Author Topic: rotten dog BPS018 dramas  (Read 4415 times)

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Offline beaky

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rotten dog BPS018 dramas
« on: August 18, 2011, 04:48:00 AM »
Here we go again.
Another rotten dog f**k up
this time its a replacement power supply / solenoid driver board

the 2 mistakes i found is:
A: the led for the high voltage section grounds to the +5 power supply ground. problem being if you have a bad connection on the ground for the 5 volt supply it feeds 180 volts Via the led and a resistor to the ground on the +5 circuit and gives you the impression that there is no +180 volts for the displays.
Plus it reverses the polarity for all the I.C,s on the power supply board.

Then you have J4 PIN 8 for the flipper control relay, no pull down resistor so if you have a bad connection to J4 pin 8 you will have a oscillating flipper control relay.

I will post the upgrades to get rid of these potential problems soon

   
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Offline Homepin

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Re: rotten dog BPS018 dramas
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2011, 08:28:53 AM »
A couple of nasty surprises there......
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Offline Olivia_jason

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Re: rotten dog BPS018 dramas
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2011, 03:27:39 PM »
Here we go again.
Another rotten dog f**k up
this time its a replacement power supply / solenoid driver board

the 2 mistakes i found is:
A: the led for the high voltage section grounds to the +5 power supply ground. problem being if you have a bad connection on the ground for the 5 volt supply it feeds 180 volts Via the led and a resistor to the ground on the +5 circuit and gives you the impression that there is no +180 volts for the displays.
Plus it reverses the polarity for all the I.C,s on the power supply board.

Then you have J4 PIN 8 for the flipper control relay, no pull down resistor so if you have a bad connection to J4 pin 8 you will have a oscillating flipper control relay.

I will post the upgrades to get rid of these potential problems soon

   

Mate i didnt understand a f##ken word of that, lol ahaha went straight over my head you tech heads are way to clever for me, lol

Offline Homepin

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Re: rotten dog BPS018 dramas
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2011, 04:21:08 PM »
I think it kind of defeats the purpose - buying an aftermarket board that actually puts you in a WORSE position than an original when it plays up - not really good enough IMO. I always strive to make my replacement boards BETTER than the original......
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Offline Boots

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Re: rotten dog BPS018 dramas
« Reply #4 on: August 18, 2011, 07:52:50 PM »
How can they sell something that is faulty by design like that?

Offline Homepin

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Re: rotten dog BPS018 dramas
« Reply #5 on: August 18, 2011, 08:00:28 PM »
How can they sell something that is faulty by design like that?

They have no choice - it's in their name  @@*
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Offline MartyJ

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Re: rotten dog BPS018 dramas
« Reply #6 on: August 18, 2011, 08:49:15 PM »
Here we go again.
Another rotten dog f**k up
this time its a replacement power supply / solenoid driver board

the 2 mistakes i found is:
A: the led for the high voltage section grounds to the +5 power supply ground. problem being if you have a bad connection on the ground for the 5 volt supply it feeds 180 volts Via the led and a resistor to the ground on the +5 circuit and gives you the impression that there is no +180 volts for the displays.
Plus it reverses the polarity for all the I.C,s on the power supply board.

Then you have J4 PIN 8 for the flipper control relay, no pull down resistor so if you have a bad connection to J4 pin 8 you will have a oscillating flipper control relay.

I will post the upgrades to get rid of these potential problems soon

   

I have had few minor issues with the Rottendog boards but I'm not an electronics engineer so if it works then I'm happy.

As per the title of this thread the BPS018 is a Bally / Stern Power Rectifier board. http://www.rottendog.us/BPS018.htm

The schematics are here -http://www.rottendog.us/Schematics/BPS018.pdf

I'm not sure I can follow where the problem is, I'm guessing its a different board you are referring to?



Offline beaky

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Re: rotten dog BPS018 dramas
« Reply #7 on: August 19, 2011, 04:35:09 AM »

ATT mike (home pin) and other techs


Either i am wrong or rotten dog have made a big boo boo on the bps018

I have edited  the bps022 schematic so it resembles the bps018

on schematic BPS022 pins 9, 10 and 11 on J4 go to U7 which is a inverting Octal buffer / line driver ( which should have pull up resistors on these pins) which then drives Q17 to Q19.
When any of these 3 inputs are grounded (0 volts) the outputs on U7 go hi (+5 volts) which then turn on Q17 or Q18 of Q19.

But when you look at the schematic labelled BPS018 Q17 to Q19 (highlighted in green) are directly driven by pins 9 to 11. They have also added 3 pull down resistors (again surrounded by green) under the pcb.

So Q17 to Q19 are on when they are supposed to be off and off when they are supposed to be on. (which is wrong)

please tell me I am wrong.
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Offline Homepin

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Re: rotten dog BPS018 dramas
« Reply #8 on: August 19, 2011, 09:27:35 AM »
There are a couple of interesting things here. The first is the use of output devices used on this board - they are "logic Level FETs" - 20N10L - when I went to grab the data sheet this is what I found:

"STP20N10L - OLD PRODUCT: NOT SUITABLE FOR NEW DESIGN-IN    ST Microelectronics"

So this confirms my idea of steering clear of some of these 'new fangled' parts - they go out of fashion way too quickly and then you have a useless board????

The 47K resistors to ground (looks like 47K in the bottom pic) are used to ensure the LLFs are held in the OFF state as they are driven by a 5V logic rail - IE directly from the 74240.

74240 are '3 state output devices' BUT they are NOT 'open collector' outputs that would require a tie high resistor or load. The outputs are configured by the designer to be one of the 'tri' states as she needs it - either on the fly or certainly at boot.

The board should work OK as is and I suspect the 'added' 47K resistors were needed because as the 74240 was being initialised to force its tri-state outputs low (at boot probably) these resistors ensure the driver transistors stay OFF and not fire the solenoids. This reminds me so much of the RUBBISH Gottlieb SS design - where all solenoids fire when you power up the machine..….design with no thought!

If I ever design something this crap please come and burn my workshop down!
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Offline Strangeways

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Re: rotten dog BPS018 dramas
« Reply #9 on: August 19, 2011, 09:44:32 AM »

Andrew - have you contacted Rottendog to let them know ? It could be a manufacturing or QA issue than needs to be sorted out ?
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Offline beaky

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Re: rotten dog BPS018 dramas
« Reply #10 on: August 19, 2011, 04:06:39 PM »
There are a couple of interesting things here. The first is the use of output devices used on this board - they are "logic Level FETs" - 20N10L - when I went to grab the data sheet this is what I found:

"STP20N10L - OLD PRODUCT: NOT SUITABLE FOR NEW DESIGN-IN    ST Microelectronics"

So this confirms my idea of steering clear of some of these 'new fangled' parts - they go out of fashion way too quickly and then you have a useless board????

The 47K resistors to ground (looks like 47K in the bottom pic) are used to ensure the LLFs are held in the OFF state as they are driven by a 5V logic rail - IE directly from the 74240.

74240 are '3 state output devices' BUT they are NOT 'open collector' outputs that would require a tie high resistor or load. The outputs are configured by the designer to be one of the 'tri' states as she needs it - either on the fly or certainly at boot.

The board should work OK as is and I suspect the 'added' 47K resistors were needed because as the 74240 was being initialised to force its tri-state outputs low (at boot probably) these resistors ensure the driver transistors stay OFF and not fire the solenoids. This reminds me so much of the RUBBISH Gottlieb SS design - where all solenoids fire when you power up the machine..….design with no thought!

If I ever design something this crap please come and burn my workshop down!

Thanks mike
But the 2 mosfets you see with the resistors are not driven by the 74240, they are directly driven via J4 on the solenoid board  which is connected to the the mpu board. all the other fets are driven by the 74240.

on the original bally driver board all inputs have pull up resistors (on both momentary and continuous circuits) when in this state all the transistors are off.
If you want to turn on any of the continuous transistors you must pull the corresponding pin on J4 low.
the signal is then inverted to +5 volts which goes to the base of the transistor which in turn turns on the transistor and energises the solenoid.

Now on the rotten dog board i have when the 3 fets are pulled low when the mpu tries to energise these 3 fets by pulling the missing inverting buffer low nothing will happen.     

all the other gates on the other fets are inverted.

they have fixed this with the later bps022 board and have all the gates inverted via a 74240.

on my test rig that i use to test the continuous solenoids on the original bally board works by pulling pins 8 to 11 low to energise the transistors.
this works fine for the fet on  the rotten board which is inverted via the 74240 but does nothing for the other fets connected to pins 9,10, and 11 on j4.


 


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Offline 48

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Re: rotten dog BPS018 dramas
« Reply #11 on: August 19, 2011, 04:27:34 PM »

Andrew - have you contacted Rottendog to let them know ? It could be a manufacturing or QA issue than needs to be sorted out ?
+1.
Jim seems to be quite resonable to me, always goes out of his way to help me,
when I need to ask a dumb question  #@#
Lets go Brandon!

Offline beaky

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Re: rotten dog BPS018 dramas
« Reply #12 on: August 19, 2011, 05:49:25 PM »

Andrew - have you contacted Rottendog to let them know ? It could be a manufacturing or QA issue than needs to be sorted out ?
+1.
Jim seems to be quite resonable to me, always goes out of his way to help me,
when I need to ask a dumb question  #@#
I will contact them.

but as i said the original bally boards needs the inputs to the board to be pulled low to activate the solenoids, also the new revision of the rotten dog board needs the inputs to the board to be pulled low to activate the solenoids.  on this rotten dog board all but 3 inputs work as i have mentioned on the two other boards but the remaining 3 need to need to be pulled high to activate the solenoids
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Offline beaky

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Re: rotten dog BPS018 dramas
« Reply #13 on: August 19, 2011, 06:18:08 PM »
I have sent an email about this subject to rotten dog.
After looking at the latest revision of this board (BP022) they have rectified this problem by inverting the voltage to the 3 fets i have questioned and added the necessary pull up resistors on the inputs.

I will wait for the return email and if i am correct in my assumption then I will have to modify the circuitry.

I will keep you informed.
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Offline beaky

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Re: rotten dog BPS018 dramas
« Reply #14 on: August 20, 2011, 06:07:26 PM »
I have received an email back from rotten dog and this is what I got back:
Andrew.  If you have a solenoid driver board with BPS018 printed on the board, return it to me and I will replace with the correct board.

Looks like i was right in spotting the design fault.  $#$

This is a very generous offer from rotten dog and I am very happy with their response.  ^^^
 
« Last Edit: August 20, 2011, 06:40:48 PM by beaky »
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