I've been racking my brain for a couple weeks now trying to find out why my Hulk will boot up properly sometimes and other times it does something random at boot up like no 5 second delay and displays coming right on or kicking out the ball at boot up or random sounds.

I've re-capped and re-flowed the pins on the power supply and have proper output voltages to the CPU and the displays. Replaced the two caps near the power connection on the CPU. Measured 5.08 v and -12.13 v at the caps on the CPU. All ground mods have been done as well.

I remote mounted the battery. There was zero corrosion on the board. All the boards look super clean and all the connection contacts are nice and bright. I also re-pinned all the connectors.

Made sure both slam switches are closed and both tilt switches are open

Point of interest:
I have the Hulk out in the garage where I've been working on it. Now that the weather has been getting much cooler, I can go out first thing in the morning (maybe 55 degrees in the garage)and it will boot up properly every time I try
it. If I leave it on for a while it warms up and starts doing the random boot.

Once I get it to boot up properly everything works and plays like it should with the exception of the knocker and one display which I'll address later.

I carefully and slowly looked over every square inch of the CPU board (front and back) looking for any cold or cracked solder joints but everything just looks too good.

What am I missing? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Mike

Bump. Anybody?

Thanks, as mentioned in my post I did the ground mods and changed out all the connectors. I have a feeling I'm so close and there is a simple fix that I'm missing. Maybe not.

I've read everything I can find on the net about Sys 1's and there is a lot.

Really don't want to buy a new replacement if I don't have to.

Thanks a lot Examiner. I should have just done the slam switch mod last time I had the board out. I'll do it now that the board is out again. I'll try your recommendations tonight when I have time.

I like this approach of isolating everything and putting it back together one connector at a time.

I'll post results as soon as I can.

Thanks, Mike

I had a Solar Ride SYS 1 for a for about 6 years. It worked great. Took it all apart, cleaned it up really nice, touched up the play field and clear coated it. Put it all back together and it still worked great. I never had any issues with it. I must have just been lucky with that machine.

There is one socked chip that I re seated.

On the cool mornings in my garage (maybe 58 degrees) Hulk boots up perfect multiple times in a row. It fails to boot properly if I leave it on and it warms up or the ambient temp in the garage rises above a certain temp.

I did the slam switch mod on the CPU and booted up the Hulk this morning when things were cool and all the cables off. Booted right up. Added the cables one at a time and every thing was fine. Took off all the cables again and let it warm up for a while and the boot problems came back.

I used some freeze spray and came to the conclusion the Z2 IC may be the culprit. In all the reading I've been doing someplace mentions Z2 having something to do with the reset circuit.

I'm waiting to hear back from Ed at GPE to see if he has this IC. I think it's worth a try.

I must be missing some pages in my copied manual because there's no schematic page for the CPU board. I found a scan on the net that shows component placement but it is barely legible. I'd like to look into the Z23 prom mention in the previous post but don't even know where it is without that page. I suspect it's the only socked chip on the board.

Is there anyone that could send me a scan of that page or even a close up photo would be great.

Thanks for all of your help. I think I'm almost there.

Mike

I did re-seat the prom and the pins looked nice and clean. It would be nice if I could try another board to make sure sure it was the CPU but I don't have one available. I would hate to buy a new replacement and find out the problem was something else.

Every time I check my 5 VDC I get about 5.08. I think I'll leave my DMM connected and see if that voltage changes during boot up or while it's powered on.

The Hulk is fixed! I knew it was heat related. Got some freeze spray and narrowed it down to the Z2 chip on the CPU. Ordered one from GPE along with a socket, soldered it in and everything appears to be working perfectly. Apparently the Z2 chip is linked to the reset circuit.

Hulk is working 100 percent and booting up first time every time. One exception - I still have one bad display. trying it in different locations makes no difference. If anyone has one for sale I'd sure be interested.

Thank you to those that responded to my plea. It gave me motivation to persist.

I'll be back, Mike

That chip was cheap. Like 74 cents. Might as well socket too. Sockets are cheap too.

Will post some tonight

My Hulk really is a beautiful machine now that everything is working perfectly. Coin mechs and all. Except the display which I'm still looking for.

Thanks again for all the Pinside support. I for one would not be able to continue this hobby without all the available tech help and support.

Check out my custom topper.

Mike

hulk_1.JPG hulk_2.JPG hulk_3.JPG hulk_4.JPG hulk_5.JPG hulk_6.JPG

oops, here's the topper hopefully.

hulk_7.JPG