Great video! Very informative. I was actually going to be ordering a color DMD for my game as well, along with my new Stern Iron Man, NEED MORE OT!! I ordered a new rottendog board from bay area amusements to replace the one in the game. At least I'll have all new components that may be more efficient. I'll order the rebuild kit that marco sells later and change out all the caps and bridge rectifiers and keep the board as a spare. If I don't feel comfortable doing the work myself, there is a shop not far from me called Leisure Time in Winston Salem and the guy Jack there does great work.

I cringe everytime I see someone say this but wish you the best of luck with this repair.

A question on game settings.

Is there a setting to award points only for holodeck? Basically No video mode?

I was cleaning off the shelves and found these repro STTNG ramp decals. Anybody need them? Send me a PM.

IMG_20180331_140421 (resized).jpg

Added over 6 years ago: These have been spoken-for. Thanks!

Doesn't tournament / competition mode do that?

PM sent!

No, it is still avalable with enough shuttle/right ramp shots. Perhaps I should try and increase the number of ramps?

Suggestions??

None of my optos, cannons or Eddy’s sensors work. I ordered a new set of bridge rectifiers and a new c30 cap. My unregulated 12v was at 14v and my 12v was right around 12v but I cannot figure it out.

Anyone have any ideas?

I bought this game and nothing worked at all. All I have left is this 12v thing and it should be good to finally tear down and shop!

That sounds reasonable.
I'd look to see what upstream from the bridge rectifiers could be an issue because those voltages seem correct.

Agree with @Zitt. That doesn't sound like a rectifier/cap issue. You need to trace down the 12v circuits and ensure the power leaves the PDB and supplies power to those components. Could be as simple as a bad fuse, bad header connection (cold solder joint, burned up pin, etc), disconnected wire, or more complex like damage to the board or some component downstream of the test points. Check for 12v at J118 pins 2 and 3, that is the 12v supply to the eddy sensors, opto 16 board, also used for 12v+ to the gun motors.

I've done this a couple times, you just have to be patient with a steady hand and common sense, and you can make your board solid like a rock again.
The problem is, the inexperienced fry the traces getting those bridges and caps out. And then, well... it's pasta time. :/

Well I put in the new rottendog board and so far, no problems! I've had this great pin for about a year and never new my cannons were slow or had a voltage problem, I thought maybe the motors were worn out after watching some you tube of this pin. The cannons now go about twice as fast as they used to. I'll be taking my time on the original board and replaced the caps etc, and if I don't think I can do it, I'll take it the local shop. I have changed out opto sensors and transistors in my old Party Zone, with no problems. We will see. For now, glad to have nice upgraded components in this fun game to include the pinsound board! Thanks for everyone's help. No idea what blew the 3amp slow blow fuse in the first place since the game continued to play after putting in a new fuse, maybe just old, but game works great now! Next up, color DMD!

There should be a setting in the menu to enable/disable the video mode. If i recall correctly, it just gives you the 25M regardless of which option you choose.

Most likely an opto problem somewhere, take out all the balls and go into switch test and make sure all the optos read closed. Then start dropping balls in both the trough and in through VUKs one at a time and make sure they open at the proper time. My guess is you have something wrong with one of the optos on the left VUK.

J116, J117, and J118 on the power board are all wired the same, this is where your +12VU leaves the PDB...one of these is your playfield 12V that controls everything that isn't working. Do a good inspection on these, if they look fine, try swapping them around. If none of that helps you are going to have to start measuring your 12V under the playfield (Grey-Yellow) to see where it gets lost.

Quick question for the group: I just got my Rock undercab LED kit and J125 pin 3 is keyed on his connector but the board is keyed at pin 4. Am I doing something wrong or is the connector keyed incorrectly? Thanks!

Ok I'll do that when I get the new Rectifier put in. None of the 12v works however the color dmd works when plugged into any of those 3.

Looking at the manual, J125 has pin 4 keyed. Verify with your mod manufacturer.

I did and he made a mistake in the instructions and its supposed to connect to J122 not J125. Thanks!

Hey all, I need a little help where to start looking for an issue I have. Friday night it played perfectly for hours straight, then Saturday went to turn it on and it it kept restarting every minute or so. Had a bit of an issue before and put in a WPC power fix in it, which stopped the issues. So now I pulled the ribbon cables and cleaned them with isopropyl alcohol. Re seated all the connections and checked for loose connections etc. Now it booted back up, it did restart once in 5 minutes but I was able to play 2 games. Issue now is when i hit start, the 6 bulbs for the shields start to flicker. I then left it on for another 10 minutes with no more restarts, but all the LEDs are really flickering across the whole machine. So I am guessing it's something bigger and looking for advise what to start looking at next.

Thanks

Any way to re-center the playfield in the cabinet? There is quite a bit of room on one side, and it rubs on the other. I'm wanting to add mirrors and/or PinStadium lights and I just don't see a way to fit anything on the one side. Just nudging it over does not adjust the alignment in any permanent way.

if the color DMD works then your 12VU is fine as the Color DMD uses 12VU exclusively in operation.

Don't get me started on the reset fix ... I've made it clear where I stand on this ...

The best place for you to start is by measuring the power supply voltages on the PDB, post these numbers here and we can go from there.

Okay so I get the following:

J114-1 = 11.7v
114-2 = 11.7v
114-3 = 4.9v
114-4 = 4.9v

116-2 = 15.8v

117-2 = 4.9v
117-4 = 15.8v

118-2 = 15.8v

Appreciate any help, need more info let me know. I freely admit I'm a novice but willing to learn

Your 18V is way low, and 12v-reg low probably as a result. Do a on check BR1? C6 and C7 too...

I was actually expecting test point readings, but I can work with this; your 12VR is a little low at J114-1 and probably a little lower at the MPU, but I don't think this is problematic...yet.

Your 5V is a tiny bit low at J114 but likely lower at the MPU since there are a total of 4 connection points between the PDB and the MPU...a few tenths make a difference here; ideally, you should have around 5.2V at the 5VR test point TP2

At 15.8V your 12VU is fine, and you should have plenty of power to drive your DMD and other features. This voltage is actually a little higer than it should be and I suspect its due to it not being loaded by your playfield boards. I suggest that you start chasing this voltage down under the playfield as there is probaly a break in the circuit. With your playfield raised, the voltage will feed to the bottom right parts first and make its way across the playfield in an inverted U pattern. One of the last points to receive this power is the 16 OPTO board, this means a break in this voltage anywhere along the way is going to cause some serious issues.

This is possible, but I don't see anywhere where it was measured, the only place you can measure this voltage is at TP8, and there is no voltage readings recorded for this test point.

I'm going to just assume these are reversed as you just cant have 12V on the 5V line, and 5V on the 12V line on this connector

Sorry, I was confusing your problem with another guys that has no working cannons and other 12V related issues...

Like mavantix mentioned, this is likely a problem with your 18V lamp matrix, please measure TP8 and report back with your readings.

Below is a diagram to aid you in locating your test points:

pasted_image (resized).png

Umm yep i reversed the 2

Checking BR1 C6 and C7 is a little above my skill level, but I have a buddy coming over in the next day that can

Today 117-2 is 14.5v
117-4 is 4.9v

Okay ill give all TPs

TP1 = 14.6v
TP2 = 4.9v
TP3 = 11.7v
TP4 = .4v
TP5 = 0v
TP6 = 72.3v
TP7 = 21.4v
TP8 = 17.8v

Thanks again

Well I found my problem. The Grey/yellow wire wasnt making contact with the connector. I already pulled the Rectifiers and cap off the board and waiting for a new one. But while I was waiting I checked continuity. And I'll be darned if it wasn't a stupid easy fix. I'll report back when I get my parts.

A little more information, the gentleman that I bought the machine from said he changed the Caps and BRs last year, and the do look quite new. Going to pull the board this weekend to ensure all connections are good, touch up the soldering etc. With the caps being fairly new anything else I should be looking at?

If anything, I suspect your 5V regulator on the MPU ... and your reset fix. please measure the voltage across the C31 on the MPU, if this voltage is lower that 4.9, remove the reset fix and remeasure this voltage. Please respond back with all these measurements.

Potentially joining the club soon... I have a lead on a machine. I've never owned a DMD machine before. Is there anything in particular I should be on the lookout for when I inspect?

So with the "fix" in I get 5.1v, without "fix" I get 4.7v

Thanks for the continued help

I'm looking for a nicer Romulan warbird as the original one looks really bad and the Hallmark one has a weird color. The Eaglemoss one is the best but too small.

Is there any model available with the size of the original one but with he finish of the Eaglemoss one?

I think I got off track here a little bit as your were asking for help for strobing GI's. For your 5V section you are loosing .2V between the MPU and PDB, this is going to be caused by headers/connectors and is one of the primary caused of your original reset issues. The 5V is also starting off low, replacing the 5V regulator would likely correct this, but for now your reset fix is working, just keep this at the back of your mind if you experience additional issues with resets.

For your

Is it just GI's that flicker, or is it all lamps in the game? If its just the GI's then I would suspect an issue with the dimming circuit or control data. There is a couple of easy things you can try...

Flip over the ribbon cable between the MPU and PDB, this will make change the conductors used for communications.
Go into game settings and disable the GI dimming feature, if the problem persists, the issue is likely on the PDB itself.
Pull the MPU, place on a hard flat surface and press in on the ASIC chip to ensure its seated well.

General dimming "theory of operation"... from PinWIKI http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Williams_WPC#GI_Lamps_Not_Dimming

The driver board generates the ZC signal with the BR2, D3/D38 and U6 circuitry (different resistors).
The ZC signal is connected to the ASIC (across the driver board, the ribbon, and then across the MPU).
The ASIC uses the ZC signal to determine when to send the /TRIAC signal to U1 pin 11 (an 74LS374 buffer IC) as it simultaneously presents GI string enable data on the data bus.
U1 latches GI string enable data from the MPU's data bus.
The output of U1 forms signals T0 thru T4, which enable the TRIAC circuitry.

Well after pulling the the power board, and finding a bunch of poor soldering and jumper wires everywhere, when the caps and Br's were changed. I have decided to start over with a new board. Hopefully that solves all, if not then on to the next fix

Thanks to Pin_Guy and Mavantix for the advise and help

Uhhg, yeah, sounds like someone hacked at the board. New board is probably a good idea, maybe sell your old one for someone to properly fix if it's salvageable.

I can do trace and thruhole repair and may be interested in purchasing this board; if you are interested in selling the board please PM me with pictures of the damaged areas and I would be willing make an offer on the damaged one based on how much time I anticipate having to put into it to make the proper repairs.

NOTE: The term "proper repairs" is very subjective; IMO proper repairs of thru holes mean installing solid copper eyelets of the same inside diameter and pad size as the original (see 3 repaired pads in pic below ). I may have a mild case of OCD...

pasted_image (resized).png

Once tinned before installing parts, these eyelets will look exactly like the original pads, but you cannot get a soldering iron hot enough to damage them.

Duuuude.... Can you share some info on how you did this?
I'd love to be able to do that kind of repair on my boards.

I believe there is a lot of that over in TerryB's soldering post. Eyelet repair, board repair with epoxy, solder mask repair etc.

Seems very cool, But it also seems like it has the potential to turn into a whole nuther hobby....

The technique is relatively straight forward, first you clean the area the best you can. This board didn't need new traces so it was a fairly straight forward process. The most important part is having the right size eyelets, to match the circuit board, as these must be the right length and diameter.

Once you have your eyelet selected, you need the matching ball mill to drill out the hole to the same size as the outside diameter of the eyelet, DO NOT use a regular drill bit for this as it can damage the traces.

After the new holes are done the eyelets should fit right in, yet be snug enough to not fall out. For these I used a hand setting tool and small hammer to set them and then tap them flat, since these are copper they work really easy and flatten right out without a lot of force.

Circuit Medic carries a lot of the stuff to do this kind of work and I believe have guides available on line. http://www.circuitmedic.com/products/kits.shtml

I've been doing work like this for a long time and have access to kits that haven't been produced in a very long time. The eyelet kit used in this specific repair is shown here:

DSC00439 (resized).JPG

Not to get the thread off topic, but that's awesome Pin_Guy !! I would love to take classes on this level of soldering and board repair. I've replaced BRs, caps, components and ICs, but would love to be able to repair traces and thru holes and replace SMDs.

Daymn... That stuff is expensive.
I'll look at it in greater detail after Apr 15th. ;D

Unfortunately the price of these items has really escalated as the demand has decreased. The fact is we currently live in a "throw away" society and its more cost effective to buy a new board than to hire a technician to repair the original board; this killed off the repair sector and escalated the cost of repair materials which are much harder to find these days.

The kit pictured is in a really nice felt lined metal box and was manufactured in the late 70's or early 80's; this was one of the manufacturers sample kits they they would provide to the larger repair facilities. I consider myself very fortunate to have acquired this kit.

I'd say. I'd love to find one on ebay one day.