Wisconsin Pinball

Tully helped me out the other day with some board diagnosing on a bum U20 on sorcerer (which Tim has graciously offered to help me fix in exchange for me never acting like a giddy high school girl ever again after playing AC/DC - long story but all we need to know is I really liked the game).
I digress.

I also told Tully about some issues I was having with flintstones losing power to the insert lights during attract mode and F114/F115 errors sometimes popping up.

We turned it on and luckily during attract mode the lights went out after a couple minutes.
We opened the backbox and he gently pushed on the heat sink.
There was a slight electrical pop and the lights came back on.
He said it was probably a loose leg in one of the BR and to pull the board and reflow all the BR legs.

I just pulled the board and discovered this under BR1.
WTF?
Weekend warrior solder job or is this a bigger problem stemming from something else on the board?
It's a blobby mess on every underside leg of BR1 (hopefully you can see in the background of pic 3).

-Ran

It should be an easy fix since its just de-soldering the old BR and putting a new one in.
And from the looks of it, I think the previous owner used a lugged BR and hacked wires to it.
Too funny.
One question I have is what is the paste on top of the BRs where the heat sink screws on and where can I get some more of it?
-Ran

You can get Heat sink compound at Radio shack. Let me know if you need help advice/help changing it, and be careful not to pull any traces on the top of the board... be sure to give 'em a good look... ya never know if the previous "fixer" might have made the traces brittle. I've also got a couple of tubes of compound lying around and can give you some if you like. Feel free to gimme a call.

Did You guys get Sorcerer up & running?

Thanks Tully!
I pass Radio Shack everyday so I'll grab some.
As for Sorcerer, Tim was able to switch the IC out, however, he found a trace in U-20 that isn't connecting so he's helping remedy that issue...which may have been the culprit the whole time. I'm definitely in his and your debt for helping me get this board issue remedied.

And I had the opportunity to play his Jolly Park on Saturday night.
Holy crap what a sweet game.
Totally different. Totally original.
The pop bumpers are great with the bumper cars on top. The magnets on the upper playfield to divert the ball (similar to TZ but a better application of magnet control if you ask me). And the way they used a "plastic cover" over the playfield was interesting too. You never have to worry about playfield wear. Very interesting concept and they did a good job executing it so it doesn't look cheap. And the unintentional "spanglish" callouts are hilarious.

Dude....I was gonna say that it looks like they took a spaded BR and put it on that board (even though it is hard to tell from those pics).... If you need a BR, I have about 40 of them.... Also, with the way that board looks, if you can get a good sharp set of snitps under the topside of the BR, I would clip it out, and then desolder. With that huge blob, it is hard to say what you are looking at as far as stuff hanging on to the topside of the that board...

tullster wrote:You can get Heat sink compound at Radio shack. Let me know if you need help advice/help changing it, and be careful not to pull any traces on the top of the board... be sure to give 'em a good look... ya never know if the previous "fixer" might have made the traces brittle. I've also got a couple of tubes of compound lying around and can give you some if you like. Feel free to gimme a call.

Did You guys get Sorcerer up & running?

That sorcerer has a few suspect traces running through it.... It is kind of strange because the board looks so nice cosmetically, but there is definitely some continuity issues with it. He left it with me so I can hit up the schematics and a magnifying glass and see where she has fallen apart.

It was kind of fun to see what happens when you wrap a board with Aluminum foil and the batteries are still in it.... those were a little toasty...

Also, with the way that board looks, if you can get a good sharp set of snitps under the topside of the BR, I would clip it out, and then desolder. With that huge blob, it is hard to say what you are looking at as far as stuff hanging on to the topside of the that board...

^^^GREAT CALL!!!!^^^

I'm pretty sure i can sneak some snips under there and cut the BR off.
I needed to place an order for parts anyway so i'm going to grab a few BRs/transistors and other misc. stuff.
I'm placing an order with Pinball Life. Need me to order anything for you?
I can bring it with me next time we meet up and that way you don't need to pay for shipping.

It was kind of fun to see what happens when you wrap a board with Aluminum foil and the batteries are still in it.... those were a little toasty...

^^^^^Yup.^^^^^
Definitely a rookie mistake on my part.
The amount of knowledge i've gained from everyone over the past few months of dealing with board issues is immeasurable.

I've done a lot of silly things (including cobbling a spade bridge onto a WPC board ) but wrapping a board in foil is classic! I think we've all learned a lot of stuff the hard way!

I played Jolly Park at Expo a couple of times and thought it was cool too! Nice to know there's one in the area. Hopefully, one of these weekends I'll be free so I can break away to pay Tim a visit!

Good thing I'm numb to asking stupid questions.

So what happens when you wrap a board in foil with batteries in it? I thought this is how you should ship it if you don't have the static free bag handy.

Methos wrote:Good thing I'm numb to asking stupid questions.

So what happens when you wrap a board in foil with batteries in it? I thought this is how you should ship it if you don't have the static free bag handy.

I was supposed to take the batteries out before wrapping it in foil.
A "tinfoil connection" was made somewhere and the batteries were minutes away from exploding.
Tim pulled them out of the holder just in time and they were piping hot. One even started to crack its case.
Luckily the were in a remote battery holder so if they exploded I'd just need to get a new holder.

Nothing if you take the batteries out of the holder.

Leaving the batteries in allowed the positive and negative to bridge, and the batteries were getting ready to explode and were extremely hot....

Ran wrote:

Methos wrote:Good thing I'm numb to asking stupid questions.

So what happens when you wrap a board in foil with batteries in it? I thought this is how you should ship it if you don't have the static free bag handy.

I was supposed to take the batteries out before wrapping it in foil.
A "tinfoil connection" was made somewhere and the batteries were minutes away from exploding.
Tim pulled them out of the holder just in time and they were piping hot. One even started to crack its case.
Luckily the were in a remote battery holder so if they exploded I'd just need to get a new holder.

Yeah, what Ran said...

ralphwiggum wrote:Dude....I was gonna say that it looks like they took a spaded BR and put it on that board (even though it is hard to tell from those pics).... If you need a BR, I have about 40 of them.... Also, with the way that board looks, if you can get a good sharp set of snitps under the topside of the BR, I would clip it out, and then desolder. With that huge blob, it is hard to say what you are looking at as far as stuff hanging on to the topside of the that board...

Sniped the old BR off last night and it was most definitely lugged. Desoldered everything and cleaned up all the globs as best as I could.
I checked all the traces for continuity and everything seemed fine.
Soldered on a new BR and that went smoothly.
Set the DMM on diode and tested the new BR and those numbers checked out as well. Around 518-539.
Haven't tested it in the game yet.
That will be tonight's mission.

Did I miss anything?

Sounds like you got it.... While the board is out, it would be a good time to look around for any cracked/cold soldered joints. Also, take a good look at the GI pins while it is out, if they are starting to tarnish/char, now is a good time to replace them....