Back To The Future help?

Tootai

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I got one that was working when put to storage (or so i'm told), and now the display won't work. I'm guessing the machine is working otherwise but I don't know how to enter credits.

1. Any idea what could be wrong with it?

2. Any BTTF owners here? Could you please tell me the exact button sequence to press to get the machine into free play mode? It's kind of hard when you're doing it completely blindly without the display.
 
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1. Just for kicks, and because it's so easy....have you disconnected and reconnected the ribbon cables to the displays (with the power off of course?) at both the display board and the cpu? If that doesn't accomplish anything, you need to test your input voltage to the displays to confirm proper voltage. Two easy things to help you isolate the problem.

2. Adding credits - dropped any quarters in the slot yet? Or just gently manipulate the wire on the coin mech to add credits.

Setting it to freeplay without displays is going to be tough...it's like adjustment #32 in the adjustment menu. There's a convoluted series of pushes you need to do to reach the adjustment menu...then 32 pushes of the button....then push the credit switch, then another button.....then pray like hell you did everything right (not that you would do anything that couldn't be easily undone, but you know what I mean). It just seems to me to be needle in a haystack kind of thing, and you should be able to easily add credits per above.

good luck!
 
No idea what the sequence would be but if you need the data east pinball document just let me know and I can send it to you or provide you with a link to where you can download them all from.
 
Thanks guys. Everything is working now but.. the samples are crackly, the music plays alright but the samples sound horrible and barely audible. There's a part of a PCB that looks bad, almost burned. Maybe there lies the problem. I wonder if it's hard / possible to fix. Is the PCB with the fuses expensive to replace?
 
That's great news. For the benefit of somebody who pulls this thread up in a search in a couple years - care to share what you needed to do to fix it?

PCB with fuses? I trust you are talking about the power supply board, in the top left corner of the backbox? Is the burnt area near a connector, top right of the board? Are the plastic connectors burnt also?

(the reason I ask is that is a very common problem on DE machines. If your board shows this heat damage - yes - you need to fix it. Unfortunately, this problem is likely unrelated to whatever sound problem you are experiencing now - but it has the potential to make lots of stuff not work if you don't get it fixed). Brand new replacement DE power supplies are around $125. If yours is burnt, you could probably fix it yourself with $5 in parts, maybe $40-50 for somebody to do it for you.

On the sound problem again, the easy stuff first - reseat all of the cables. Since it appears your board is basically working, I'd figure out which ROM on the soundboard holds the speech samples and I'd reseat that chip (assuming it's in a socket).
 
(the reason I ask is that is a very common problem on DE machines. If your board shows this heat damage - yes - you need to fix it. Unfortunately, this problem is likely unrelated to whatever sound problem you are experiencing now - but it has the potential to make lots of stuff not work if you don't get it fixed). Brand new replacement DE power supplies are around $125. If yours is burnt, you could probably fix it yourself with $5 in parts, maybe $40-50 for somebody to do it for you.

The power supply board looked bad so I replaced it. Seems like things are running better somehow now, but it still doesn't fix the sound problem.

examiner said:
On the sound problem again, the easy stuff first - reseat all of the cables. Since it appears your board is basically working, I'd figure out which ROM on the soundboard holds the speech samples and I'd reseat that chip (assuming it's in a socket).

I've reseated all the cables and chips but the speech is still garbled. I think some samples, like the car honking sound alright, but all speech sounds horrible. Could it be the EPROM? I'm pretty clueless here. Are the EPROM images on the net somewhere?
 
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