It's Alive!

We have power!

Exciting stuff! As you can see I got to the point where I was able to power on the machine this weekend. I switched those two slingshot switches to their correct places, was able to check all of the fuses and miracles do happen, all of them the correct value and were good. I pulled them out of the machine and used my DMM to check them. So I crossed my fingers and all of my toes, and flipped that switch......

Nothing blew up!

Nothing locked on!

I counted this as a victory. But I knew that I was not out of the woods yet.

So it was really late when I got to the point of turning it on, I did not spend a lot of time doing any trouble shooting, but I will walk you through what I did, and what right now are problem areas.

First thing I did was put it into test mode and right away ran into my first problem. The "back" or "escape" switch inside the door is not working well. If I repeatedly push it while wiggling the wires underneath it it will work and back out of tests, but this is something I will definitely need to fix or replace. My first step in this will be to take it apart and examine how it connects under there, the problem as of right now does seem to be right at the connection point due to the wiggling getting it to work.

I ran a switch level test and the only switches that came up were the opto ones. Most of the pins I have had in the past did NOT have optos, but I believe those showing up as closed is normal.

I ran the solenoid test, and they all seemed to be working fine. Flashers worked, slings, trap door, pops, diverter, I did it really quick but they seemed to be good.

I ran the Rudy test which tests his eve movements and jaw. Here I ran into the second problem. He shut his eyes and now they do not reopen. This actually did not surprise me as I did not like the way the plunger action was when I had the head out of the machine. It tended to catch a little on a bracket. I will have to remove the head again and take it apart. I think I will first try and reverse the coil so it is facing the other way. These small coils do not have sleeves but they do have a "built in" kind of sleeve and on one end there is a small protruding lip that I believe if I flip it around will solve that problem.

I ran the trap door test and that worked fine.

Starting a game.

So I started a game, well I tried to start a game, but it was not recognizing the balls in the trough. It would not load them as they all sat at the outhole. I pushed them over with my finger and got it to start a game, but it still will not recognize them when they drain. I batted the ball around the playfield and realized I did not tighten the flippers nearly enough and they were loose and tended to kind of travel up. That's easy enough, I can tighten them later.

Everything seemed to work well, except for the ball trough and when I pushed the ball through the trap door lane the trap door did not open. Hmmmm it ran in test mode, but as I said it was super late, so took that quick picture and went to bed.

Of course as I lay in bed in kept trouble shooting in my head, I thought about that trap door and figured maybe it was the switch. Those trough switches must need adjusting too.

So this morning I had five minutes to run down and run a switch edge test this time. I had not done that last night, just the switch level test. Found out that yes the trapdoor switch was not working, also the ball trough switches were not working, plus the right ball return switch was not working... hmmm I see a pattern. Looked in the manual and no surprise here, a whole column of switches are out.
Switches 71 through 77 all out. These include: Outside flipper return lane, left trough, outhole, center trough, upper right loop (trapdoor), trapdoor closed, and upper right jet bumper.

Testing each of those switches in edge test confirms the whole column is out. So now I need to do some research into the best way top test for why the column is out. Hoping it is connector or playfield related and not on the board.

Lastly two other small things. When I got FH Rudy's head was already removed and take apart. I found screws that work for the front half of the face, but none that work to put the back half of the face on. That's a trip to the hardware store. Also, I have turned the game off and on a few times now, everytime I turn it on I get messages that bookkeeping totals have cleared, audits (or something else) have cleared, and date and time are not set. I have not bothered to set the date and time so I am unsure if the batteries (which are new) will remember them for each time I turn on and off.  

So in review, what needs attention so far?
1. Escape button on test switch inside coin door needs fixing or replacing
2. Need to remove Rudy head and re examine eyelid solenoid.
3. Need to figure out why the switch column is out.
4. Need to get screws for Back half of Rudy head.
5. Need to set date and time and see if batteries are holding memory, and see how to get rid of those bookkeeping totals cleared messages.