Hello,
I am having an intermittent issue with the supercharger on my HS2 and was wondering if anyone here could point me in the right direction. What is happening during a game is when the supercharger light is lit and the ball enters the supercharger, 90% of the time it works fast and flawlessly. But at least once during a game the ball will enter the supercharger and the magnets will not energize and the ball will roll back out. The problem will continue each time you hit the ball up the ramp during the same ball in play but as soon as the ball drains and is launched back onto the playfield it will start working again. All the magnets and optos check out in test mode and I re-flowed all the pins on the accelerator board and tested all the transistors and found nothing suspect. Any help on what to look for next would be greatly appreciated.

John

When it acts up and won't energize the magnets you can roll the ball through the supercharger and the appropriate sounds will be made and the three red lights on the front of the supercharger will flash in sequence as if the optos are seeing the ball and being triggered. The opto receiver on the second magnet was registering 3.6 volts and Clay's guide suggest 1 volt or less should be seen. I replaced it and am still getting 3.6 volts to it and of course still have my original issue.

Bump

Still haven't found the issue. Anyone else have any idea what to look for?

Thanks

The optos and all connections related seem to be fine. I pulled the cover off of the supercharger and tried triggering the optos with my finger as well as rolling the ball through when the supercharger is acting up and all three optos will register. It seems to me that if there is somthing in the circuit that is between the optos and the magnets that is not communicating with the magnets that would be the problem but i'm not sure what that is. I don't think it is opto related because when the magnets decide not to energize, all three do not energize at all not just one or two. I would guess that if an opto was flaky it would just be the magnet associated with that opto that would have the problem. Also, the magnets have 72 volts to them at all times even when they don't fire when thy should.

Yes the test works every time flawlessly and the speed is consistently fast in the mid 90's. I can't get it to act up in the test mode only during a game.

Thanks. I will check them when I get home this afternoon.

Still not working. I haven't had a chance to work on it due to my sons busy baseball schedule. I was able to swap out the accelerator board and the opto board with another working set from another machine a few days ago and still had the same issues. So i'm not sure where to look next. It would seem it could be a corrupt rom but i did have L2 burned onto the existing rom which had L1 on it and that didn't fix it either.

I still have not resolved the intermittent issue with my supercharger. It has been suggested that maybe I have a corrupt game rom. I had L-1 in it and had a friend of mine burn L-2 onto the same rom and still have the same issue. Could the rom chip itself be flaky even with the new L-2 loaded onto it or is this not possible?

Yes, Stangbat is correct. After putting in new pinballs everything has been working flawlessly. I wouldn't have believed it myself if someone else told me that this would cause the strange issues I was having but it is without a doubt that the magnetized balls were causing the problems. If I put the old balls back in the supercharger issues come back with them.

John