ok guys here is the story.
now first thing i would like to state is i am not complaining about mark.c.
The pin was bought in an "as is" condition and i got my moneys worth and i am very happy with what i got.
i started by checking all conections and wiring. as i was doing this i found around 4 or 5 jumper wires soldered on various lamp p.c.b's under the playfield, more about this later.
i fitted a new Aus 3 pin plug and made sure the transformer was set up for 240v.
pluged it in and found no displays working. easy fix just a bad connection where the ribbon cable connects to the mpu.
next i replaced the roms with the english version (i didnt know they made a french version) before doing this i reset it to factory default and made sure the correct jumper was in place on the mpu for english.
i then found there was no speech, again an easy fix with the ribbon cable connection.
i noticed the insert lamps where quite dim so i checked how much a.c. voltage was on the 30000 uF cap for the lighting circuit and found around 7 volts a.c. a bit high i thought so i replaced the cap and checked the bridge rectifier. much better down to 3 Volts a.c. and the lights where brighter but still not as bright as they should be.
i then noticed a few lamps duller than the rest. when i checked the wiring under the p/f i noticed these lamps had those jumper wires i mentioned earlier across their diodes. after removing these jumpers (and cursing the idiot over seas who did this) the rest of the insert lamps where bright as a new pin.
i then printed out a copy of the lamp matrix table and highlighted every lamp that was out. every lamp that was out was on the same row. but i noticed one lamp on that row was still lighting up.
i found that the diode on this lamp socket was soldered the wrong way around so i removed it and soldered it on the correct way.
so now all the lamps and that row were out.
after tracing and testing the cable back to the mpu i found no fault in the wiring. but when i tested the output of this transistor with lighting plugs disconected it seemed to be fine.
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i then rigged up a test lamp on a couple of aligator clips and hooked one lead up to the column and the other to the suspect row transistor i found it failing under load.
i replaced the transistor and bingo all the lamps were working.
next step is to replace all the rubbers and give it a clean.
i will post some pictures soon.