Ok, I'm starting to think that pinball ownership is like 40% play, 60% work.

A weird thing happened to me tonight on STTNG. Last ball, had two balls left in play during the Borg multi ball. Both balls came out of the popper and when I hit the left flipper nothing happened. When I hit it again (perhaps with a little extra force ) the game went dark and the display went wonky. You could kind of make out what was happening, but there was garbage on the screen, too. After a second or two, the display went dark, everything lit back up again, and the display acted like nothing happened. It was not quite a cold reset...it picked right back up where it left off, even did the match and post-game routine.

In the last week I've had a couple times where the left flipper also doesn't behave properly, but it works the second time I push it.

I also had a weird thing happen the other night when locating a burned out flasher. I had the game propped up on the kickstand with the coin door closed so I had high power. I reached in the side to cycle through the test menu, and when I did the game did a hard reset. I don't know what I hit, but it easily could have been the right flipper.

I recall reading the description for a thermistor at Marco, and I'm wondering if that might be the cause? I hate when this stuff happens at the end of the week!

I'm too tired to start troubleshooting now, but I'll go through the transformer connectors tomorrow. I replaced J120 and J121 with Molex connectors a few weeks ago after one of the pins on J121 fried. I checked all the other IDC connectors, too, but I guess messing with them could have caused things to loosen up even more.

Any place I should focus on first? It's been eons since I did any hardcore electronics work. I can solder well enough, and I've done plenty of board work, but troubleshooting board components isn't my strong suit, so if there's something I should look at on the board, please tell me how to test it

Thanks

Could there be a diode issue on the flippers? I've been searching around and have seen that come up. That would mean that it wasn't related to the lamp testing or I have a lot of stuff going on!

Connectors seem ok. I've got a few BR's on the way from Great Plains (although Ed is closed until next week, so that stinks), plus the thermistor just in case. I'll replace the diodes just in case, too...would appreciate a point in the right direction, though, rather than the shotgun approach.

Thanks,
Gabe

Does that explain the flipper problem since those go to a different board?

Oh...what's the Fliptronic board in the upper left corner do, then? Is that just the logic to give the flippers the same feel as they used to have despite the fact that they're optos? If so...whoa.

Thanks guys, I'll give all that a shot. I've been dreading my first backbox problems...let's hope it's an easy one. I feel really comfortable working my way through the playfield. I guess this is a decent intro to the next phase of working on these things.

Hey, Cleveland! I'm from there originally...Olmsted Falls. "Watchdog" is a new term to me. Is it something that maintains 5v somehow?

Check out this little gem. Seems there were two wires going into the flipper opto wiring connector (black and blue) that were spliced but never covered by a previous owner. What are the chances that these touched each other or something else and caused my problem?

IMG_2656.jpg

Anyone know what that dangling connector by the plumb bob is for? There doesn't appear to be anything nearby. Bill validator, maybe?

Just wanted to update this thread and point to the follow-up thread that I used to document the actual problem with this. Turns out I have a CPU board problem, either with the blanking circuit (which I think is also called that Watchdog circuit) or the CPU/ASIC themselves. Yuck.

Anyway, here's the thread. If anyone is a logic guru and can offer analysis, that'd be great. As it stands, I think I've got it isolated to those components though.

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/lights-cutting-out-on-sttng-not-resetting-though

I'll take a stab at it first. I've done board work before, but was trying to avoid it because I didn't have a soldering station. I ordered one of those and a handfull of chips from Mouser and I'll give it a whirl. I have to replace U5 and U21.