Firepower intermittently blowing solenoid fuse ..

[goodolddays]

Update .. I've put the original CPU board back in with the driver board from Tri Zone .
Have played about 25 games with no issues (except I couldn't even beat the default high score of 550,000  )

Will need to continue playtesting (damn hard job but someone has to do it  ) as at this stage test results are inconclusive.

I am quietly confident that the sluggish right kicker was the cause of the solenoid fuse blowing as that fuse only protects 28V (ie playfield and cabinet solenoids) but we'll see.

Buggered if I can understand how a driver board fault could have anything to do with missing score display digits 

Thanks for all the help so far guys and stay tuned for updates

Cheers
Dave

[ddstoys]

If you have a faulty Pia chip on the driver board this could be firing multiple coils causing the fuse to blow and also the faulty Pia could be dragging down the address lines which control the displays.

[goodolddays]

If you have a faulty Pia chip on the driver board this could be firing multiple coils causing the fuse to blow and also the faulty Pia could be dragging down the address lines which control the displays.

Thanks for that insight Daniel . BTW .. I did not notice multiple coils being fired at any time.

Cheers
Dave

[goodolddays]

OK, another 20 or so games tonight with no problems .. pretty confident now that I have fixed it ... you never know though..

Now .. that is 45 games since last night and still nowhere near beating that default high score .. this game still kicks my butt badly 31 years after I 1st pkayed it .. no wonder its one of the best pinball games ever made .. I am very scared of how much harder it will be when I eventually instal that brand new clear coated CPR playfield down the track 

[ddstoys]

Now put firepowers driver board into
Tri zone and see if it starts to blow fuses ?

[goodolddays]

Now put firepowers driver board into
Tri zone and see if it starts to blow fuses ?

Exactly Daniel .. the next step in the fault finding .. when I can stop playing Firepower long enough 

[ddstoys]

Enjoy mate tri zone will always be there next month

[48]

Hey Dave,
From what I have read it turns out the driver board was at fault?
Is it still playing OK now? (its been 3 months).
Just asking as my Cosmic Gunfight is playing up again, same thing, digits go missing then eventually blows the solenoid fuse,
really starting to annoy me now, it was going fine for a while too.
Cheers,
Lindsay

[goodolddays]

Sorry to hear that Lindsay .
My FP has not missed a beat since I swapped out the driver board .
I put the suspect driver board in my Tri Zone and it has been working fine too, but I've only played a few games on it since then , not enough to say that the suspect driver board is actually OK .

Having said all that , I would suggest trying another driver board as step 1, if you have one.

Cheers
Dave

[48]

Its been a long time, but in the interests of anyone who may be looking through old posts to fix this problem, I think am now fairly sure the drama is in the 40 pin board interconnect. I recently put the CG back together and had the solenoid fuse blowing, plus some other weird and wonderful things going on pretty well as Dave described in his posts.
I did a heap of research and found out that most of the problems described are due to loss of the blanking signal.
As my boards were essentially original, I seperated the 2 boards carefully and cleaned the years of dirt off the connection area as well as inspecting for any damage. Reassembled the boards and the problem has not recurred after a fortnight of solid play.
If it happens again I will replace the pins and sockets, but as the originals had no major signs of degredation I will just play the wait and see game.

[pinnies4me]

I replaced the lot on my FP soon after getting it - replacing that is like re-pinning 30/40 year old Gottlieb connectors - a must for reliability.