.

Look at you enjoying rolling your sleeves up and playing with a screwdriver and soldering gun!!!!! 8-)

Talk about finding a needle in a hay stack, good job!

This is exactly why I was asking for hi-res pictures of the top and bottom of each socket days ago.

The problem you have is not specific to JP, it's actually too common for Spike, so that's why when you kept wanting someone with JP that had the issue to chime in and tell you the answer, it was a waste of time because the issue had been seen many times before, it was almost always a short in a bulb or socket, and Spike2's very rudimentary diagnostics was telling you 9 specific places to look (which is why the intermittent trough error and other ghost problems were a waste of time to investigate until the GI problem was solved).

So now that you've been through this (and documented the outcome well), you can be on the lookout for someone else's sudden Spike overcurrent nightmare and help them. It won't need to be a JP, it can be any Spike game and the process and likely result will be the same.

Glad you got to the fix in the end and your JP will be back in business "shortly." <-- haha

Good deal!

I just had this same issue on my Batman 66 out of nowhere on the upper playfield GI. I went bottomside and removed each socket from the playfield and started removing bulbs. 4 bulbs in something fell out of the socket in to the cabinet. I removed the rest for good measure and then started the process of installing a bulb and booting up over and over again and low and behold the problem went away. My guess is whatever ended up in the socket was the culprit.

I've marked two key posts, if any of you think others should be marked let me know.

Glad you found it, welcome to pinball ownership, can be maddening at times but you've learned something.
Now you can make a song called "Sorted & Unshorted".

Well done Tim, so glad you were able to find the culprit and while frustrating at the time, it is so rewarding when you solve the problem. Hope it doesn't take too long in getting the GI back together and you can get back to playing some games!!

Also great work PinMonk not just in helping Tim but being new to Stern machines myself it's helped me understand the Spike2 system better and how to troubleshoot. I feel more confident (to a degree ) in being able to tackle an issue. Thank you.

Spike diagnostic messages are maddeningly obtuse and incomplete, especially for the novice. Glad I could shine a little light on this issue and how to narrow down the areas to look for the cause of this problem. That said, know that in Spike knowledge, I'm only a few steps ahead of you, so don't creep up too fast, or you'll be ahead of me and on your own.

Your help in this thread for sure helped me sort out my Batman 66 like I said above! Kudos to you sir!

Ah, that's great. I somehow thought you were talking about that happening sometime in the past. I didn't realize you had just done it.

The crazy thing about the Stern Spike diagnostics sucking is Gomez was involved with Pinball 2000, more than 20 years ago, which had a diagnostic system with animated menus that showed you where the problem was, which JJP basically copied and improved on. It would tell you what bulb was out, too (created problems when LED bulbs came out later, but that's another issue). So why doesn't Gomez make it a priority to get this into Spike 2? He KNOWS it's bad, and he's been involved with a platform where it was done right...

LOL you got nothing to be worried about there mate

This morning I went back to the JP manual and retraced the steps in pinpointing the particular connector and associated lamps, it always makes sense when you are following the "bouncing ball". Whether I can do it myself is another question .... but troubleshooting is an area I do enjoy, it's just that the whole spike system is a bit of black art to me atm. I am quite shocked at the lack of information in the manuals (adjustment settings, LED diag info on some of the boards), no help in the service menus and what seems to be a very rudimentary diag system - I understand that this all costs money but I think that this is an area that definitely needs improvement.

Literally happened 2 nights ago and I fixed it yesterday rather quickly as a result of reading through this thread.

I think it's more that Stern simply re-used the service menu design (including diagnostics) from the SAM architecture rather than invest in the development to make use of the LCD to show much more detailed information. For example the diag info showed overcurrent on Node 9 TOP GI-LEFT, they could easily display a picture of the PF, highlight the 9 LEDs associated with TOP GI-LEFT, also indicate the location of Node 9 under the PF and even note the associated connector and pin for TOP GI-LEFT. I don't think this would breach any patent because Stern wouldn't be copying the underlying diag system as such but rather simply displaying the information in a similar (but improved) way, which is what JJP also do.

If that were the case, JJP would be in trouble. They basically ripped it off and extended it. One of the reasons their service menu is the best in pinball.

No, I don't think that's the issue. Smells like Stern has an ongoing case of lazy/goodenough-itis.

at the very least they could of used the old big dmd service menu design (sega games that used the new menu at the time) (including diagnostics) that showed more info then the small dmd games.

Spike started as DMD so that made it be stuck in the past. Did WWE reuse old DMD art from DE WWF?

I guess when the introduced Spike 2 to support the LCD in Batman 66 they had bigger things to get right than introduce enhanced diags and a new GUI for the service menu

or there main os code base needs to work with spike 1 and spike 2 and the error / diags / basic os code can't be easily redone with out game code changed needed?

There maybe stuff in the code base from the SAM hardware.

JJP was able to start new on an FULL PC based hardware with an SSD and not the smaller SD cards and spike 1 started some time ago with then having some what buggy test games running some kind of SAM emulator.
I have played and seen some of them years ago at testing sites.

And some SAM games have early spike node boards.

Yep good point, and very pertinent when Stern first moved to Spike 2, but I guess they've got to bite the bullet at some stage or otherwise have an antiquated UI compared to the competition. Stern's challenge is that the investment of money isn't directly revenue generating.