Bally Star Trek feature light problem

AE35

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Hi guys

My Bally Star Trek has several feature lights not working. I have tried several MPU's and several lamp driver boards.
Both original and Alltek. I have tested and changed connectors. The problem is not on boards or connectors.

It has been some years now, and I am about to move; I HAVE to get this working before moving to a new location :)

I am thinking, could one of lamps, or lamp sockets have a short, or other problem, that could *confuse* the system
upstream? Maybe a short somewhere on the playfield or in the wiring loom?

I stopped looking into this problem years ago....I would love fresh ideas :)

Thanks,

Nicholas
 
Ok, easy place to start is to define "not working". Are the feature lamps continually lit? Are they unlit and remain off? As you know, the lamp driver board supplies a ground to switch the feature lamp on. Are the non-working lamps in the playfield, backbox or both places? Is it just a few lamps or all of them?
 
Could be any of these:

Bad connector pins at the lamp driver board (in the machine harness).

Burned out light bulbs.

Bad lamp sockets (I'm encountering this more and more today).

Bad ground wire connection to the lamp socket (poor soldering). I just had this happen on a Star Trek yesterday as a matter of fact. The wire looked like it was soldered, but after poking it, the wire came right off (bad factory soldering).
 
1st thing is to measure voltages - do you have any at the connector? Do you have any at the socket?

connector - no; connector/pin problem - or board, but since you have ruled that out
connector - yes, socket - no; broken wire
connector - yes, socket - yes; bad socket
 
The Lamp board has two connectors that can easily get swapped by accident, are you sure they are in the correct spots? I want to say the two connectors on the right side of the board, but would have to look.

I'm going to go with the obvious here, but have to ask. Did you replace the bulbs to ensure they are not burned out or fried? I had a friend that accidently grounded or had wrong DC hit where it shouldn't, and wiped out all of the bulbs on that line. Drove him nuts, then he actually tried replacing a bulb, found out he was fine after all of that chasing around.
 
Thanks for your post

Yes, all bulbs are checked, and even when I jump from GND at the lamp socket directly to a bulb attached to to the 5V rail on the playfield, it doesn't light. This is, of course, in feature test mode.

Also, I beeped for cont. between the plug that goes on the lamp driver board and to the socket; all good.

I am really starting to believe that there may be a short somewhere that is confusing the game...
 
Thanks for your post

Yes, all bulbs are checked, and even when I jump from GND at the lamp socket directly to a bulb attached to to the 5V rail on the playfield, it doesn't light. This is, of course, in feature test mode.

Also, I beeped for cont. between the plug that goes on the lamp driver board and to the socket; all good.

I am really starting to believe that there may be a short somewhere that is confusing the game...

I read your OP a couple of times and missed where you checked the actual lamp socket itself like Ken commented on.

I had a Bally Lady Luck, with wedge socket light bulbs, and about 75% of them on the playfield were bad. It took me forever because I just didn't believe so many could be bad. Have you tried replacing one of the sockets with a known working one?

-Pat
 
That's the thing, I am bypassing the lamp socket and jumping directly from the lead/wire soldered to the tip of the lamp socket to the bulb (and also +5V of course)

I tell you, if this wasn't a Star Trek...it was long gone :) I have fixed many of these old Bally machines, but this problem is just too much.
 
Yes, all bulbs are checked, and even when I jump from GND at the lamp socket directly to a bulb attached to to the 5V rail on the playfield, it doesn't light. This is, of course, in feature test mode.

Well, that narrows it down to a grounding issue, most likely.
 
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