Hi everyone!

i just acquired a Williams Time Warp. she ran great for a few days, but i suspect some connections are loose, and im hoping thats all it is...but this is my first SS game, ive been working on EM's up until this point. ive been doing as much research into system 6 as i can, but ill bet one of you can point me in the right direction much faster. here are some symptoms:

display issues: when they are working correctly everything counts up and down and scores correctly, however the displays themsleves scroll from left to right like a marquee in times square...this goes for all 4 score displays as well as the ball count and credit displays. when i say they scroll, the numbers basically turn on and off and it makes it look like the lights are scrolling from left to right. its very annoying and could probably cause an epileptic seizure. plus i you-tubed a time warp machine being played and their numbers dont scroll like mine do, so i figure its got to be wrong.

when the displays arent working right (not that they are in the above-described state) numbers will not count properly, scores will jump around all over the place, the ball count unit will go from ball 1 to 0 on balls two and three, then pop back to ball 4 on ball 4, and 5 on ball 5. usually when the game is acting this way it is accompanied by various sounds from the speaker that dont seem to occur during "normal" game play.

currently the displays will not even light up. there is some orange glow in places, which tells me im getting power, but nothing is communicating to the displays to tell them what to do, if i understand it correctly. sometimes you can get the displays to show some numbers, but theyre often missing or adding segments and generally looks like jumbled nonsense.

possibly related is the credit units on the coin mechs...they used to add properly, but not so much anymore. the third slot in particular used to add one credit each time you hit it, and on the fourth credit it would add two credits...now it adds nothing except for the two credits on the fourth hit...all of this started happening at around the same time. correlation is not necessarily causation, but i thought it important to note, in any event.

finally, im blowing solenoid fuses left and right. i even foolishly had to substitute a 5 amp slow blow because i was out of 2 amp slow blows (because i was already out of 2.5 amp slow blows, which is what it requires) and the 5 amp cooked too. so now im waiting for more fuses to show up in the mail before i dare go any farther. and i should have probably ordered more than 5. that was about as dumb as sticking a 5 amp in there. which, oddly, is what was in there when i bought it...a 5 amp fast blow that eventually cooked.

in my research i discovered that many of the above problems can be traced to the 40 pin connector between the driver board and the MPU board, so i took everything out of there and re-flowed all the pins on both boards, as well as all the pins for the various other connectors on each board. there has been no discernible change, and i did not notice any burnt pins or anything that would lead me to believe anything else was terribly wrong.

in the past week i had some luck replacing the solenoid fuse and trying to make sure all the connectors were seated properly, and then the display would be ok for a bit (though still scrolling) and everything would work. we could play for a few hours, but in time, and with a little tilting of the machine, something works loose again and the next thing you know youve got a blown solenoid fuse and display issues accompanied by random sounds.

i did have the machine plugged into a power strip that had no earth ground, so i took the time to install a proper receptacle in the game room this morning and replaced the power strip with one that still had the 3rd prong on it. its an old house, what can i say. im still not necessarily convinced this is main problem, but it cant hurt.

i guess thats about it for now...any help you guys can give me in determining where to look and what to test would be greatly appreciated. im handy with a VOM and a soldering iron, and ive got no problem replacing every damn cap and resistor in this thing if thats what it takes. but really id just like to hone in on the likely suspects and just fix them before loading the parts-cannon and having a mad minute.

thanks again for any help or advice you can give!

Brian Foose

UPDATE:

i discovered that the previous owner, or more likely, the owner previous to him, had used (and you should brace yourself) a piece of masking tape to secure one of the two 100uF/150V electrolytics on the power board...yes, they used effing masking tape...the bottom lead was broken clean off at the boards surface.

after resoldering in the lead, my display issues have largely vanished....that is to say they no longer scroll.

the ball count issue is still present...ball one is one, ball two is zero, etc.

there is also a weird droning noise that comes from the speaker and occurs after you start a game. sometimes various pop bumpers or something shakes it loose but as soon as you die and the next ball kicks out the droning starts again. curiously, the droning stops when the game goes into two player mode, which it likes to do at random after hitting the start button only once.

also, the coin mech on the right started acting correctly again. go fig.

i am starting to wonder why i ever decided to move into solid state. life as an EM guy was so much easier! its like "oh, what isnt working? that thing....well did you try fixing it? yup....did it fix it? yup. cool. problem solved."

i do enjoy a challenge...

not that anyone is out there paying attention, but ive got some theories. more later.

good talk,
Brian