Stern Spike 2 - Lost most LEDs on Playfield | Tech: LCD era games

0

#1 16 days ago

OP

???

RabanzZ28

Pinside member

3y 32,550 107 5

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I’m looking for some trouble shooting help. I have a Deadpool Premium that needs a little lovin. I’ve had it for about 2.5 years and twice over that timeframe, I lost the upper LEDs or they would flicker badly. Both times, I just reseated the Ethernet cables and it took care of the issue.

Well today it happened again and when I tried to reseat the cables….. it’s didn’t help and now the lights don’t even flicker. I tried to run the diagnostics in the menu but no errors come up. Before I spend $150 on a new Node board 9, anyone have any solutions? The game seems to play mechanically fine but the bottom inlane lights, the right side and upper right side LEDs are out. I already tried removing all connectors and reseating them on the existing board. The board appears to blink similarly to Node board 8.

Thanks to everyone for their help!

Peter

0

#2 16 days ago

RAD

doublestack

Pinside member

12y 84,550 1,308

With the power off, try reseating your SD card and see if that fixes it. I’ve had luck with that or reflashing a new card.

0

#3 16 days ago

OP

???

RabanzZ28

Pinside member

3y 32,550 107 5

Quoted from doublestack:
With the power off, try reseating your SD card and see if that fixes it. I’ve had luck with that or reflashing a new card.

Just tried it. It did not help.

0

#4 16 days ago

OP

???

RabanzZ28

Pinside member

3y 32,550 107 5

OP
Quoted from RabanzZ28:
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I’m looking for some trouble shooting help. I have a Deadpool Premium that needs a little lovin. I’ve had it for about 2.5 years and twice over that timeframe, I lost the upper LEDs or they would flicker badly. Both times, I just reseated the Ethernet cables and it took care of the issue.
Well today it happened again and when I tried to reseat the cables….. it’s didn’t help and now the lights don’t even flicker. I tried to run the diagnostics in the menu but no errors come up. Before I spend $150 on a new Node board 9, anyone have any solutions? The game seems to play mechanically fine but the bottom inlane lights, the right side and upper right side GIs are out. I already tried removing all connectors and reseating them on the existing board. The board appears to blink similarly to Node board 8.
Thanks to everyone for their help!
Peter

0

#5 16 days ago

R M

PinFever

Pinside member

Boca Raton, FL

12y 79,050 1,922 4 30

New node board or cpu board probably needed. Depends which board operating the non working gi needed. Most likely scenario

0

#6 16 days ago

OP

???

RabanzZ28

Pinside member

3y 32,550 107 5

I misspoke earlier…. It’s the playfield LEDs that are out. The GIs look like they all work

0

#7 16 days ago

R M

PinFever

Pinside member

Boca Raton, FL

12y 79,050 1,922 4 30

Same

0

#8 16 days ago

R M

PinFever

Pinside member

Boca Raton, FL

12y 79,050 1,922 4 30

By the way, let us know what it turns out to be thank you very much and good luck and I hope it’s a connector

0

3

#9 16 days ago

RAT

paul_8788

Pinside member

11y 88,150 2,879 1

I wouldn't order a new node board or CPU yet. Node 9 controls left and upper left light boards, so if those inserts still work then it isn't a Node 9 issue at all.

Deadpool Premium manual, page 11 shows the board layout. Pages 18 and 19 show the light reference and which board controls which lights. From what you describe the lights on board 8b are out, and possibly the lights on board 8c (right side inserts). These two boards are controlled by Node 8, and daisy chain from Node 8 CN3. So if the signal isn't getting from Node 8 to 8b, 8c will also not work.

I would try lightly pulling on each wire at the connectors on both ends on the small wiring harness running from Node 8 CN3 to Node 8b. A wire not fully seated in the connector could be making intermittent contact. If a wire just pulls out of the connector reseat it. For fun I would also check the connection from 8b to 8c to make sure it is fully connected and no wires are loose.

If that isn't it things get more complicated. There are lots of steps you could try to narrow down exactly where the issue is, but a lot of that comes down to how comfortable you are with moving stuff around. For example, CN2 and CN3 on the Node boards are identical. They are "Node Extension Bus" connectors. You could unplug CN2 from Node 8, move the CN3 connection to CN2 and see if that gets you your lights back. If not, it points to either a bad wiring harness or a bad connector on the Node 8b board. If your lights do come back, then possibly a bad CN3 connector on Node 8. Even in this case I wouldn't rule out a flaky wiring harness, I would try to take a similar one from another game and substitute it to see if the problem goes away.

Good luck!

0

#10 16 days ago

OP

???

RabanzZ28

Pinside member

3y 32,550 107 5

Quoted from paul_8788:
I wouldn't order a new node board or CPU yet. Node 9 controls left and upper left light boards, so if those inserts still work then it isn't a Node 9 issue at all.
Deadpool Premium manual, page 11 shows the board layout. Pages 18 and 19 show the light reference and which board controls which lights. From what you describe the lights on board 8b are out, and possibly the lights on board 8c (right side inserts). These two boards are controlled by Node 8, and daisy chain from Node 8 CN3. So if the signal isn't getting from Node 8 to 8b, 8c will also not work.
I would try lightly pulling on each wire at the connectors on both ends on the small wiring harness running from Node 8 CN3 to Node 8b. A wire not fully seated in the connector could be making intermittent contact. If a wire just pulls out of the connector reseat it. For fun I would also check the connection from 8b to 8c to make sure it is fully connected and no wires are loose.
If that isn't it things get more complicated. There are lots of steps you could try to narrow down exactly where the issue is, but a lot of that comes down to how comfortable you are with moving stuff around. For example, CN2 and CN3 on the Node boards are identical. They are "Node Extension Bus" connectors. You could unplug CN2 from Node 8, move the CN3 connection to CN2 and see if that gets you your lights back. If not, it points to either a bad wiring harness or a bad connector on the Node 8b board. If your lights do come back, then possibly a bad CN3 connector on Node 8. Even in this case I wouldn't rule out a flaky wiring harness, I would try to take a similar one from another game and substitute it to see if the problem goes away.
Good luck!

Wow. This is why I love Pinside!!! Thank you so much. I removed CN2, CN3 and CN13 on Node 8…..reseated them and YES!!!! Perfection!! Thank you so much. My pin is back to perfect!!

Happy Thanksgiving
IMG_2664 (resized).jpeg