(Topic ID: 232807)

Williams Flash project started today

By Pin-up

5 years ago



Topic Stats

  • 5 posts
  • 2 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 5 years ago by Pin-up
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    #1 5 years ago

    Set up the 2nd Williams Flash this evening and got started on it.

    Reflowed all of the connector pins, cleaned the connectors, and pulled all socketed chips and cleaned their legs on all boards in the back box and the sound board in the lower cabinet. Fuses were all pulled buffed up and reinstalled. All fuses tested good.

    Replaced the 5101 with NVram right away and removed the existing battery holder. Zero acid damage on this MPU. Awesome.

    Powered up the game and the left kicker (special solonoid #5, (21 in test) is locked on. I removed the wire from the driver board connector (2J12, pin 8 if I remember correctly) temporarily to test the rest of the game. came up in diagnostics right away. Set coin option setting 18 to 00 for free play and powered off and back on and we are in attract mode.

    There are zero feature lamps that work, but all of the GI is lit.

    Went into test mode and the displays are perfect.

    All coils fire except for the right kicker. And we have sounds as well. Need to turn background sound setting on in diagnostics to test that.

    Most switches seem to be working well, but the drop targets need to get a good cleaning. Time to take them apart and clean them up a bit.

    Issue to resolve:

    -clean up drop targets
    -no feature lights in back box or playfield
    -locked on coil

    For the locked on coil, I swapped out driver boards with a known working one from my Firepower and it works fine so issue is narrowed down to that specific driver board. Replaced the associated pre-driver and driver transistor and it's still locked on, time to move up the chain to the 7408 or PIA after a bit of poking around with the probe. One of the resistors for that coil on the driver board is just a bit out of spec as well. Going to replace that too and see what happens. I think I might have a test chip for the Williams system 3-6 boards here. I don't have a test LED, but I do have a probe.

    What pins do I need to be looking at on the 7408 and PIA for that special solenoid to see whos locked on, or should I just socket and replace both of them with a new driver/pre-driver all at once and that should be the whole chain.......

    The intermittent drop target issues I expect to be resolved after a good cleaning of all the contacts and boards with some possible adjustments of switches to be made.

    Any ideas on why all of the controled lamps would be out? All of my fuses are good. I've double checked them out of the fuse holders. Going to do some voltage testing to see if there is a break down somewhere.

    #3 5 years ago

    Major testing and progress late last night:

    Sound board is tested and is fully functioning. Turned on the background sound in the diagnostics and we have full background sound as well, but there is a LOUD speaker hum all the time, even in attract mode. Swapped speakers with no change. Speaker itself is grounded, and all screws are in the soundboard mounting holes. Something to look into yet.

    Right kicker coil is locked on. Still need to look into this one as well.

    Cleaned up both sets of drop targets and got all drop target issues resolved. The 3 bank wasn't making any sounds, but was resetting previously. The boards were a little gummed up with old lube and there was one wire that had a broken solder joint. Cleaned and re-flowed. The 5 bank wasn't resetting previously. The boards were a little gummed up with old lube, there were 2 wires on the 5 bank that were wired incorrectly, and there was one cracked solder joint on a wire. Cleaned, re-flowed, and corrected wiring. I'm glad I have a 2nd working Flash to look at for these drop targets!

    All switches are now good to go.

    Diagnosed the "all controlled lamps not working" issue as well. Started at the power supply output connector to test for the 16v lamp power and was only getting about 8v. Rechecked the fuse, and it is good, but the lower end of the fuse clip had zero continuity. There's the break down! Pulled the power supply, pulled the lamp fuse and buffed up the fuse clips. Good to go! We now have proper voltage and the feature lights are working. Went into diagnostic test mode and all feature lights are working correctly after replacing a couple burnt out bulbs.

    Went through and pulled all the old bulbs in the game and replaced with new. There was a pair of GI lights on the playfield that did not work because of a broken ground braid under the playfield. When you tip the playfield up and down it rubs right on the ground braid and it had broken. Re-routed the broken ground braid and all lights are now good to go.

    New ball, new rubbers. Let's Play.

    Got some good game play in on the machine and made sure all was working properly.

    2 issues remain:

    -locked on coil for left kicker
    -way louder than normal speaker hum

    #4 5 years ago

    Loud speaker hum issue resolved!

    I remembered I had a similar issue on my Bally Playboy where it would hum loudly all the time, but get even louder of a hum when it flashed the high score to date on the displays in attract mode. The solution in that case was to isolate the sound board by putting some nylon washers between the board and the mounting brackets.

    I put a nylon washer between the bracket and the pcb and another one between the pcb and the mounting screw.

    This completely eliminated all humming. Perfect!

    Obviously, it's still a great idea to recap this sound board as the caps look like they are probably original, but isolating the pcb from the grounded mounting brackets resolved the loud humming issue in this case.

    One more issue left:

    -locked on coil for left kicker.

    #5 5 years ago

    Last issue resolved!

    I pulled the driver board out to have a good look at it and make sure I didn't accidentally connect any solder pads when replacing the 2 associated transistors with the left kicker. I was looking at the pre driver and noticed it was a 2N5401. That's wrong! It should be a 2N4401. Must have gotten in to the 2N4401 bag on accident at some point in life. Whoops!

    Replaced the pre-driver with the correct 2N4401 and we are good to go!

    Flash is now working 100%.

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