There is another topic regarding something similar, but I don’t want to hijack that thread.

I have just acquired a routed TOM. I have fixed a couple of things; next on my list was to get the magic trunk to detect hits. I adjusted the eddy potentiometer(s), and viola trunk hits (whew! I don’t need to replace the eddy board).

I played a game to see how it went. I don’t recall the sequence, but I think I locked to start multiball, and something malfunctioned. Long story short, the coil in the Ball Feeder Assembly (A-19934) stopped working. It was working before, but no longer.

The Fliptronics F903 fuse was blown. I thought that was odd, but discovered that’s how it’s designed. Since it was working before, I decided to replace the fuse and power it back on. Bad things happened.

Flippers both flipped, and the DMD showed a random pattern. I powered down and discovered F903, and also the Solenoid Secondary fuse F112, on the Power Driver Board, was blown. Also, the CPU board LED D19 and D20 never came on (this explains the DMD pattern).

I powered off, disconnected the Fliptronics board from the bus, and powered back on. The CPU board LEDs displayed properly (D20 blinking).

I don’t want to blow a bunch of fuses trying to diagnose. I don’t currently have a work bench with a power supply to do the bench testing of the Fliptronics board (http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Leon_Borre_WPC_Fliptronics_board_repair). Any suggestions? If it was just the one circuit, I could disconnect the all of the coils. But even with the fuse blown, and the Fliptronics ribbon cable connected, the CPU LEDs D19 and D20 remain off (and the DMD shows random pattern).

Is there any “typical” problem with the Fliptronics II board? Any key words to search on to help narrow down the issue? If I am going to need to do the bench test, any recommended power supplies?

Thx

I think I'm going to yank the power supply out of an old PC to do the pinwiki bench tests.

But please, any wisdom is welcome.

I had the Fliptronics board completely out, planning to do the bench testing. I haven't been able to get a power supply yet.

While it was out, I tested the BR1 on the Fliptronics board. It tested OK.

I reconnected the board, but removed the blown fuse: F903. I also removed the blown F112 fuse from the power controller board. Reinstalling / reconnecting implicitly means I have now reseated the ribbon cable.

TP1 reads 13.5V. Significant?

Now when I power up, the CPU LEDs D19 and D20 indicate proper behavior, and the DMD displays properly. So I must have been mistaken about the ribbon cable - or reseating it fixed THAT problem. Yeah.

I replaced F112, but left F903 out. F901, F902 and F904 are OK. I powered on again and started a game. The flippers did not work. That indicates an error to me. Since F903 is supposed to be for some solenoids and unrelated to the flippers. Also F112 did not blow - but I only had the machine powered up for a very short time.

So now I really think that I am at the point of bench testing the components on the Fliptronics board (per pinwiki). Sound about right?

Also, what is the risk and fix for the 13.5V on TP1?

I tested every discrete component on the Fliptronics board: all resistors, diodes, and transistors. They all seem to check out.

I put the board back, and this time the flippers worked. I'm not sure what's up with that. I decided to put F903 back in and give it a try. To minimize risk of blowing the fuse, I disconnected the outlane coil magnets (I believe these are the other two coils on the same circuit as the Ball Feeder coil). I played a game and put the game into multiball mode. The ball did not eject. I powered off and tested F903 and sure enough, the fuse was blown.

I measured with the multimeter in the diode setting. Since pretty much all transistors are in banks, I just verified that each one in the bank read the same. Since the flippers work, I know that most of the components work fine.

Another data point is, when I power on (with no F903), I get one of a few behaviors:
* Flippers don't work.
* Flippers both flip, DMD shows random pattern, CPU lights D19, D20 are off.
* Everything works fine, except the Ball Feeder circuit protected by F903.

I finally got a PC power supply. I went through the tests on pinwiki, and everything checks out (AFAIK - I didn’t build an LED bank like the guy on pinwiki).

FYI, pinwiki has an error/typo

"We need 5 and 12 volts to operate the board on the bench. Connect the tensions at J804/904, pin 4 and 5 is ground , pin 1 is 5 and pin 3 is 12."

FALSE

Pin 3 is unused (in fact, there is no actual pin). Pin 2 is 12V.

I went back over my notes, and a lack of attention to detail cost me a bunch of time. I thought that the circuit protected by F903 included the two outlane coils, and the ball feeder coil. It turns out, it also includes the trunk magnet coil. I had disconnected the outlane coils and ball feeder, but I did NOT disconnect the trunk magnet coil. THAT is the source of the blown fuse. When I disconnect THAT, I can leave the rest connected and the fuse does NOT blow.

The attached photo shows the trunk magnet coil still connected. Notice the blue tape near the connector. Notice the duct tape at the other end. Also, notice the 6 pin molex connector with nothing attached (I haven't even started looking into that - I doubt it's related). Anybody know what that connector goes to?

I already bought a new trunk magnet.

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