Hello everybody! I've joined the club and now it is time for me to stop buying pinball machines for a good long while. My TNG is in splendid shape but I have found three repeatable reset conditions! 1) Shooting “Battle Simulation” in the neutral zone from the right gun resets the game when the ball goes in the hole. Every time! And so does “all lamps” and “lamps + flashers” in the test menu. It’s handy they’re repeatable resets I guess. Makes me wonder if it’s a software crash, since hours of play hasn’t produced any other resets. It's running LX-5.

A Kahr regulator is in there, as well as a PSU5; both installed by the prior owner as an admittedly temporary fix to account for voltage issues. It's also got a ColorDMD, LED version. I'm aware that there are some specific points for me to test on the driver board; that will probably tell me which caps and/or BRs to attempt to replace. I have a plunger-style solder sucker, some copper wick, and a nice soldering station, but no desoldering iron. My soldering skills are decent.

Questions!

1) Anything I should do other than diagnosing low voltage and replacing caps/BRs according to best practices to track down those resets?

2) Will I be able to replace the required caps if I start with the wick and work patiently without a legit desoldering station? I have four WPC machines; all of them could probably use some preventive cap/BR replacements.

3) Is the tie back mod on the drop target coil(s) still considered 100% essential?

4) Should I pick another ROM on general principles?

Thanks everybody! --Will

Thank you! Stranger and stranger over here. Here's where I am:

- LX-7 (my mistake, I never had LX-5)

- All lamps test: instant reset every time
- All lamps and flashers test: instant reset every time
- Battle simulation mission, sink neutral zone from gun (win the mission): instant reset every time
- Wormhole mission, left ramp (win the mission): instant reset every time, whether or not the ball is diverted to Borg ship (this is a clue I think: reset is after diverter fires?)

- Individual lamp tests: no resets
- Individual flasher tests: no resets
- Individual coil tests: no resets
- All other missions can complete without resets
- Several hours of play: no random resets

What would you do?

I mean I sure think so...all of the incoming power seems in order. I also noticed the 2008 Kahr board is a) blue, indicating low 12V, and b) not turning red to indicate a reset. For giggles I've disconnected the pinbits shaker, which is tapped to one of the flashers in the backbox. Convenience outlet reads 123.9VAC with the game off, and keeps over 122VAC while playing.

And I found another obvious reset, the burn-in test.

Time to learn how to get 12V right!
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EDIT: Still, my enjoyment of the game seems unhindered. I know it's not a killer score but I'm really enjoying the process of learning this game's ins and outs. <3

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You know how they’re always saying “reseat the connectors before you go replacing board components”? Turns out they’re right!

- moved driver board from HS2 to TNG. None of the above resets occurred, with or without Kahr.
- installed TNG driver board into HS2. Oops, J110 on the TNG driver has no pins ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- returned both boards to their original games. Both are 100% without Kahr!

So I guess I’ll put a little pile of caps and BR’s in next month’s parts order and set them aside until something forces the issue.

Wasn’t a permanent fix. I was having an epic game and got a reset during final frontier. Reinstalled Kahr and it’s back to crashing under the specific conditions noted above.

- TP1: 13.8V
- TP2: 5.4V (LM323 was previously replaced with PSU5)
- TP3: dips from 12.00 as low as 9V during attract mode light show. Also the bulbs are unsurprisingly dimmer when more of them are on
- TP4: (I don’t have an oscilloscope)
- TP6: 0.12VDC (?!)
- TP7: 1.0VDC (?!)
- TP8: 18V, dipping to 13V as above during attract mode light show.

More questions! This is my first PDB troubleshooting exercise.

- TP6 value seems perplexing as hell. All the individual coils, flippers and flashers work. Should I head straight to BR3 and C8?
- TP7 value is also weird considering the game mostly works. BR4 and/or C11?
- Is it normal for TP3 and TP8 to lose voltage? Seems unlikely, in which case BR1 and/or C6 and/or C7 are implicated.
- That would be a lot of failed components, which doesn’t seem to make sense. I haven’t yet checked what’s coming in at J101 and J102 and I’m away from the game for a few days. Would I be looking for a voltage drop coming into the rectifiers? A problem with the main transformer? [Edit: but my Getaway PDB works great in my TNG, so it’s the PDB. Reflow and/or repin J101 and 102?]

Edit 2: Cabin fever sets in and I've made a list of measurements to take upon returning home
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xAs0xf04wZ_hGGXHXc6Nr5s0VL5HApUfSta8i9XYlf8/edit?usp=sharing

Thank you

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Closing the loop on my resets (hopefully):

- Closer inspection of PDB showed no evidence of caps or BRs being replaced. This is odd because somebody went to the trouble of replacing the LM323 with a PSU5. But no caps or BRs?
- Also no header discoloration nor leakage from C2 or anywhere else.
- But under Q17 and elsewhere I noticed a surprising lack of solder on the contacts.
- Also surprising: a few (but not all) of the pins under U3 had been soldered, without cleaning the flux afterward. [Edit: now it just looks like some kind of goo, not resoldering. Anyway I cleaned it up.]

What I did:

- Replaced C2 because I was there and because I have a shiny new desoldering gun. Tore out an eyelet anyway. I’ll get better. Made sure enough solder went in to get to both sides of the board.
- Re-flowed solder on every PDB jumper because another WPC reset thread ended up with problems with connectors.
- Cleaned up flux with alcohol, reinstalled PDB, removed Kahr, forgot to power the flippers.
- Got kind of worried, fixed the error.
- Played game with a long Final Frontier, no resets.

This is the same result I got after simply reseating the PDB so don’t know if it’ll hold. Then again maybe there wasn’t a prolonged FF after that. If I get another reset I’m tempted to replace the other 7 electrolytic caps and all of the BRs because I need soldering practice and there are three other WPCs in my life that’ll need some combination of this someday ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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My gun harnesses are original. I’d be in for a set.

Cool. Everybody had their say. Can we move along now?

So I’m having a great game and suddenly this machine screw and a good size washer seem to materialize on the playfield! I’ve spent a few minutes looking for a loose part or hole to match, with no luck. Anybody have any wild ideas?

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BINGO thank you

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I was today years old when I realized that most of the time the drop target should be down during the plunge. My "drop target down" coil (the red one, pictured above the green one) was energizing but the target wasn't dropping except on ball impact. Turns out the "down" coil was a bit loose, and the plate the coil pulls on was snapping away too far and binding against the PCB holding the lane lights. So I added a bit of foam, circled in red. Now the game plays as it should!

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Huh. On mine a shot that isn't strong enough to make it to the borg ship for a lock bricks all the way back out of the ramp.

My drop target with the broken Frame & Eyelet Assy (discussed above) seems to be working correctly with my foam workaround, but now I frequently hear three rapid coil clicks up there, as though the game knows something is wrong and is firing a coil a few extra times to ensure the target is in the right position. Anybody have insights on this behavior?

Seems like the repair options are to buy a whole new assembly from Marco for $100, or a $10 part from Mr. Pinball in Australia with $20 shipping.

There’s flashers and GI. Page 2’s solenoid table has the information on connector locations and wire colors.
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