The Pinball Diaries

Removed the power driver board from the machine, making careful note of all the jumpers.

Disconnected switch matrix row (J209) and column (J207) connectors from cpu board. Now machine sez:

CHECK FUSES 114, 115

Checked fuses, both are good. Hmmm. LED 1 is off on power driver board. TP3 tests at .463 volts. It’s supposed to be 12V. This means the switch matrix is not getting power.

Checked some more test points:

Following advice in Clay’s guide I checked for proper AC voltage at J101 and J102 on PDB:

These numbers were a little weird, so I checked the AC voltage at the molex connector going from the line filter to the transformer: 125VAC. Perfect.

After playing around a bit I found that with J102 disconnected J101 pin 7 read 13.8VAC and pin 1 read 8.6VAC. Since these were close to the correct value I decided that this part of the circuit is probably okay and just doesn’t read correctly with everything hooked up.

This is my first time tackling an electronics problem on any of my machines.

Aw crap. Turned the machine on, and it starts firing solenoids like crazy and moving the guns back and forth and complains:

GND. SHORT, ROW 1 IS STUCK CLOSED

This ain’t good.

I glued the broken plastic piece on the drop target assembly with Medium Pro-CA modeling glue (Cyanoacrylate^[1]). Plastic is nice and firm. Glued not just to itself, but also to the metal plate it’s riveted to. Yay! Here’s a photo after gluing:

Re-installed the assembly in the machine…works great.

Placed three thick washers (in addition to the one already there) underneath the bottom of the spiral launch ramp to give it a little more clearance.

Machine’s in good overall shape now.

^[1] I said in the previous ST:TNG entry that I was going to use epoxy. Not sure why I didn’t. — 11/14/2006

Much to Bill H.‘s chagrin, I replaced the RAM backup batteries. Bill lost his 5.5 billion high score.

Replaced missing jet bumper cap.

Ug. Now the drop target behind the Borg ship is screwed up. Target won’t always stay in the up position and the machine rapid fires it. Sheesh. It’s not like I don’t have a day job…

Disassembled and removed the ’1-Bank Drop Target Assembly’, part A-14615, page 2-27 (that’s the drop target behind the borg ship). Item #14 in the diagram (‘Single Stop Target’) is cracked in half. It’s been glued at least once before. I’m pretty sure I glued it when I first got the machine (before starting the journal). Here’s a photo of it, and the diagram from the manual:

I’m gonna have to glue the plastic again, but this time I’m gonna try using epoxy.

I replaced the coil sleeve in the assembly while I had it out since the one in there was filthy.

While I was swinging the playfield into the upright position, I noticed that the backbox felt really flimsy and had a lot of play to it. I checked the bottom corner hinges inside the backbox and the nuts were super-loose. Tightened ‘em up and backbox feels nice and solid.

Test Report:

CHECK SWITCH 32 UNDER LEFT GUN SW. 2
CHECK SWITCH 33 UNDER RIGHT GUN SW. 2
CHECK SWITCH 36 UNDER LEFT GUN SW. 1
CHECK SWITCH 38 LEFT GUN SHOOTER

Ran the ‘Right Under Divertor’ & ‘Left Under Divertor’ tests.

Test Report:

CHECK SWITCH 32 UNDER LEFT GUN SW. 2
CHECK SWITCH 33 UNDER RIGHT GUN SW. 2
CHECK SWITCH 34 RIGHT GUN SHOOTER
CHECK SWITCH 36 UNDER LEFT GUN SW. 1
CHECK SWITCH 37 UNDER RIGHT GUN SW. 1

Tested:

• 36 OK

• 37 OK

Machine is happy again after testing just those two switches. Go figure.

Cleaned the playfield with Wilcat No. 125. Wow! Plays fast! So fast that it broke one of the lane guides above the jet bumpers. Damn.

The guns have spontaneously stopped working again.

10x multiplier bulb is working again (with no intervention from me).

Test Report:

CHECK SWITCH 32 UNDER LEFT GUN SW. 2
CHECK SWITCH 33 UNDER RIGHT GUN SW. 2
CHECK SWITCH 34 RIGHT GUN SHOOTER
CHECK SWITCH 36 UNDER LEFT GUN SW. 1
CHECK SWITCH 37 UNDER RIGHT GUN SW. 1

Swtich 34 tests okay. I powered off the machine to scout under the playfield, then realized I forgot to empty the balls. After powering back on, new test report:

CHECK SWITCH 37 UNDER RIGHT GUN SW. 1
CHECK SWITCH 38 LEFT GUN SHOOTER

I went ahead and tested all of ‘em despite the reduced test report:

• 38 OK
• 36 OK
• 32 OK
• 37 OK

• 33 OK

Everything seems happy now and the machine is using the guns.

10x multiplier bulb is out.

Set up ST:TNG after 10 months in storage. Machine is in pretty much the same state as when I left it. Things of immediate concern are:

• Machine thinks that both guns are dead.
• Jet bumper cap is still off (this is not a surprise).
• “Beta Quadrant” ramp is still screwed down too tight
• End of the spiral ramp is a little too low causing the ball to bump against it on its way into the “Holodeck” lane.

• Need to run test report