I have a rectifier board that looks like burnt toast. At first I thought it was just a burnt connector/header pins, but after looking closer I see misery over the whole board. I don't even think it's worth repairing.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
faz

RB_Face.jpgRB_Closeup.jpgRB_Back.jpg

Solder skills are getting better each time I do something.

I'm pretty patient. Spent 3 hours yesterday tweaking my sparkly new DW moving topper (getting that base to sit over the mechanism is a treat). Rebuilt the the GI connectors on DW today too.

But back to Catacomb... The question is: should I re-do the BR too? I can't tell if the heat damage is from the solder job or new excessive heat. Are there any clues?

I'd rather not replace the BR if not needed. Other than a GI problem, the game works fine.

Oh, and one other question: Any way to clean up all that burnt flux? I've been doing some reading. I keep seeing alcohol as a solvent with some kind of brush (toothbrush??).

Thanks,
faz

All three BR 'test' ok. With that, I'm going under the assumption that the burnt flux is from an old fix.

Challenge accepted!

Next step. Header pins, new connectors and some 'de-fluxing'.

Thanks all for the advice.
faz

If you dream of a Catacomb, be sure to dream of one with good drop targets

Well, I appreciate all the encouragement. I just finished with what I planned to do, but wondered if I need to do more.

As I said before, all three BR test good.

All I did was to rebuild the header pins of two of the three connections.
Clean up all the burnt flux (that burn on BR1 was prior art from another artist).
I rebuilt the matching two connectors one slightly toasty, one melted and severely burnt.

The last connector and pins looked really good. I'm of the opinion that if it looks good leave it alone, so rebuilding the header pins of the third connector seemed unnecessary. I could rebuild the connector with new trifurcon pins...easy and low fubar potential.

I'd appreciate an opinion before I wire it back into the game.

Thanks!
faz

RB_F2.jpg

RB_B.jpg

RB_F1.jpg

Really? I did not expect fuse clips go bad....I mean as long as they hold the fuses in place.
faz

Ok....this just officially got weird.

I went to start rebuilding the second connector when I noticed that the two connector pin slots most burned...have NO WIRES! what-the-what?!?! Both GI...both way toasty.

I have no extra wires lurking in the cabinet. I can't find a harness diagram for a Stern, just the Bally. Am I missing two wires or did someone just replace one burnt connector with another burnt connector (burn from another game).

Looking at the schematic. J1.1 and J1.2 share the same connection...but is it possible that the wire was on J1.1 initially (J1.2 empty) and the op rewired to J1.2. J1.8 seems to share a connection with J1.5 (GI Bus). Again, wire was initially on J1.8 and moved to J1.5.

I tried tracing the schematic on the MPU but cannot make it out too blurry. It seems bizarre that Stern would leave two wires off a connector and even more bizarre that an op would cut an extra GI wire that carries half the load all the way back to the backbox.

btw...thanks for the feedback.
faz

RB_Connector.jpg

*** SORRY *** I could a few errors copying down the trace. Fixed (well it's what is in my machine).

I thought Stern and Bally shared a lot, but using Steve Kulpa's Bally page I tried to map but it was not even close. I was using the AS-2518-18 notes... looked really close, but I noted board differences in the traces and the J1 configuration.

For the record: Steve's color/config notes for J2 and J3 map exactly to my game.

Regarding J1
First off, he says there are 9 pins. The board and my connector have 8. I saw in Clay's guide that the 9-pin is only used on the AS-2518-49...so, disregarding J1.9 I'm going to assume the rest is correct.

I've traced through my wires. I'm not 100% of the gauge, but Steve notes 18 and 20 ga in this area. This connector is all "fat"... so, I'm going with 18 gauge all around.

J1.1 no wire
J1.2 Solid Red
J1.3 Solid Dark Blue (same color as J1.7)
J1.4 key
J1.5 Solid White
J1.6 Dark Blue / white Stripe
J1.7 Solid Dark Blue (same color as J1.3)
J1.8 no wire

I traced the wires...did not pull the bulbs to isolate circuits, but I get to the right neighborhood (GI, Coil, Feature).
J1.1 -
J1.2 Red - GI
J1.3 Blue - Switched Lamps (share circuit w/J1.7)
J1.4 -
J1.5 White GI
J1.6 Blue w/white - Coils
J1.7 Blue - Switched Lamps (share circuit w/J1.3)
J1.8 -

When I got this game it worked 100% and I did not change the connector. This connector and J3 was always a little toasty (a lot toasty). After the GI died last month, I thought I would open up Pandora's box.

I compared my traces to what's in Steve's guide and Clay's guides.

Anyone care to check this hypothesis:
J1 - Burned...abandon
J1.1/ J1.8 were swapped, but since they are both GI... the game does not tell the difference..so it still works with the ground on the wrong side of the lamps.
J1.2 was used instead of J1.1....don't know what happened to the green wire (no sign anywhere).
J1.3 confuses the heck out of me because it's supposed to be unused, yet there's a shared CPU controlled wire on there....AND J1.1, J1.2, J1.3 all appear to be ground.....is the ground side of the computer controlled lamps??
J1.4 is the only no-brainer I have going for me....the key lines up
J1.5 wrong color...but looks GI-ish
J1.6 wrong color...but looks coil-ish *** CORRECTED ***
J1.7 wrong color...but looks to be feature lamps *** CORRECTED ***
J1.8 appears swapped with J1.1

I'll hold my thoughts on straightening this out...but I'm starting to get some ideas.

I'd appreciate a more informed opinion of my hypothesis.

This was a very interesting exercise. I feel my pin-repair understanding just went considerably.

TIA,
faz

_{Post edited by pinball_faz : Typo in wire mapping}

Well, most of them. I can see the schematics for the rectifier board...that seems good. Since the connector goes to the playfield...and general components at that (all GI, all coils, all laps) it's less helpful....unless I'm using them incorrectly.

faz

This just keeps getting weirder.

I looked over the PF again.

This is getting confusing. I made an error with these damn designations... I fixed the above post.

Other info:

Every GI has two red wires soldered to the base... except if it is the last lamp on the string..then only one.
Every GI has two white wires soldered to the tip...except if it is the last lamp on the string..then only one.
Every feature lamp has two solid blue wires soldered to it's base until it hooks into an uninsulated common ground wire (the feature lamp "toast" is all uninsulated common).
Most coils have two yellow wires on a lug...more on that in a bit.

I tried to trace the red wire since it's big and bright. I see one red wire enter the bundle but two leave. The bundle itself is a 1" mass that has 27 zip ties all along the bundle. Finding a cut red will require me to open up the wire bundle.

But then it occurs to me. Are all these pairs of wires really a daisy-chained to the next device? I thought it was just the GI doubling up on wire to handle the higher demand.

I found what looks like a daisy chain on the coils. The blue wire with a white stripe (coil) appears only once on the playfield..so really easy to trace. I think it ties to a lug on the right flipper, then pigtails to a fuse (between the flippers) lug with another pigtail off the same lug of the fuse to the left flipper coil. The other end of the fuse is the bright yellow wire...and there are two yellows at that point, I think they loop around to the coils until they dead-end at one drop target.

If so, a lot of the confusion is starting to make sense....except:
The blue wires bug me though. One of these solid blue wires should be my for feature lamps...and if they are daisy chained like the other GI/Coil wires....then what's the second wire coming out???
J1.3 is a ground, J1.7 has +5.3vdc.

Furthermore, it looks like this whole game is run off one GI BUS and one GI Bus return...which means, it's just going to burn again. That's why I'm assuming there's a 2nd GI feed of each (Green, Orange). Is only one line of GI "OK" for a Catacomb? There seems like a lot of lamps under there.

Thoughts?
faz

Ok, so maybe Pandora is not as fubar as I thought...game specific wiring?

Catacomb owners.... Can I get a few people to check the J1 connector on the rectifier board?

Color of wire and order would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
faz

I got report of another Catacomb with the same wire pattern as your machine Bob.

Thanks!

Ready to re-pin the connector.
faz

Well...it's done! Santa delivered!

I finished up the board. Repinned the connector and just plugged J2 alone in....just to make sure all the testpoints delivered the correct voltage.

All was great except for TP1. I double checked the work and I found the problem....it appears the F1 fuse holder was weak not applying enough pressure. I cleaned and crimped the fuse holder a little tighter and the correct rectified power came shooting out TP1

Too bad nobody suggested I replace the fuse clips...

To anyone trying this for the first time. I rank the whole process a 3 on the difficulty scale. That was only because of the non-standard wiring from other sources. The soldering was not bad at all but the research to make sure I did not blow up something took far longer than I hoped.

For my Catacomb at least, what's documented in this thread for J1 is consistent with "oldschoolbob" and "drdave" (RGP). Plus, the game works 100% (got my GI back too with the rebuild J3 connector) so, I add me to the list. Also, having not done this before, it was not painfully obvious to pull the power board. Little did I know that six little screws separated me from a nice simple solder installation of the board on my bench instead of hunched over the machine swearing. Do yourself a favor...pull the whole board with the transformer...so much easier.

One bit that's not really well documented as well is the wires coming out of the transformer. My colors again are different than what clay and others discuss.

For the record:
My transformer is a 16B-6
Tap layout - (Left to right)
Front Top Lugs 14, 15, 16, 2, 6
Back Top Lugs: 17, 18, 8, 10, 12, 13
Back Lower Lugs: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11

14 Green w/Blue stripe (hard to see the blue)
15 White
16 Blue w/White stripe
2 Red w/Yellow stripe
6 White w/Red stripe
17 Deep Navy Blue (really hard to tell from black...which now that I understand what's happening from the schematic...it would not have mattered (7.3v AC).
18 Black
8 Green w/White stripe
10 White w/Green stripe
12 open
13 Orange
1 Red (soldered to 3 for 120 volt setup)
3 open (soldered to 1 for 120 volt setup)
5 Yellow (soldered to 7 for 120 volt setup)
7 open (soldered to 5 for 120 volt setup)
9 open
11 open

On a related note the schematic for the rectifier board does NOT list Tap #5. If you don't look closely you might think E1 goes to Tap #9.

Final synopsis of what was done:
Repinned connector J1, J3
Repinned header J1, J3
Cleaned the board of flux et al
Cleaned the fuses, connectors ..added a little tension.
Heat sink paste added

I hope this thread will be able to help someone in the future!

Thanks all for your help and encouragement.
faz

Oh, forgot to mention. I added a lamp socket under the rollover. Tied into the GI. Thanks DrDave for the idea.
faz