just bought a T2

one of my favorite games of all time, looking forward to being a part of the machine community

quick newbie question...I just ordered an L-8 CPU chip as the machine came with L-3 originally. I heard someone say to be careful to make sure the sound chip is also compatible with the ROM as that can be important on some games. is there specific compatibility between CPU/sound ROMs on T2 that I should know about or am I good to install L-8 as-is?

Question about troubleshooting light boards: the leftmost stand up in the center 3-bank has gone out ("Advance" in "Advance Escape Route"). When I first got the machine, it was working according to pictures I have. I replaced the bulb and cleaned off the connections to the twist socket on both the socket pins and board connector with no success. I traced the wiring about as competently as I could, reseated a few connectors as well as the light matrix headers in the backbox. I didn't notice any burnt pins or otherwise obviously bad connections.

What might a T2 veteran recommend looking into next? T2 is for all intents and purposes my very first pin and I am learning a lot about repair as I go. Any advice is welcome

Update: I fixed the solder on one socket, cleaned the heck out of the connections on a couple others, and I now have almost all the bulbs with twist sockets working great on T2. Thanks for everyone who had a suggestion for me. Now it's time to start re-soldering some of the sockets for the GI, slings, and autofire hotdog...

New issue has popped up to try and troubleshoot/mitigate if possible. Even since getting it, I have noticed an issue with locking a ball in the skull. It always seemed to be that even a direct shot would occasionally fail to lock the ball - I always chalked this up to maybe a little rattling in the lane just before the kicker. A month or so ago, the poor skull on my machine popped a rivet and someone managed to get a ball stuck inside his chin! The skull assembly and metal plate that mounts under it have been removed for now until I have access to a rivet press, then I can re-solder the wires and put the skull back on.

Now that I can see the whole lane/kicker assembly, it looks like what's happening is that balls are making it past the gate all the way up into the kicker, but not settling down properly once it goes into the metal backstop and causing the ball to skip back over the kicker and down into the lane. It's a little frustrating to put a clean shot straight up there during a multiball and not get the lock, so I was wondering if there was anything any of you guys do to help prevent that kind of thing. I'm sure replacing the skull and plate helps, but those assembly bits only appear to cover the front opening of that shot and don't really extend all the way over the kicker to begin with.

My first thought was maybe to put a piece of foam up on the metal in the way back to absorb some of the bounce, or maybe to mount a small plastic up there to give the ball less height to bounce. I would have thought the gate would prevent that kind of thing but it seems like either the gate is broken in a way I can't see or the gate has some other purpose.

I'm having an issue with my T2's right flipper. I just soldered a new power cable into my game, as the cord it came with had the ground prong snipped off by whoever owned it previously. After re-connecting the service receptacle, the right flipper is now intermittently active during attract mode.

I made sure that the ground strip travelling around the inside of the cabinet was secured well and continuous for the entire length of its run on the right side of the cabinet. I also don't notice anything immediately wrong with the screw that provides the support for the ground strip directly under the flipper. Is there somewhere specific I should look for a problem with the grounding strip?

To the best of my knowledge, it seems like the ground is partially connected, as pressing the flipper button occasionally only causes a slight blip in the flipper. Some presses, it does nothing at all, like it should. Other presses, it's like you were still in the middle of the game. This only happens with the right flipper and not with the left, so I think I ruled out an issue with the ground solder inside the convenience receptacle where I put the new cord in.

My T2 won't boot and I am having some trouble figuring out where to start. It turns on, everything lights up except the DMD, and you can hear the game go into attract mode through the speakers with the *thud thud* sound. However, you cannot start a game - something that I was told indicates that the machine is not booting up properly.

I checked all the display connectors in the head and none of them were burned or obviously broken. I didn't have a ton of time today, but I took my multimeter and measured the voltage of the J604 connector from the display driver board to the DMD. Every rail except for +5V was giving out crazy numbers. The +5V pin was seemingly totally unaffected and was stable at 4.98V during attract mode.

How should I continue to trace this issue further when I get a little more time this week? Should I check the voltage on the pins going to the display driver board from the power driver board? I feel like it has to be an issue with the display driver rather than the power driver since the rest of the game seems to come alive just fine. I checked the fuse panels and did not see any blown fuses. If there is anything I can take a picture of to help, please let me know, the extent of my repair work so far has been reflowing lamp sockets and resoldering bad joints on the stand up target banks.

Beat ya to the punch. I gave all the connectors a good reseating, including the ribbon cables. The DMD was also in known good working order with no visible dark spots or ghosting before the game stopped booting, so I'd be surprised if it was the display itself that conked out, but anything's possible I guess. Gotta do a little more testing with the multimeter when I have some free time but after reading what I can find on the internet, it seems like I might have some dead transistors/some burning going on maybe

False alarm on my T2 I think.....big thank you to the people who replied with some advice. I pulled the board and the F602 fuse looks totally fine but tests dead. In between the game failing for the first time and grabbing the meter a week later, I didn't test the fuses til I had time to pull the board out today to start going through the surface mount components. Fuses were the first thing I checked and sure enough one was dead - that explains the -125 and -113 rails being dead and I bet if I toss a replacement 3/8A slow blow in there it will come alive once again.

Now I just need to redo the burnt GI headers...then we'll be looking good

OK so the F602 fuse was a good place to start, but not the solution. The replacement fuse I put in there blew immediately when I turned the game on. I am still getting attract sounds/flashers when the game turns on. I infer from this that the problem is likely specifically with the DMD driver board. My plan now is going mounted component by mounted component and looking for discrepancies from the stated values in the manual.

Looking at the schematic, F602 is the first place power arrives from header J605 (the AC transformer). Does that mean I should specifically be looking at the transformer? Or can the fuse be blown due to a component issue on the driver board as well?

Wow, is that skull mount custom-made or is it part of that particular skull? I can't tell too good from the side pic but it looks like there's a proper nut through the jaw area as opposed to a rivet?

The original assembly on mine broke after a ball accidentally got launched into the skull's chin and I've been trying to figure out a better way to get it back on and protect it a little better from underneath, and that metal plate looks like a pretty elegant solution to both

Quick question for my hunter-killer ship owning friends...does anyone happen to know what size screw/locknut is used to mount the ship to its bracket? I made my own bracket but I can't seem to keep the ship secured. All of the mounting kits I see sold online appear to just include a regular screw and locknut, but none of them say what size they are

Quick question about the L-8.3 ROM - if I'm not looking to install the profanity chip, only U6 is necessary to be replaced correct? I purchased a blank 27040 to replace my stock L-8 U6 but just want to confirm that I can keep the "Profanity" adjustment disabled on the L-8.3 with the non-profanity U14/15/18

Thanks for the help. Had a local guy with a programmer flash the ROM onto the blank chip, swapped it with my L-8 U6 and sure enough I saw "Terminator 2 Rev. L8.3" light up on the DMD. Brilliant work Averell! The 8.3 attract mode is incredible and will make leagues/tournaments much better now that we don't have to scramble to take a photo of the game scores lest we be forced to wait for the attract mode to fully cycle in order to see the scores again

Stupid question - how do people recommend getting to screws in the back portion of the playfield? It doesn't slide forward really (though I know I could pull the hinge off the bolts) but with the playfield resting on the cabinet arm, I have a tough time reaching some of those rear screws to replace plastics or rubbers. Really tiny screwdriver? 90 degree screwdriver?