Star Trek:NG Solenoids 1-8 not firing. F105 not blown.

Quoted from N80G80:
Damaged trace on the MPU from your asic chip to the ribbon cable.

Thank you but what is a damaged trace?

#4 5 years ago

NIL

NilZero

Inactive member

I'm presuming a "trace" is part of the circuitry on a PCB? I'll look for anomalies in the area you suggest.

(I apologise for my presently limited knowledge of common terminology)

#5 5 years ago

MJS

schudel5

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20y 166K 6,397 27

Broken wire perhaps? The power wire goes out from the power driver board and goes from one solenoid to another. Look at all the solenoids that aren't working. They all should have 2 wires going to one lug (except the last solenoid on that line) and one wire from the other lug. The wire that's the same on all the solenoids, that is doubled up on all solenoids, is the power feed. Check all the solenoids to make sure that wire is attached on every one. In your case this would be a purple wire with yellow stripe.

#6 5 years ago

BTF

PinballManiac40

Pinside+ Frequent

Not sure if you're doing the solenoid test, but the coin door needs to be closed for that.

If coin door is closed, make sure you do not have a blown 7amp fuse at the top right of the driver board. I think it is the 2nd or 3rd from the top right.

If those fuses are good, reseat the ribbon cable on both ends between the driver board and CPU board.

#7 5 years ago

NIL

NilZero

Inactive member

Quoted from schudel5:
Broken wire perhaps? In your case this would be a purple wire with yellow stripe.

Some clearly have two violet/yellow on one lug but the two left VUK's, the right hand VUK and right and left gun shooter do not have dual violet/purple connections, only one each. All have at least one violet/yellow wire connected;some have two.

Prior to this morning, this pinball has not failed in many years and I just thought it a fuse as it took out the 1-8 solenoids. After that didn't resolve the issue I looked for broken/crimped wires on the array but, alas, nothing stood out. I'll have a better look now I know I had the right idea though. Thank you.

PinballManiac40 - I have engaged the door closure buttons and tested all other solenoids. 1-8 do not action. I've checked/swapped F111 and the ones beneath but, without new spares (it's midnight), I'm swapping fuses from other pins and they don't seem to blow and work when put back in their respective machines (Indiana Jones). I checked the fuses were the same rating.

I'll try resetting the ribbon though. I merely nudged them, not much more. Cheers for the ideas.

#8 5 years ago

MJS

schudel5

Pinside member

20y 166K 6,397 27

OP
Quoted from NilZero:
Some clearly have two violet/yellow on one lug but the two left VUK's, the right hand VUK and right and left gun shooter do not have dual violet/purple connections, only one each. All have at least one violet/yellow wire connected;some have two.

There may be a connector associated with that coil under the playfield and they may have tapped that wire right at the connector. Test to make sure you have voltage coming off J107-3 on the power driver board.

#9 5 years ago

NIL

NilZero

Inactive member

Quoted from schudel5:
There may be a connector associated with that coil under the playfield and they may have tapped that wire right at the connector. Test to make sure you have voltage coming off J107-3 on the power driver board.

I'm new to multimeters but it looks like 16V from J107-3. No idea if that's good or bad but it's something! I can't get my head around the double violet/yellows going from 2 big wires from 3 solenoid lugs (the plunger, knocker and the Kickback looks like the thicker wire doubled) but only a thin single violet/yellow to the other solenoids. ST:NG is not the easiest machine to follow wires around and I lose where they must chang/split that aspect.

That said. I'm having to do this quietly as my wife is asleep and I'm failing so, lest I be lobbed into the yard, I'll have a better look during daylight in a few hours.

#10 5 years ago

BTF

PinballManiac40

Pinside+ Frequent

Use your multimeter on the horseshoe symbol to test your fuse. A fuse has less than 1 ohm of resistance if it is good. You don't want to be swapping fuses between games so you can keep from accidentally putting a fuse in the wrong place.

#11 5 years ago

NIL

NilZero

Inactive member

Quoted from PinballManiac40:
Use your multimeter on the horseshoe symbol to test your fuse. A fuse has less than 1 ohm of resistance if it is good. You don't want to be swapping fuses between games so you can keep from accidentally putting a fuse in the wrong place.

Gotcha. That's a top tip for a daft noob playing tired swapsies at 2AM.

#12 5 years ago

BOB

bobukcat

Pinside member

9y 99,550 5,463

Quoted from PinballManiac40:
Use your multimeter on the horseshoe symbol to test your fuse. A fuse has less than 1 ohm of resistance if it is good. You don't want to be swapping fuses between games so you can keep from accidentally putting a fuse in the wrong place.

Be sure the power is off when you do this or a blown fuse may blow the fuse in your meter (or blow up the meter if it's not fused).

#13 5 years ago

NIL

NilZero

Inactive member

Quoted from bobukcat:
Be sure the power is off when you do this or a blown fuse may blow the fuse in your meter (or blow up the meter if it's not fused).

I've blasted myself across the room once before and have no desire to ever do that again so I'm paranoid with any power on/off interaction but that's another good tip I wouldn't have thought of. Pretty sure it's a fused MMeter.

I'm not certain if this type of issue is a "one fails, all fail" wiring or not nor which solenoid is first or even if isolating them in order helps at all.

I'll jack the machine into some decent light in a few hours as it's presently jammed in a tight spot limiting my full inspection ability and I must be missing something, probably obvious. Thank you for all the info!

#14 5 years ago

BTF

PinballManiac40

Pinside+ Frequent

When someone says to take a resistance measurement, do it with power off. Most times it is not mentioned as a reminder.

#15 5 years ago

JAM

NPO

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12y 133K 7,653 3 17

Find the connector that is responsible for these solenoids on your power driver board. Have one of the solenoids firing with the coin door shut. Wiggle the connector left and right as well as towards and away from the board, and if the solenoid starts firing, you know its that connector.

This situation happened with me on TAF, and that was how I fixed it. Ended up re-placing the IDC connector with a new Molex connector. Problem has been gone since.

Just reviewed the TAF manual. Coincidentally, my problem was with F105 controlling solenoids #1-8. In my case, I had one of the pop bumpers continually fire while I implemented the procedure above.

#16 5 years ago

BTF

PinballManiac40

Pinside+ Frequent

Did you perform any work to the machine before you had this issue? If you took the driver board out, for instance, maybe you forgot to J105 or J106, I think are the connectors used to send power to the coils.

#17 5 years ago

NIL

NilZero

Inactive member

Quoted from PinballManiac40:
Did you perform any work to the machine before you had this issue? If you took the driver board out, for instance, maybe you forgot to J105 or J106, I think are the connectors used to send power to the coils.

No work on the machine for many months and that was just some bulb replacement. It has been the best behaved in my collection. No cables have been removed from the boards nor boards removed in the three years I've had it and it was well maintained and serviced by a reputable outlet prior to purchase so nothing jumps out. Usually I can have a good guess from work/mods/lighting I might have recently installed but not in this case.

#18 5 years ago

NIL

NilZero

Inactive member

Quoted from NPO:
Find the connector that is responsible for these solenoids on your power driver board. Have one of the solenoids firing with the coin door shut. Wiggle the connector left and right as well as towards and away from the board, and if the solenoid starts firing, you know its that connector.
This situation happened with me on TAF, and that was how I fixed it. Ended up re-placing the IDC connector with a new Molex connector. Problem has been gone since.
Just reviewed the TAF manual. Coincidentally, my problem was with F105 controlling solenoids #1-8. In my case, I had one of the pop bumpers continually fire while I implemented the procedure above.

I believe I know the connector but have yet to try this. As it is, none of the solenoids of 1-8 fire at all but all others fire in test mode. Sun is up so I'll get at it after a coffee and see if I can get a break today.

#19 5 years ago

FNG

DumbAss

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9y 109K 2,984

I would check to see if you have voltage at solenoids 1-8. Set your multimeter to DC voltage (V with a straight line over it).

Close the coin door to restore high voltage.

Put the black lead on ground (side rail or ground braid). Put the red lead on any of the wires of solenoids 1-8 (VIO-YEL). You should have +70VDC (it's nominally +50VDC but often shows +70VDC without load).

If you do NOT have any voltage then you have a power problem. You can also check you have voltage at any of the solenoids 9-16 (VIO-ORG) wired solenoids. You state these work so you should have +70VDC present.

If you have voltage then you likely have a logic problem specific to solenoids 1-8. It could be anywhere from the CPU board (ribbon cable) to the common driver IC on the power driver board (PDB).

You can rule out which board by swapping boards from your good machines and seeing if the problem goes away. You have several machines with compatible CPU and power driver boards.

Creature from the Black Lagoon (CPU and PDB).
Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure (CPU and PDB).
Judge Dredd (CPU and PDB).
Theatre of Magic (PDB).

You can also try swapping ribbon cables from those machines (the short 40-pin cable). This will eliminate the ribbon cable.

If the problem is on the CPU board I'd suspect the ASIC. Give it a good push to ensure good contact with the PLCC socket. It's unlikely to be U12 because you stated that solenoids 9-16 fire.

If the problem is on the PDB I'd suspect U5. It's the common IC for solenoids 1-8. It is extremely unlikely that all 8 transistors for solenoids 1-8 went bad at the same time.

P.S. I had the fortunate (or unfortunate depending on how you look at it) pleasure of spending 3 weeks in Chermside (support for inpatient at The Prince Charles Hospital). Fine city you guys have there!

#20 5 years ago

NIL

NilZero

Inactive member

Quoted from DumbAss:
I would check to see if you have voltage at solenoids 1-8. Set your multimeter to DC voltage (V with a straight line over it). It is extremely unlikely that all 8 transistors for solenoids 1-8 went bad at the same time.
P.S. I had the fortunate (or unfortunate depending on how you look at it) pleasure of spending 3 weeks in Chermside (support for inpatient at The Prince Charles Hospital). Fine city you guys have there!

This is super advice and will help me narrow down what the problem is. I'm doubting all 8 went simultaneously also but as the simple solutions seem to have yielded no result, I've got to look to less desirable likelihoods and this thread and your ideas are excellent. I had no idea where to look next from my experiences with faults up until this.

As for Brisbane, shame you ended up at the hospital but the Prince Charles is a top hospital with the colloquial joy of being on Rode Rd. (pronounced "road-e road" because...Australians). I live about 15 minutes from there on the waterfront.

#21 5 years ago

NIL

NilZero

Inactive member

Quoted from DumbAss:
I would check to see if you have voltage at solenoids 1-8. Set your multimeter to DC voltage (V with a straight line over it).

I have 70V DC+ on all 1-8 solenoids and a couple of others I checked (they fire still) on a MMeter check so I'll work my way backwards to the other ideas.

#22 5 years ago

NIL

NilZero

Inactive member

OP
Quoted from NilZero:
I have 70V DC+ on all 1-8 solenoids and a couple of others I checked (they fire still) on a MMeter check so I'll work my way backwards to the other ideas.

I can short the solenoids all to fire from the PDU including 1-8 so the wiring is good and I'll stop looking under table and focus on the board in error.

I tried flipping the PDU to CPU board ribbon but got the same error so no pin at fault I'd say. It'd usually give me a different fault unless I'm mistaken.

I'm pushing my knowledge limit here but learning a lot which is always the good part of repair.

Onto isolating the board. The PDU is my guess but a guess is all it is for now. Getting there!

#23 5 years ago

NIL

NilZero

Inactive member

Isolated it to the CPU board and I've reached the limit of my hastily gathered expertise as it's clearly a near new PCB and after trying every variant of reseating, I took it to the pinball warehouse as they have a full testing rig and it most certainly is on that board so I'm both happy and miffed it wasn't something I could easy fix at home in situ.

I'm leaving it with them to fault find/repair/replace the rest by the weekend and will post the results.

Thanks to everyone as I not only learnt a lot from all suggestions, I also saved a packet by knowing what had failed without needing a service call out/fault find by a tech. I didn't know which way to go forward and all the advice was spot on. I also now know I can fire any solenoid from the backboard saving all those hours scouring the wire array but I learnt a lot about the ST:NG underside so there's always positives.

I'd like to imagine I could fix it from here but I simply don't have the equipment or experience once it gets to an unknown IC or ASIC gone bonkers. One day but not this day.

#24 5 years ago

FNG

DumbAss

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9y 109K 2,984

Based on what you describe I'm betting it's going to be the ASIC (U9). The inputs to solenoids 1-8 on the PDB from the CPU are the data bus, the blanking signal and the /SOL4 signal. The data bus and blanking signals are shared between all the solenoids. The /SOL4 signal is specific to solenoids 1-8 and comes directly from the ASIC.

#25 5 years ago

NIL

NilZero

Inactive member

Quoted from DumbAss:
Based on what you describe I'm betting it's going to be the ASIC (U9). The inputs to solenoids 1-8 on the PDB from the CPU are the data bus, the blanking signal and the /SOL4 signal. The data bus and blanking signals are shared between all the solenoids. The /SOL4 signal is specific to solenoids 1-8 and comes directly from the ASIC.

I'll let you know!

#26 5 years ago

JAM

NPO

Pinside member

12y 133K 7,653 3 17

OP
Quoted from NilZero:
I believe I know the connector but have yet to try this. As it is, none of the solenoids of 1-8 fire at all but all others fire in test mode. Sun is up so I'll get at it after a coffee and see if I can get a break today.

That is exactly what my TAF did. Sounds like you already determined the fault lies within the mpu board.

#27 5 years ago

BTF

PinballManiac40

Pinside+ Frequent

OP
Quoted from NilZero:
I'd like to imagine I could fix it from here but I simply don't have the equipment or experience once it gets to an unknown IC or ASIC gone bonkers. One day but not this day.

On occasion, pushing down on the ASIC into the IC socket (lay board flat on a table) fixes odd issues, now that you determined the MPU is the issue.

Just don't press so hard that you crack the IC socket.

#28 5 years ago

NIL

NilZero

Inactive member

Quoted from PinballManiac40:
On occasion, pushing down on the ASIC into the IC socket (lay board flat on a table) fixes odd issues, now that you determined the MPU is the issue.
Just don't press so hard that you crack the IC socket.

I gave it a decent seating to no avail and have now passed it onto my local pinball workshop as they've a funky Bally/Williams testing array and it'll be delivered back on Saturday after I dropped it off yesterday. Good chaps who'll run me through a tutorial of what was what and I'll advise here!

#29 5 years ago

NIL

NilZero

Inactive member