Cross posting this from another forum to see if anyone here has any ideas.

Ok, first time shop job blues have just set in hard.

Got everything to where we wanted it and re-inserted the playfield. Reconnected everything, held our breath, and turned it on. Backbox comes on, coin door comes on but nothing on the playfield. Display shows "adjustment failure," although we did replace the batteries with the intention of it resetting everything anyway. So we turn it off to see if we missed any plugs.

Not seeing anything, we turned it back on to check diagnostics and so forth. After about five minutes the varistor (vr1) on the APD board blew. Damn! Quite a sparks and light show, for sure. The board itself look OK, just dirty and now in need of a cleaning. And of course, it needs a new varistor.

Does anyone have any idea where to start with this? This is relatively new territory to me. I'm not worried about replacing the varistor, that can be done. But it would help to know where to start looking.

Thanks, rancegt. We rechecked the plugs and all appear to be right where they're supposed to be. Still not sure what's up with the no power going to the playfield, but new varistors are on the way and we we'll try to give you an update as soon as we can.

Thanks again for any help, everyone.

Ok, update. We replaced the varistor and still got the "adjustment failure" message. This time I backed it out of that through the cabinet door buttons and got to "factory restored," and the game reset and popped on! The varistor does not seem to be heating up at all with all plugs in.

Only problem now - there's no general illumination at all. We checked the plugs on the interconnect board and they seem decent. Fuses on that board also tested good. Backbox lights working fine. Flashers and solenoids all seem to work well and game plays, just dark.

We noticed there was no plug in the J9 position on the interconnect board. It's labeled "lower playfield GI." We're 99 percent sure there was no plug there when we took the playfield out, but thought I'd ask if anyone knows for sure.

Thanks to all for any help!

Yes, they worked fine up until playfield removal. Tracing wires is probably next on the agenda at this point. Thanks.

Do you mean J9 on the auxiliary power board or the interconnect board? We just noticed the connectors are the same size with the same key. We have a plug on the auxiliary power board and not the interconnect board. Should this be the other way around?

Yeah, we don't have a plug there (and there are no loose ones anywhere we missed). We do have a plug in the J9 position on the auxiliary power driver board. We unplugged it and it changed nothing - still no GI but everything else seems to work. I have a feeling that plug is in the wrong position.

Anyone know if their Rollergames APD board uses the J9 slot? I took pictures when we disassembled but I can't find them now. Of course.

Thank you, Brtlkat! I can't believe I didn't check ipdb for pics. We had the J9 connector on the wrong board! The lower GI is now back on, but we still don't have upper GI. The last time we had this problem it was a short by the pop bumpers glowing a fuse, but I think the fuses are good.

Personally I think it's weird to have two J9 connectors the same size and keyed the same. We should have watched closer, but still.

Halfway there. Gotta figure this out.

Again, you're referring to the interconnect board? I'm not sure which connector powers the upper GI. Unless it's all powered by the J9 connector labeled "lower playfield?" There is no connector labeled "upper playfield."

Like I said, I took some but can't find them now. The GI that's out all appear to be strung together with the chain ending at the pop bumpers.

Heh, ok. Once again, the pinball game humbles the student repairman. The reason that string of lights was out was because every single bulb on it had burned out! These lights were all brand new replacements that must have gotten fried when the varistor blew (J9 on the wrong board probably didn't help any).

Now we're down to one last problem - the battery/holder issue. Could be a lot worse, that's for sure. Thanks for all the help, everyone!

Not yet. The other half of my hobby team has been working on it at home while I've been at work today, so we haven't gotten to that yet. That's the next step, but it seems considerably less daunting than where we were just a couple weeks ago.

We weren't having that problem at all but we decided to replace the batteries along with my other machine on New Year's Day. Will take a closer look in the next few days. Thanks for that procedure on resetting the machine. Will try to let everyone know how it comes out.

I agree, Frax. This is a bit of a live and learn situation for us. Nothing like screwing something up to make you take the advice others have already given you more seriously. Now I know firsthand how easy it is to screw something like that up.

Yes! Thanks for that procedure. The adjustment failure message is history and it's holding settings now. Only thing that isn't working now is the two leftmost flashers, but we're happy with it. Not going to worry about those for a while.