Firepower intermittently blowing solenoid fuse ..

[goodolddays]

Gday all.
About a week before Easter my daughter and I were giving Firepower a hammering . It started saying "firepower one one" in the middle of game play + some other occassional phrases .

Next time I turned it on, no solenoids . Found solenoid fuse blown . Had a look under the hood , all solenoids measured OK , all diodes secure (except one side of one on the left flipper, and earth wire off on right sling). Fixed those , replaced fuse , ran solenoid test OK , played a couple of games and  fuse blew again).

Hmm .. measured BR2 .. it was measuring a little low (.35V , but no open or shorts). As it was original, thought maybe it is breaking down under load ?
Have just replaced it with a new one, ran solenoid test again , pulsing each solenoid 6 or so times , fuse held .
Just played about 12 games OK .
I had run out of 2.5A slow blow so have a 2A slow blow in it at the moment .

Fingers crossed the BR was the problem .. only time will tell .. what do you guys think of my theory ?

Cheers
Dave

[pinnies4me]

Fingers crossed the BR was the problem .. only time will tell .. what do you guys think of my theory ?

Seems sound, similar to an issue I had with a Gottlieb once. But that 0.5 amp can make a difference, be worth upping it if you get further blowing before investigating further - and avoid the cheap Ebay fuses, they seem to be more a problem than a cure from member reports.

[goodolddays]

Seems sound, similar to an issue I had with a Gottlieb once. But that 0.5 amp can make a difference, be worth upping it if you get further blowing before investigating further - and avoid the cheap Ebay fuses, they seem to be more a problem than a cure from member reports.

Yeah Nick .. will grab some probably from Greg when I place another order .. just bought some parts from him .. unfortunately before this problem surfaced .. Jaycar (or Dick Smith)  don't stock the 2.5A SB in 3AG .

[goodolddays]

Hopefully now fixed. 
Just played another 12 games with no probs.
Machine is definitely back to her mean ass self . 24 games and only got multiball once .. missed it 5 times on the 3rd ball .. definitely much harder than the 90's games I was playing at an AA meet last night .

[goodolddays]

OK .. its not fixed .. fuse just blew again .. had played quite a few games since I replaced BR2 with no probs .. the only clue is just before the fuse blows many of the score display digits go off .. some  in each display 

[TUF-427]

Dave,

with the strange behaviour you have mentioned happening just before,

is the Cpu locking up and locking on a coil or two and popping the fuse?

Psu voltages ok?,connectors etc...

[humpalot]

Dave,

with the strange behaviour you have mentioned happening just before,

is the Cpu locking up and locking on a coil or two and popping the fuse?

Psu voltages ok?,connectors etc...

Good points.

Given the board repairs that you have had done, I'd be looking closely at the connectors.  Might pay to re pin the power from the power supply to the cpu.

[goodolddays]

Thanks guys .. have aleady had Ken (Skybeau) go over the whole machine a couple of years ago and he replaced and repinned connectors so I don't have reason to suspect them . Power supply was also rebuilt at that time . No coils lock on before the fuse blows but (and not sure if I mentioned it before) but just before the fuse blows many of the digits in the score displays go blank .. some in each display .. Buggered if I can see how that could be related to the circuit for the solenoids tho.

Because the problem is intermittent I think I will have to invest in a circuit breaker to help  make easier to track the fault down .. I am a bit lost as to where to start .. maybe replace all the coil diodes, though I think Ken already did that when he had it .

Appreciate the suggestions and please keep them coming as I need help with figuring this one out.

Also the CPU board and driver board are refurbished boards I bought from Ken.



Cheers
Dave 

[humpalot]

I'm a little confused here.

Did Ken actually service the machine or just the boards?

Either way might be time to get Ken out to weave his magic.

[goodolddays]

Ken serviced the machine and rebuilt the PS at that time . I bought the CPU and driver board from him too , at a different time.

[deadlydave]

Hi Dave,
Nothing harder than an intermittent fault to track down.
The only place I can see a relationship between the Solenoids and
Displays would be on the Power Supply Board, would be giving that a
Close inspection front and back, after that I have NFI.

[goodolddays]

Finally spent a bit of time on this on Friday night and swapped the power supply . Played about 20 games before the solenoid fuse blew again (so PS ruled out).

Also have a new problem .. the last game was one of the best I've ever had .. multiball on 3rd ball, then somehow managed to keep last ball  alive long enough to get 5 x bonus and extra ball lit and achieve multiball again  (never done that before) BUT machine malfunctioned and did not start multiball countdown .. just sat there .. so missed playing multiball again and probably clocking the machine (was already at 640,000 or so )  .
While it was like this I opened the coin door and tried to add a credit (just to try and wake machine up and noticed score incremented a few thousand points when I fiddled with wiring to coin shute switches (weird))

Next step will be swap the driver board .. but I also want to have another very close look at underplayfield and coin door wiring .

[ddstoys]

Having some very strange issues there Could also be a pia issue try re seating the pia chips or swap driver boards

[48]

Hadn't read this thread before, you wouldn't believe this Dave but I have a similar problem on my Cosmic Gunfight.
It has only happened twice, but sounds like the exact same fault.
Difference being my displays show commas even in player 3 and 4 which I was not using at the time.
The last time this happened the fuse blew on ball 2 just as it kicked out the ball.
I hadn't perceived it as a big problem as it had only happened twice and also I am using some crap fuses I got from Qld on ebay.

Did you end up getting quality fuses? I assume you have as it seems you have gone past that in your fault finding.

In the meantime if my CG plays up again I will watch a lot more closely.
Cheers,
Lindsay

[goodolddays]

Hadn't read this thread before, you wouldn't believe this Dave but I have a similar problem on my Cosmic Gunfight.
It has only happened twice, but sounds like the exact same fault.
Difference being my displays show commas even in player 3 and 4 which I was not using at the time.
The last time this happened the fuse blew on ball 2 just as it kicked out the ball.
I hadn't perceived it as a big problem as it had only happened twice and also I am using some crap fuses I got from Qld on ebay.

Did you end up getting quality fuses? I assume you have as it seems you have gone past that in your fault finding.

In the meantime if my CG plays up again I will watch a lot more closely.
Cheers,
Lindsay

Very interesting Lindsay . 
Yes, I am using good quality fuses .. at least mine is kinda consistent (blows after approx 20 games) .. wish i knew what that clue meant tho.

Cheers
Dave