More work with terrible results. I’m about ready to light this machine on fire and watch it burn.
Made a new wire ball guide replacement for the top of the playfield (which turned out good). Replaced left side switches for the eject hole and cannon. Fixed a couple of broken solder joints for the guard targets. Replaced coils for both kickers as the old ones were not right according to the manual.
Replaced the TIP102 at Q77. Turned the machine on. Fuse blown again, and now Q77 is blown again.
I really have no idea what to do. I’m tired of dumping money and time into this machine. I still haven’t played a single game with it WORKING.
Oh yeah, and now the display is out again.
But all is not lost.
Turns out that 2am isn’t the best time to test and fix pinball machines. I may have overreacted a bit, though I am still no closer to a fixed machine than I was weeks ago.
I have no idea how I got this wrong, but thankfully only the Q77 transistor was blown. The others are fine. I also realized that I installed the coils on the kickers slightly wrong (probably not a factor in my situation) but those have been set right. Tested for shorts from the cpu connectors and found none, so that’s good. If I disconnect the left kicker the fuse doesn’t blow, so there is still something wrong but I have no idea where to go from here. Will try again to replace Q77, Q76, and the D20 diode on the aux power board and see what happens.
I also found that the coil for the left eject hole is showing too high of resistance so that will need to be replaced (this is probably what’s blowing F4 fuse when it’s in ball search mode). I have a coil on hand so probably will do this tonight.
I’m still getting the phantom switch closure (false ball lock) when both flipper buttons are depressed and the ball is sitting in the left cannon. I will likely go ahead and replace the right side switches for eject hole and cannon as I already purchased the switches and one pinsider recommended this.
Lastly, I fixed the short on the flasher circuit but the bottom left flasher still isn’t working. More to troubleshoot.
With power cut off from the left kicker the machine plays, so at the very least Soren can have some fun games while I continue to work on it. Oh, and the display is working again, probably need a new ribbon cable.
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