Bram Stoker acting up

wildwest3163

Active member
Joined
Sep 17, 2008
Messages
1,538
Reaction score
11
Location
Lake City, Florida
I picked up a Bram Stoker Drac last week, played it about an hour and it worked fine. When I got it home and hooked it up, the trough switches wont load a ball and the shooter lane switch fires constantly at about 4 second intervals. When I put it in test mode the switches test ok. What am I missing?
 
To sort this out a bit, do you mean the shooter lane ball launch coil keeps firing ? If so, make sure it isn't hitting the shooter lane switch, and also that the switch isn't sticking down.

Ball won't load in trough - so you mean the out hole kicker doesn't pass a ball up the trough ? Then pull the apron off, make sure out hole switch is working, and all the trough switches are working and not dragging on the trough sides or last one getting hit by kicker that sends it to shooter lane. Be sure the out hole kicker moves freely and no broken wires on the coil. You can check the coil in solenoid test to see if it works.

After that be sure correct number of balls in game and are accounted for.
 
To sort this out a bit, do you mean the shooter lane ball launch coil keeps firing ? If so, make sure it isn't hitting the shooter lane switch, and also that the switch isn't sticking down.

Ball won't load in trough - so you mean the out hole kicker doesn't pass a ball up the trough ? Then pull the apron off, make sure out hole switch is working, and all the trough switches are working and not dragging on the trough sides or last one getting hit by kicker that sends it to shooter lane. Be sure the out hole kicker moves freely and no broken wires on the coil. You can check the coil in solenoid test to see if it works.

After that be sure correct number of balls in game and are accounted for.

Lloyd, is that you? Welcome to Klov, sir.

Robert
 
To sort this out a bit, do you mean the shooter lane ball launch coil keeps firing ? If so, make sure it isn't hitting the shooter lane switch, and also that the switch isn't sticking down
. exactly. launch coil fires at its own interval, regardless of whether the switch is depressed or not.

Ball won't load in trough - so you mean the out hole kicker doesn't pass a ball up the trough ? Then pull the apron off, make sure out hole switch is working, and all the trough switches are working and not dragging on the trough sides or last one getting hit by kicker that sends it to shooter lane. Be sure the out hole kicker moves freely and no broken wires on the coil. You can check the coil in solenoid test to see if it works.

run it in solenoid test, out hole kicker is working, the lane loading kicker does not work in test mode
After that be sure correct number of balls in game and are accounted for.
game calls for 4 balls, 4 balls present

on the start up diagnostic, several faults showed up,
check switch 51
check switch 53
check switch 54
check switch 57
check switch 65
the 1st 4 of which are opto switches (but not shooter lane).
I checked all the fuses, all are good
 
Last edited:
Start fixing switches. The optos may need cleaning, or more work. They can be checked in switch edge test.
Did you watch if the ball launch kicker that sends the ball up the shooter lane to see if it strikes the lane switch ? If the lane switch is closed the game thinks a ball is there and kicks again. And be sure none of the ball trough switches are sticking. Go into switch edge test and roll a ball over them and see if they open and close.

And since you just got the game, you might run over all the switches to check for switch matrix issues. Any switch wired wrong, diode/wires/switch lugs shorted together, or shorts to switch wiring. To do a quick check, Williams uses a basic coloring scheme in their switch matrix. White and green. For a quick look the color of stripe won't matter. On a micro mini switch with three lugs, two close together and one farther away, the two close together the outside one gets the white wire and black end of diode, middle one gets the green wire, and far one gets the silver banded end of diode.

The coil not working - check the coil for broken wires, especially the tiny ones coming off the coil to the lugs, check too for poor solder joint. Then check continuity of wiring from coil back to the power driver board.

For what you have going on, no need to worry about fuses.
LTG :)
 
Start fixing switches. The optos may need cleaning, or more work. They can be checked in switch edge test.
Did you watch if the ball launch kicker that sends the ball up the shooter lane to see if it strikes the lane switch ? If the lane switch is closed the game thinks a ball is there and kicks again. And be sure none of the ball trough switches are sticking. Go into switch edge test and roll a ball over them and see if they open and close.

And since you just got the game, you might run over all the switches to check for switch matrix issues. Any switch wired wrong, diode/wires/switch lugs shorted together, or shorts to switch wiring. To do a quick check, Williams uses a basic coloring scheme in their switch matrix. White and green. For a quick look the color of stripe won't matter. On a micro mini switch with three lugs, two close together and one farther away, the two close together the outside one gets the white wire and black end of diode, middle one gets the green wire, and far one gets the silver banded end of diode.

The coil not working - check the coil for broken wires, especially the tiny ones coming off the coil to the lugs, check too for poor solder joint. Then check continuity of wiring from coil back to the power driver board.

For what you have going on, no need to worry about fuses.
LTG :)
Ok, Ill let you know what I find
 
Start fixing switches.

And since you just got the game, you might run over all the switches to check for switch matrix issues. Any switch wired wrong, diode/wires/switch lugs shorted together, or shorts to switch wiring. To do a quick check, Williams uses a basic coloring scheme in their switch matrix. White and green. For a quick look the color of stripe won't matter.

damn, looks like I cant get a responce out of the right 2/3rds of the matrix (#34 on up)
I traced a couple rows and a couple columns all the way back to the board, and have good continuity on the chains, but the switch test shows them open even when closed. Whats the next check
 
If you take off the metal apron and attempt to manipulate the lane loading kicker by hand, do all of the parts move freely and easily?

When I first got my BSD, the lane loading kicker mechanism was really gunked up by dried soda/beer/ogre slime and would barely move at all in game or test.

I disassembled it completely and cleaned all of the parts with iso alcohol and it freed everything up - now it's nice and snappy.

RussM
 
damn, looks like I cant get a responce out of the right 2/3rds of the matrix (#34 on up)
I traced a couple rows and a couple columns all the way back to the board, and have good continuity on the chains, but the switch test shows them open even when closed. Whats the next check

Do you know how to pull the switch connectors off the cpu, and check switches with a wire and diode on the cpu in switch edge test ?

This would help you sort out if your cpu has some switch matrix IC's in need of replacing.
 
Do you know how to pull the switch connectors off the cpu, and check switches with a wire and diode on the cpu in switch edge test ?

This would help you sort out if your cpu has some switch matrix IC's in need of replacing.
I was going to do that this morning (saw that on pinrepair.com). I believe it said to start the machine, put it in test mode, switch test, open backdoor and lay down the display so you can get to the switch connectors....this is as far as I got, when I went to lift out the display screen it went blank and I quit. farther I go the deeper I get, I just decided to find someone to look at it and Ill watch over thier shoulder:(
 
Back
Top Bottom