Comet "dunk the dummy" troubles

mitchschaft

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Ok, I was at my uncle's in Louisville last week. The machine was working great, all sounds were fine and dunk the dummy worked as it should. But there was battery corrosion on the board behind the glass. So I had to unsolder the battery connector, clean it up, reinstall and add new batteries.

After I put it back together, dunk the dummy will fall when you hit it with a ball, but will not rise again until the game is reset after a new ball comes into play. And he no longer taunts or makes a noise :(. It still scores fine when the target is hit. It will also no longer save the high score after it is powered off. It did before I messed with the battery.

Did I mess something up? All settings are at factory defaults. And he makes his taunting sounds when I hit the sound test button and when it's doing it's demo thing. So I know the sounds are there.

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Batteries were heald in by duct tape, hence the white residue.

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No visible corrosion in the traces luckily. Hope I caught it in time.

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Or is it possible that I hit something by accident when I poked around under the playfield right before I messed with the battery?

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Everything looked fine anyway.
 

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I'll double check when I'm there in october. I looked it over and everything seemed fine. Maybe I missed something. A bent switch maybe?

That still doesn't address the not saving of the high score. Maybe I fried something on the board.
 
To clarify: You removed the battery pack, removed the corrosion, and reinstalled the SAME battery pack? Throw the f*cking thing away! Its probably shot, and the risk of corrosion creeping back isn't worth it.

The not saving high scores sounds like a bad battery holder. The dunk the dummy taunts, are they adjustable? After removing the batteries did it reset to factory where you can only dunk once per ball? I'm not familiar with comet, but it sounds like a gameplay adjustment.
 
ugh. same holder, works no problem. if it didnt, then it would boot to book keeping mode each time. It works fine and I get meter readings all over. It's not mine and did what I could with what I had.

If the battery holder was bad, it wouldn't hold any charge and boot to book keeping. the battery holder is fine. Like I said, i put it back to factory defaults. So you get 30 seconds (or 20) to dunk the guy before he jumps back up. He doesn't jump back up at all after you hit him.
 
To test the switch, put the game into switch test mode and then drop the drop target and see if it recognizes the drop target switch (switch 29). I believe the switch is a microswitch, not a leaf switch (i.e. nothing to adjust).

--Luke
 
To clarify: You removed the battery pack, removed the corrosion, and reinstalled the SAME battery pack? Throw the f*cking thing away! Its probably shot, and the risk of corrosion creeping back isn't worth it.

Just want to note that I completely agree with gutz. Remove that battery holder! Go to your local electronic store and get a plastic 3xAA holder and extend it to a location away from all circuit boards. I mount mine at the bottom of the back box. If the batteries do leak, only the bottom of the back box will be affected.

As for the dummy, PinHighNoon suggests a good place to start. But, because your getting the taunts, I believe the system is detecting the dummy down so your switch is probably ok. Check for easy things. In order to remove the battery holder you had to remove the main pcb. Looking at your pictures, you still have the original connectors and you may have cracked a solder joint removing/re-inserting the connectors. Since your going to remove that battery holder (permanently), look for cracked solder joints on the pcb and inspect the wire side of the connector. Sometimes the wires in the connectors get loose. Start there and report back.
 

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I'm going back in October. Replacing that with an off-board battery pack will be a priority. I may should try to buy the damn machine off him...

After that, I'll triple check anything under that dunk the dummy. Everything looked like it was in place. But I didn't check it in service mode.

I only get the occasional taunt in demo mode. Not during game play.
 
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