Whirlwind
Williams, 1990I turned on my WW, started playing and everything seems to work, but the discs on the PF won't spin. I checked all of my fuses w/ a mm, they all checked out. I traced the big red wire from the disc motor to the interconnect board and made sure it was seated firmly. The molex connector did not appear to be burned. The discs themselves spin freely so it's not a mechanical issue. I'm at a loss as to what to do next. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Swenny
Yep, they spin freely by hand. I need to check the power at the motor. Just not sure how to do that. Presumably use my multimeter, but what setting and what do I touch w/ the probes?
Well, it's fixed...sort of. I put it in test mode for the spinner motor solenoid and nothing happened. While I was examining it I gently pushed on the cement looking block on the back of the circuit board and the motors started spinning! So I'm guessing there is a bad connection on the circuit board that is attached to the back of the motor. I played several games and everything seemed to work fine. Afterwards I lifted the playfield to take a look again and noticed that the "cement block" was warm to the touch. Is it supposed to be warm, or is that a problem? Also, it appears the "cement block" was attached to the pcb w/ some type of rubber cement. Is that normal or should it have been soldered together?
Thanks for the help guys.
P1030572.JPG
P1030573.JPGThat "cement block" is a resistor. If you look in the first picture you can see it's a 10 ohm resistor.
Here's a picture of mine. (My Whirlwind is in pieces so it was easy to take the picture.) Mine has a bit of adhesive holding it to the board, but not nearly as much as yours. If you look on each side of yours you'll see where it's soldered to the board. I'd reflow the solder where the leads come through the board. It sounds like you have a cold solder joint. Maybe that was someone's fix, glue the hell out of it to keep the joint making contact! 
Don't worry about the resistor getting warm.
photo.JPGThanks Dewey, that's kind of what I was thinking but wanted to double check. What temp should I use when soldering on a pcb? I've never soldered on a pcb before. Also, I presume you use a small tip and a small diameter solder? Anything else I should be aware of.
If you have a soldering station, I would think 700 degrees or so should work. You can get by with a soldering iron from Radio Shack, etc. You may not need any additional solder. If you use a cheap soldering iron, don't hold it on the joint too long, but really this should be a pretty easy joint to solder. You're not replacing a component, just reheating the old solder enough to eliminate a crack if there is one. Don't worry, you'll do fine.
OK guys. Back to the drawing board. The discs still don't spin when the storm starts. I was able to check the motor itself and confirm that it works so that can be ruled out as the problem. I replaced all 3 of the transisitors on the board. I've checked the continuity on the board as much as I can and everything works there as well. I'm at a loss as to what the problem is. Anyone have any further ideas?
Bump. Anybody got any ideas on what to try next? I took the motor and card up to Lloyd in Hopkins. We checked the motor and it is good. We couldn't get it to spin when we put power on the contacts where the wires solder onto the card that is attached to the back of the motor (see pics above), but we only tested it w/ 12v. Lloyd thought it probably works, just not testing it w/ enough voltage. He didn't have any other ideas, other than he suspected that it may not be getting a signal from the MPU.
I'm stuck and need some direction on what to try next. Thanks.
My spinning discs were the same way when I first got my Whirlwind. Mine turned out to be the solder joints for the big ceramic resistor. It is a bit tricky to get a good solder job on it. I was able to make that diagnosis by having the machine in the spinning disc test mode and reach in there and wiggle the resistor some. I could make the discs work on and off by doing that. Now they have been very reliable with nice, robust solder job.
Otherwise if you KNOW your motor is good and you KNOW the machine is feeding it proper voltage when it should, it has to be on that board on the motor. They can be bought new if need be.
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Sacramento, CA