I've had my table (my first) for less than a month and I'm enjoying the heck out of it. Still in the getting-to-know-you phase of the relationship as I work my way though it, crossing jobs off the task list while steadily adding new items. Have used a lot of online suppliers, intentionally sampling different outfits to see what they're like. Also have used my local glass shop to replace both pieces of glass. Next up are the flippers, which have all wrong coils including mismatched left and right - going to do the Fliptronic style. I like the topper mods I see here too so I guess I'll add that to my list!

I took a cue from shanetastic with my back panel lightning board but I used poster board instead of paint to cover-up the PCB. Picked up some white PB from the art store and noticed some sheets that were silver on one side and gold on the other so grabbed that too. Offered each one up and decided that the silver coordinated well with the overall color scheme, especially with the silver-grey clouds on the left side, so I went with that. Easy to change though since it's just sandwiched against the board.
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Have you looked at this? Section 3n - battery issues causing adjustment failures.

http://techniek.flipperwinkel.nl/wms11/index3.htm

You might find this writeup by Wayne Eggert instructive regarding corrosion on U41:

http://www.techdose.com/repairlog/Whirlwind-Pinball-Repair--Battery-Corrosion--Display-Repair/344/page1.html

Agree with Dewey68 - check J6 thru J10 on the interconnect board (right side). Any burnt connectors need to be replaced and, unfortunately, the associated pins on the board as well.

#32 sits on a spacer on the left side under the flasher in front of the cellar. Having a tough time finding the other two - maybe mine are missing.

I've just finished installing a limited set of LEDs as a trial run for a full-on replacement. I have a kill-a-watt, so I thought it would be fun to see what kind of impact LEDs really have on power use.

I changed out all the lamps in the back box, the controlled inserts on the display board as well as the lightning panel insert above the playfield. The rest of the lamps in the game are still incandescent; the main display has also already been replaced with a LED unit.

Prior to the swap the game (in attract mode) was running 200-210 watts and 2 amps.

After the limited bulb swap it dropped to 160-165 watts and just under 1.6 amps.

Can't wait to finish the job to see the final results.

I used niftyled.com for this project.

The back box is mostly frosted warms whites (logo and vehicles) but I did use blue for the cloud guy's two eyes and cool whites for the rest of him. I also used their 455 super blinkers, substituting a color-changing SB blinker for the dome on the storm chasing van.

Non-ghosting cool whites went in both the controlled inserts and lightning panel as well as SB 906 flashers. The upper end of the playfield really gets lit up with that lightning panel setup!

Thought about it - figured a little goo gone would help it come off easily. Ended up replacing the translite with a NOS piece, which turned out to not have a sticker - the Williams logo is part of the art.

Apologies to WOZ people for "stealing" one of their toys but I couldn't resist grabbing one of Tim Mezel's twistnados for my WW. Trying out the lower bumper location for now - I'll try to get it lit up sooner or later.

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Some parts from Pinball Life came today that let me do a repair of something that had taken me quite a while to realize it was even a problem. One of those things that maybe you know isn't right but it takes a long time to get to the point where you really see it for what it is - for it to really register in your brain.

After switching over to LED I had some problems with a few 555 lamps in a couple of locations. Lamps not always lighting and others full on when they're not supposed to be. Slowly realized that they were all the lamps in switch matrix column #2 - the top drop target lane and the two outlanes.

The matrix says column #2 is transistor Q64 and, sure enough, the DMM says Q64 is bad.

Purchased a handful of TIP42 transistors for this order, just in case. R&R of Q64 and - sweet success - everything works properly! Finally, something that fixes the first time and doesn't make me hunt for it.

I hope those LEDs didn't get it too bad though. I understand that the failed transistor was probably letting through a lot more voltage than what they were looking for.

While I had the MPU out I also replaced all three of the diagnostic LEDs. Somebody had broken the two closest to the battery holder - not sure how that happened but it probably had something to do with those damn batteries. The ones I used have a clear lens (red emitter) so I did all three to keep them looking the same.

Still have things to work on but today was a good repair day.

Project Spotlight. Added spots to light up the center corridor as I like low ambient light for playing, which kind of makes it hard to track the ball sometimes. Not anymore!

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Suggestions (not from experience):

Gun Bluing - http://www.pinrestore.com/Supplies.html

Metal Blackening - http://www.eastwood.com/metal-blackening-system-set.html

Mine are all #6 as are the three in the ball lock lane.

No need to paint the lightning board - go to a craft store and get a piece of silver poster board (or other color of choice) and trim it to fit. Cut it right and the lamps will hold it in place.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/whirlwind-club-members-only/page/3#post-1233382

Added link for picture. No video but you get the idea - you don't see the green PCB anymore.

_{Post edited by hootowls: added link}

Are these what you mean? The one I have looks a little more orange than this but similar.

http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/CA-47B

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The Brown/Grey wire from that bundle goes to pin 1 on J11 - it's the only wire on that connector. It's listed on page 98 of the schematics at the bottom of the second column on the list of connectors for the Interconnect Board. I had to reconnect mine too as someone had cut the wire near the connector.

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Looking more into the manual - I'm citing the pages so you can verify:

J11/1 and J12/1 below it are both BRN/GRY wires on the interconnect board (pg 94) and supply 25V to solenoid 16 (pg 95) of which there are two. One is inside the back box insert board and the other is under the playfield (pg 42). I can't tell without opening up my game which BRN/GRY wire goes to which relay. The relays switch the power on and off to the GI lights in the back box and lower playfield - there's another solenoid (Sol 11) under the playfield, with a different power connection, that handles the upper playfield.

So if J11/1 is connected you should see problems in the GI lights not switching in either the back box or lower playfield (whichever one connects to J11/1). The GI light switching is connected to gameplay.

Hope this helps!

The Sol 16 relay really just switches the GI lights on and off - a good example of this is at the end of game while the little controlled lamp light show happens and the music plays - the GI lamps are off for that and then switch back on at the end of the show with an audible click and the game goes into attract mode. This would be for the back box, upper playfield and lower playfield from their respective solenoids (16 and 11). So I'm guessing that either the back box or lower playfield GI lamps are not switching for you - so then it's either the relay itself or the Q6 transistor on the MPU (which would affect both Sol 16 relays).

You can try swapping it with the same relay from under the playfield to see if you get different results.

I should've mentioned to check the solder joints on the pins when you check those connectors on the relay board - it could be as easy as cold (cracked) solder joints on those male pins.

There's one on EBay but prepare for $$.

There are two additional 24 VDC relays under the playfield that are part C-11902-1, different from the backbox. C-11998-1 seems to be the correct part number for the backboard relay - using a 24 VDC relay.

Check the solenoid table on page 32 of the manual, Sol 16 and note 4a. Here's another confirming source on C-11998-1:

http://www.greatlakesmodular.com/products/pinball/sy11rb1_a.html

Are you sure it's not a cold solder joint or a bad connector either on the relay board or at the interconnect board?

That table is confusing the way it combines the two relays into one entry.

Another thought, when you run the solenoid test does the lower playfield relay switch as expected for Sol 16? I suppose that would rule out the driver transistor.

My speaker looks like yours and is 8 ohms as well.

Mine was randomly doing this too but it turned out to be a break in one of the metal trough pieces.

It's great that you worked this out and then followed up here to close it out. I had my schematic out and was trying to learn by following your troubleshooting but I obviously was of no use. I had a transistor for a set of controlled lamps that took me the better part of a year to a) figure out that the lamps weren't behaving properly and, b) that it traced back to a flaky transistor. Thanks again for posting!

Check the all the connectors starting with the one on the display panel and follow it back to the interconnect board (J20), where it leaves the IB (J3) and then at the MPU (J6). Make sure they're all installed in the correct orientation. That column of transistors above J6 (Q80-87) controls those lights. The traces on the backside of the IB could also be burned but that's not very likely for those bulbs. I'm guessing one of the plugs isn't in quite right.

Yep, it normally blinks away. It's used during troubleshooting if the self test fails during power-on. See page 36 of the manual for more details.

Sorry, I missed that you also have a lower display problem - I just focused on the controlled lamps, which seem like a connector issue.

Have you run through basic display troubleshooting? Here are two places to review display problems.

http://www.pinwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Williams_System_9_-_11#Display_problems

http://techniek.flipperwinkel.nl/wms11/index3.htm#display

And you say "since this has happened" - what was that? Was everything working before?

That's great that your display and lights are working again - what was the fix?

As far as the extra ball lamp goes I'm going to suspect a bad transistor on the MPU. Do you see any other control lamp problems? Take a look at the lamp matrix table, row 4 (extra ball, Top Drop 75K, NW Arrow, etc) lamps - are they all behaving properly?

Here's the rubber pad page from the parts catalog.

http://www.planetarypinball.com/reference/partsmanuals/WMS_Parts_Red_16-9190-B/index.html#/616/

That looks nice!

Check the cabinet parts list here and see if any of these make sense.

http://www.planetarypinball.com/reference/partsmanuals/WMS_Parts_Red_16-9190-B/index.html#/187

Here are some shots here that might be able to get you going. I can try to dig up some more if you need them.

http://ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=2765

My machine came to me with various lamp issues that all traced back to bad transistors or, in the case of the lightning flashers, a bad resistor. Anyway, take a look at the solenoid table on page 32 of the manual and their test procedures for your next step to get an idea of what to check.

That's the same relay part number as the one in the backbox inner board, correct? Have you tried swapping it with the playfield relay board to verify it's the unit and not something upstream causing it to lock on?

Sorry, I thought it was the same as the backbox; is it the same as the other playfield relay? My memory is that two of the relays are the same.