Tech: Am I going to kill my FH???

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Going to try and help a fellow pin guy out with his FH, this is the
info that he sent me:

"I shopped the machine about a year and half ago. Worked when I took
it apart then.... A weird ground short on one of my switches that
totally screwed up the switch matrix. I tried everything and finally I
tried swapping cpu boards. When I did I accidentally plugged the
display board backwards into the cpu. Now all I get is a loud buzzing
sound from the display. So I've blown the display board... perhaps the
cpu. I've been too busy to send the boards out for repair. Not sure
who to trust. I'm trying to find a local tech to trace down the ground
fault. If you are really feeling helpful you could bring up your
display and cpu and swap them with my machine to see which one I blew
up."

He is going to be coming to my neck of the woods (Tampa) and I
suggested that he bring both his boards and he can try them in my FH.
Is this a stupid idea? How much danger am I putting my game in? I was
going to try his display board on my game first.

Mamushka

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

He wants to know what board is bad and I guess I was hoping to hear
someone say "I did the exact same thing and replaced a $0.30 part and
fixed it" I guess that probably is not going to happen

Mamushka

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

He's a nice guy, honest too. We traded games a while back and everthing
went great. He has about 7 or 8 games and is in school and works, so I
know he is busy, I think this game was just put on the back burner.
It's sounding like he just needs to send the boards out, like I said I
was just fishing for a possible easy fix that probably is not there.

Mamushka

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

The head count so far is two bad cpu's and a bad display board. You
could
replace the switch matrix IC's on the cpu's and try them in your game,
if
that works then try the display board with his cpu(s). He'll have to
fix the
switch matrix short in his game before he plugs repaired boards back in
though. LTG

Thanks Lloyd, I was looking for the proper order to to repairs to
minimize any further problems. I'll relay all of the info I get here to
him but he might just need to get someone to come out to him.

Mamushka

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Google the group for my Dr Dude blow up story and fixes. Try "cliffy dr
dude alive again" and see if what happened to me sounds more like what
happened to him

Mamushka wrote:
> Going to try and help a fellow pin guy out with his FH, this is the
> info that he sent me:
>
> "I shopped the machine about a year and half ago. Worked when I took
> it apart then.... A weird ground short on one of my switches that
> totally screwed up the switch matrix. I tried everything and finally I
> tried swapping cpu boards. When I did I accidentally plugged the
> display board backwards into the cpu. Now all I get is a loud buzzing
> sound from the display. So I've blown the display board... perhaps the
> cpu. I've been too busy to send the boards out for repair. Not sure
> who to trust. I'm trying to find a local tech to trace down the ground
> fault. If you are really feeling helpful you could bring up your
> display and cpu and swap them with my machine to see which one I blew
> up."
>
> He is going to be coming to my neck of the woods (Tampa) and I
> suggested that he bring both his boards and he can try them in my FH.
> Is this a stupid idea? How much danger am I putting my game in? I was
> going to try his display board on my game first.
>
> Mamushka
>

--
Cliffy - CARGPB2
A passion for pinball!
http://www.passionforpinball.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Thanks Cliffy, that's pretty much what I was looking for, it looks like
he needs just to send both boards off and get them checked and fixed.

Mamushka

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Why bother putting his bad boards into your game, he hasn't had them
repaired yet ? You already know he blew the piss out of them, putting them
into a good game won't fix them. LTG

"Mamushka" <jvcarlson@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1124331652.460951.34160@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Going to try and help a fellow pin guy out with his FH, this is the
> info that he sent me:
>
> "I shopped the machine about a year and half ago. Worked when I took
> it apart then.... A weird ground short on one of my switches that
> totally screwed up the switch matrix. I tried everything and finally I
> tried swapping cpu boards. When I did I accidentally plugged the
> display board backwards into the cpu. Now all I get is a loud buzzing
> sound from the display. So I've blown the display board... perhaps the
> cpu. I've been too busy to send the boards out for repair. Not sure
> who to trust. I'm trying to find a local tech to trace down the ground
> fault. If you are really feeling helpful you could bring up your
> display and cpu and swap them with my machine to see which one I blew
> up."
>
> He is going to be coming to my neck of the woods (Tampa) and I
> suggested that he bring both his boards and he can try them in my FH.
> Is this a stupid idea? How much danger am I putting my game in? I was
> going to try his display board on my game first.
>
> Mamushka
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

The head count so far is two bad cpu's and a bad display board. You could
replace the switch matrix IC's on the cpu's and try them in your game, if
that works then try the display board with his cpu(s). He'll have to fix the
switch matrix short in his game before he plugs repaired boards back in
though. LTG

"Mamushka" <jvcarlson@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1124332159.979339.135010@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> He wants to know what board is bad and I guess I was hoping to hear
> someone say "I did the exact same thing and replaced a $0.30 part and
> fixed it" I guess that probably is not going to happen
>
> Mamushka
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Have him send them to a competent
repair facility, and let them check them.

Maybe he'll tell THEM what really happened....

--
Fred
TX
CARGPB#8
******************


"Mamushka" <jvcarlson@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1124332159.979339.135010@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> He wants to know what board is bad and I guess I was hoping to hear
> someone say "I did the exact same thing and replaced a $0.30 part and
> fixed it" I guess that probably is not going to happen
>
> Mamushka
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

That's also my opinion - don't put these in a good machine.

Can anyone with some good pin repair technical background give more
explenation of this - if a cpu / fliptronics / sound / display board is
bad, can it break other boards too ?
Or if you plug in the flatcables in reverse or 1 pin offset - and then
so it's only 2 pins wrong or so that only 1 of the 2 rows is used)

I also noticed something similar when I was fixing games at an
operator..
He had a game with broken dmd driver board, the cpu also didn't boot
well.
I tried exchanging spare boards laying around and boards from some
other games.
The cpu didn't boot with the fliptronics board in ?
Lines came on the display.. switched some boards from another game (I
don't remember dmd driver or fliptronics, I think dmd driver) and this
caused the other game also to have horizontal lines in its display ?
Anyway I don't remember everything I switched/tested but I do know I
just stopped as I got the impression that I was destroying good boards
by putting them in this game..

Aeneas.
--http://www.flippers.be

 

[otto]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Sort of like a bad Std. Better to treat it with penicillin rather than pass
it around and hope it goes away.

You don't want those infected boards any where near your machine.

Your friend will understand.

Otto

CARGPB11

My web page: http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-Ottoslanding

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

"Mamushka" <jvcarlson@yahoo.com> wrote in news:1124331652.460951.34160
@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

> Going to try and help a fellow pin guy out with his FH, this is the
> info that he sent me:
>
> "I shopped the machine about a year and half ago. Worked when I took
> it apart then.... A weird ground short on one of my switches that
> totally screwed up the switch matrix. I tried everything and finally I
> tried swapping cpu boards. When I did I accidentally plugged the
> display board backwards into the cpu. Now all I get is a loud buzzing
> sound from the display. So I've blown the display board... perhaps the
> cpu. I've been too busy to send the boards out for repair. Not sure
> who to trust. I'm trying to find a local tech to trace down the ground
> fault. If you are really feeling helpful you could bring up your
> display and cpu and swap them with my machine to see which one I blew
> up."
>
> He is going to be coming to my neck of the woods (Tampa) and I
> suggested that he bring both his boards and he can try them in my FH.
> Is this a stupid idea? How much danger am I putting my game in? I was
> going to try his display board on my game first.

This story doesn't wash. Even if you have the DMD ribbon cable
completely flipped over, it doesn't cause things to blow; it just causes
the display not to work. (Unless you do something TOTALLY assinine like
have it flipped over and run it for 24 hours that way.)

I think he was screwing around with the power on and the screwdriver got
away from him. In either case, I wouldn't be volunteering to let him
blow up my machine.

How well do you know this guy? The "too busy.. don't know who to trust"
sounds like a load of horse manure to me.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Mamushka wrote:
> He is going to be coming to my neck of the woods (Tampa) and I
> suggested that he bring both his boards and he can try them in my FH.
> Is this a stupid idea? How much danger am I putting my game in? I was
> going to try his display board on my game first.

You sound like a good guy and I try to be that way as well... but...
I would *never* test any computer part by pulling out a good one and
installing a suspected one in its place. My son is a certified
Microsoft tech and he would have a fit over my even thinking of doing
that. Once you do that and find your pin doesn't work the only part you
can be sure of on your own pin is the good one you removed and if you
put that back into your pin and now your pin still does not work, then
you will find yourself in the same predicament as the person you were
attempting to help out. In fact, if he is the good guy you describe,
he will feel terrible if his boards damage your FH. The best help you
can give him is to suggest some reliable place where he can have the
boards tested. IMHO
Bob

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Yeah I posted another follow up back then that there was a bad diode at
D2, iirc, maybe it was D1? In any case it took out the 4mhz clock
oscillator, it's ttl controller chip, a few 6821 pia's, one game rom
and a bunch more stuff on the master display board like 4040's and
udn7180's. I think I lost 4 7180's and a few 4049's. Whatta mess

Cliffy
A passion for pinball!
www.passionforpinball.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Cliffy <crinear@comcast.net> wrote in news:IcmdnY_3XYBrYJ7eRVn-
oQ@comcast.com:

> Google the group for my Dr Dude blow up story and fixes. Try "cliffy dr
> dude alive again" and see if what happened to me sounds more like what
> happened to him

After googling that story (wow, missed THAT one the first time around!), I
have to ask... Did you ever go back to the guys power supply and figure
out what was wrong with it? (Sounds like +12 went over +5, but I'm only
guessing there.)