OK update time.
Figured this driver board needed some professional help so I contacted Ken (Skybeaux) and arranged to call over at his place so he could chuck the board on his test machine.
Once I arrived with a bundle of parts and a board under one arm we proceeded to hook the board up to kens tester.
Ken was concerned my board might blow his test jig but not half as concerned as I was.
So after quickly flipping the power on and off on the test jig we observed that several coils were firing at once.
Didn't take Ken long to discover that the U1 chip was toasted. Quick as you like Ken fired up the de-soldering station, whips out the old chip, solders in the new socket I brought along, plugs in the new U1 chip and bobs yer uncle.
Run the board on the test jig again and everything is working as the pinball gods intended.
Now right here I have to give Ken a big thumbs up. He welcomed me into his workshop, fixed my problem and didn't even want to charge me for his time.
And to top all this off later in the week when I discovered I had been shortchanged in my HV rebuild kit to the tune of one trim pot, Ken kindly posted me up a new one which I have now fitted.
So what I am trying to get across is that if you are in the Newcastle area and looking for someone honest and reliable to work on your pinny you could definetely put Ken on your list of preffered tech's.
So the galaxy is almost ready to fire up once again. I spent most of saturday re-pinning the Solonoid Driver Board and for good measure I re-pinned the MPU board too.
I repaired the MPU board acid damage and tinned the tracks as per Kens advice.
I fitted a new capacitor battery so I never have to worry about leaking batteries again.
I then set about the task of renewing the connector terminals, this takes a long time and you need a lot of patience and a good crimping tool.
The tool I'm using is a low end Jaycar number, it seems to work OK, I just hope I have done the job right as there are a lot of connections and it would be a real pain to try and track one down should it become loose.
I noted the ribbon cables that go to the MPU board are less than pristine so I am researching where I can get replacements, they look like computer IDE cables but not sure on that. One of the ribbon cables has a jumper wire soldered in so that doesn't pass the (no hack) test.
