Hello,
I'm just learning about boards. I bought a beat up Stellar Wars that doesn't work, just to see if I can fix it. I've been following Vid's guide (thank you for creating it) and bullet proofing the power board. History- The game turned on and played for a minute when I bought it and now it's stuck in 04 mode. I think I might have crossed a socket wire, but not sure. So maybe the IC19 is out? However, before messing with chips, I want to make sure the power is good. I've replaced the capacitors on the power board, reflowed connections and replaced the 40 pin.
Can anyone tell me what this giant capacitor does (big green one in 4th. pic)? Looks like a portion of the power supply, but I didn't see anything on replacing it. Also, I didn't see it in the schematics. I've included some pictures of the power board, in case anybody can spot something. Also, the power cord that goes into the wall is spliced and looks old with electrical tape. I plan on replacing that.

Thank you
J.R.

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That's for the lamp matrix

04? Sounds like dead batteries. Did you open the coin door and flip the power switch on/off/on rapidly?

The big green cap hardly ever goes bad.

Yes, I replaced the batteries and was changing out some bulbs and forgot the socket wasn't screwed in under the playfield. I did some other work and the next time I turned it on, the machine was stuck on 04. However, every time I turn on the machine on the score board lights keep dimming and getting worse. So I thought maybe power.
My schematics do have the batteries with positive up and somewhere else I read the positive should be down. So, I've tried both ways with the same results.

I pulled out my batteries and noticed the bottom right brass is missing off the battery holder. It must have fallen off when I was replacing them. Could this be the causing the 04 mode? I thought the machine would run if the batteries were out of the machine?

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Yeah, that's probably it. Get you some NVRAM or at least a remote holder.

I usually remove the battery holder now and install NVRAM

https://nvram.weebly.com

Thanks guys. Is there a forum that tells you how to hook up the remote battery holder? It seems simple enough. The NVRAM looks a little complex.

The big cap is for the switched lamps, together with a bridge rectifier.
The other bridge rectifier is for the coil power.
You should at least place some fuses inline with the bridge rectifiers to avoid a possible fire hazard when a short occurs.
You can do all that (replace the big cap, bridge rectifiers, add fuses) with one of my Bridge Boards.
Look on my website http://www.inkochnito.nl for more information (click on the Bridge Board image).

Available from Big Daddy Enterprises ($49) http://bigdaddy-enterprises.com/boards/boards-index.htm#newboards,
and Marco Specialties ($59,99) https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/5040-09051-RC

Peter
http://www.inkochnito.nl

I knew I saw it somewhere.

LOL too much awesome for one page! Or ten!

We are “all bridged up” at the museum with Inko’s boards.

NVRAM is awesome. If you can desolder/solder a chip, you can do it easily. Vid had instructions on how to do that in this thread. Here is what you want:

https://nvram.weebly.com

Best change I made, never have to fool with batteries again.

I ordered the fuse holders for the bridge rectifiers and a AA battery holder. I'm just going to keep it simple for now and get the machine running. I appreciate everyone's advise. I'm probably going to pay up and buy a score board display. The lights continue to get dimmer even after swapping the main display.

I replaced the battery holder and I'm still stuck in diagnostics mode (04). I think the IC19 (cmos ram 5101 ) is bad. I ordered a used one from Ed. However, my schematics seem highly inaccurate. Can anyone tell me by looking at the picture, which chip is IC19? I don't want to guess and the chip numbers don't seem to match up. I'm sure someone could point it out or circle it fairly quickly. I believe this is a system 4, Stellar Wars.

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This is a System-6 board.
I've put a circle on the ram 5101 chip, but are you sure battery power is present?
New batteries don't mean anything if they aren't making contact.

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I also had a funky problem once where I was stuck in diagnostic mode because the screw in I believe the upper right hand corner of the battery holder was not present. Amazingly, this screw serves as a connection point between the front and back of the board. Withit it, the circuit was not complete and kept the machine in diagnostic mode.

So I have a system 6? That might be why my schematics aren't matching up. The battery holder and batteries are new. When I connect the multimeter to the battery holder, I can see power running through the holder and CPU. So I'm assuming it's connected correctly.

I believe there was a hanging light socket under the playfield and it bumped into something, causing a short and possibly blowing the 5101. I'm just guessing at this point. I'll be working on it again tonight.

When I first bought the machine, the boards were out of the game and the seller thought his Dad had the boards worked on. I brought the game home and installed the CPU, driver boards and the machine worked a little. I then replaced the batteries, replaced some bulbs, added some flipper buttons and the machine was stuck in 04 mode. I accidentally left the bulb sockets hanging and thought they may have shorted.

I don't see much corrosion on the board or around the batteries. I do see some lumpy lines under the green protective coating, mostly in the corner of the CPU. Is this corrosion? I'm also noticing my solder job on the bottom left leg didn't completely get around, but the other side is solid. I believe the 5101 chip is pictured next to the batteries. Is that the correct chip? My new chip says 5101 on it.

I appreciate the help and don't want to take up this great forum. Feel free to kick me out.

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I have juice to the 5101. However the first 6 legs (closest to the batteries) coming from the 5101 are of lesser value than the rest of the legs. I'm not sure if this is normal.

Do yourself a favour and remove the batteries and the 5101.
Put in a Nvram chip and be done with it.
https://nvram.weebly.com/

Don't forget to put in fuses before your bridge rectifiers or use one of my Bridge Boards.
http://home.kpn.nl/p.koch3/

Peter
Http://www.inkochnito.nl

Thx Inko, I'll try that next time. I already had the 5101 and battery holder enroute. I do believe the Nvram is the way to go.

Update, I replaced the battery holder and 5101. The good news is it's not stuck in 04 mode anymore. However the displays are blank and every time I turn the game on and off a random coil fires. Additionally the machine won't give me a credit or play. If I have the coin door open and push the diagnostics button a different coil will fire and the leds are some times both red, top red or not red at all. As I work through these various issues, I'll create a new thread. Thanks for the help. You guys hold a lot of information and I appreciate you sharing.

Da-Shaker I haven't gone back to read all of your posts so if you already done this please ignore my advice . My Firepower did goofy stuff like you describe until I changed the 40pin inter-board connector (between the MPU and the Driver Board) and the chip sockets. My experience was that, after I replaced the 40pin connector, flexing the board a bit caused old solder joints on the sockets to open. Replacing these fixed my issues. What to replace and how to replace is covered at the beginning of this thread.

I'm sure you can get it working right. It just takes time and patience (and solder).

Back on... I believe page 2, Vid talks about adding the additional fuses. I am in Mouser right now looking at fuses.
While I tinker and play with micro controllers n such, I don't really deal with fuses on any regular basis. So I am looking for something that can handle 13.5, and 25.5 VAC. I am finding fuses for things up into the hundreds of volts, but not so much for the lower voltage.
So... Do I use fuses rated for 125VAC @ 8A, or do I need to find a lesser value like a 32 VAC @ 8A?
This question is also values for the rest of the fuses. I am finding prices up to 9 and 10 dollars for something that I would think would be around 30-40 cents. But it's the lower voltages which cause this.
Lastly, do fuses care if they are AC or DC? It's not like a diode, or cap where it's singular direction, so I would think it does not matter. Thoughts?

The voltage just needs to be higher than what you're using. Amperage is the thing that really matters. You don't really care if too much voltage goes through, that's not the type of issue you need to worry about with pinball machines.

If you get your fuses from pinball life or GPE, they are WAY cheaper than mouser or digi-key.

BrewNinja , I have to place an oder from Mouser anyways because of all the caps, and interconnects.
I was looking at the 8A SloBlo and saw them for $.36.

So, if I am only concerned with making sure that it is sloblo and 8A (and obviously that it's the correct size), this should do the trick, correct?
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/530-3SB8-R

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Those should work. I've never seen any that cheap before on their website. Maybe there were out of stock the last time I looked. Nice find!

TTI has the best price on fuses. Usually 10-30 cents each. MOQ is usually a box or half a box tho (50-100pcs).

In my data collection for the needed things, I was reading the Molex datasheet for the 40 pin interconnect. As I understood it, the reason why we needed to update the pins was that they were only rated for 25 cycles of connection / disconnection. There are many places where I have read that the new pins (while no argument... completely needed) were better as there was not the problem with the 25 connection cycle issue. BUT, while I am checking out the datasheets, or several different flavors, they too have a maximum 25 cycles. So... I am a little confused. Now, obviously things will be happy and secure for quite a long time once swapped out, but I was hoping for a little more than 25.

Any thoughts here?

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Don't sweat it. In a home environment if you need to take the boards apart more than 25 times you have bigger problems than header pins. Those pins are probably square instead of round so there is much more contact area.

Cool. I am just trying to understand what I am about to put in the machine and why vs. just following a recipe. It helps when things go wrong (which of course they never do. )

Got it. Thanks Vid! Initially, I started looking at great plains, but they were out of too many things (BK High Voltage, BK PS, BK, Sound PS, 5101). That's why I started looking at Mouser. I hate throwing money away and many times shipping is the killer of all projects. But I did check them out.

My only issue right now, is that Mouser is not stating what the overall pin length of the headers are. I was trying to source some longer pins.

One thing, just because it looks like Great Plains is out of something send him a message. Never hurts and a bunch of times he may have it anyway.

So... I have been seeing this spoken about in several places. Is this a straight replacement? Take out the 5101 and solder this in?
From what I can gather, the circuit is good for 100+ years, so... well after we're gone. I suppose those kids with their new fangled holodecks will have to replace it in 2187.
I will probably visit this once I get the PS rebuilt and lamp matrix working properly. I was going to grab another 5101 as it was something I had to replace when I got the machine. I was going to put it in the head as a sort of break in case of emergency. I am doing something I originally wanted to do, but never did... having a full assortment of fuses and the most replaced items on hand and in the box. I know that for the length of time I have had the machine, I have been very lucky. But from what I read, for a little over the cost, and a pack of batteries, not having to ever replace another battery? It seems like a no brainer.

I will ask this. I have seen that some people are going through a lot of diodes for coils n such. Should I have a hand full of some sort of beefy diodes which I can swap out in areas of high abuse.

Also, I saw a video where a guy was talking about putting staples on his system or driver board (sorry, I don't remember which). I have been trying to find the video for the past 20 minutes so I could link to it, but I am at a loss here (I think I found it on the Black Knight members page). But... Something he was talking about stronger flippers? He was pointing to an area (upper system board) saying that they needed to be zero ohm, or just a jumper. I have a whole line of diodes up there. Am I missing something here. Or is this a legit operation?

So... this is where things get interesting. I have a BK Limited Edition which came after the original run. So, I would figure that many of the features would be more mature Sys 7 changes, but I do have a transformer in the head, and while I understand Black Knight to be System 7 it looks like I might have some sys 6 boards. I guess that makes sense if they were just swapping boards back in the day vs. making repairs on site.
On the Power supply I have a 12,000uF filter cap (about to be upgraded to 18k uF 25v based upon previous comments in this thread*).
EDIT: Found it https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-bulletproofing-williams-system-6/page/6#post-2230926

So, at the risk of being repetitive... on the driver board, if they are NOT zero ohm, or jumpers, (they look to be 330 and 4.7k ohm), the 330s should be replaced with the zero's or jumpers, to make it universal, correct?

In my cart I also have 10 IRF9Z34NPBF fets per your recommendation (+ ordering a couple of extras). I will pull the resistors and replace with jumpers.
But, I have some other folks mentioning the N channel replacements too, but I have not seen a real confirmation if this is a necessary swap, or if this is a just a suggestion, or... not really necessary, but you can if you wanna.
(link to the N channel suggestion) https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-bulletproofing-williams-system-6#post-682565

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This is very true. I have a test fixture and every couple months i have repin the power connectors from to many insertion cycles. You eventually rub the plating material on the crimps and the posts.

I do honestly get more than 25 cycles before there is a problem and low voltage / low current stuff can get way more cycles before problems show up. I am sure 25 cycles is a conservative number to cover their ass.

"The game resets when i hit both flippers"

Check +5v on power board. Shows 5.0v
check +5v on drvier board by connector 4.8v.
check +5v on the mpu by connector 4.6v.

repin the MPU power plug and then resets go away and the MPU shows +5.0v just like the power board.

The sys 6 psu board is normal if the transformer is in the head. Curious if other LEs have it in the head...

If I remember right only the early Black Knights had the transformer in the head. All the limiteds were late run. Something doesn't add up. Do your troughs have micro
Switches? Sounds like maybe ou have a "regular" converted to limited.

Maybe the LE used a surplus of left over parts or something similar? IPDB doesn't have any interior pictures of the LE...

Yes. Micros in a couple of places, but leafs everywhere else.

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That would be normal for the limited. The troughs have micro's and the others have leaf switches. PBR had the conversion kits for a while.

Hey all, I am working on the sound board and on C26. Both the schematic and the previous C26 show the positive side going to the edge which in most situations is ground. In fact on both sides, there are other caps with the - negative side going to the edge. Sooooo.... just making sure, I know that there have been misprints in the past, so is this correct?

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C26 is a filter for the negative 12VDC, so it's hooked up backwards to compensate. The 'negative' side of a cap goes to the 'more negative' voltage, not necessarily ground.

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