Gottlieb System 1 help needed

wildwest3163

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Got a Buck Rogers Ive been working on, multiple coils were disconnected and jumpered, ect. Friend of mine picked this game up, had the driver board repaired, put it in and it did nothing except light up. Thats when he passed it along to me (after looking at the bottom of the playfield and seeing the wiring mess)
progress to date. Got all the jumpers removed, Ohmed all the coils and reconnected the wires, checked/reconnected loose coil diodes.

Now for the fun part. Installed a known good driver, turned on the game, immediately (under a second from flipping the switch) blew a transister. Tracked that transister to Soloniod 6 (kickout hole on Buck Rogers). Soloniod tests good. I disconnect that soloniod, turn game back on, tilt soloniod is locked on. Turn off, disconnect tilt soloniod, check slam switches and coin switch, turn game back on, still nothing.

Game has a new power supply installed, already had a Ni-wumpf mpu in it when I got it. It doesnt have any of the ground mods done to it (yet), Im getting ready to repin all the connectors.

My question is what is frying the transisters? What am I missing? When I replace the Transister is there anything else on the board I need to replace?
 
i'd make a new MPU to driver board interconnect harness
thats a weak spot unless you know yours is good

if that is good, i'd suspect the driver board has problems

do you get the click click when the game boots up ?
does the game boot up and play even with the solenoids disconnected ?
 
i'd make a new MPU to driver board interconnect harness
thats a weak spot unless you know yours is good
Ive got a new interconnect harness ordered

if that is good, i'd suspect the driver board has problems
Yea, thats what I thought as well, figured something else on the driver was shot. Thats when I inserted a new driver and immediately fried another sol 6 transister....now I got 2 boards to fix
do you get the click click when the game boots up ?
does the game boot up and play even with the solenoids disconnected ?
no, game does not start up. you get the one click when the tilt and game over relays engage, but they never disengage. Thats what made me think of the slam switches:confused:
 
First off, your moving way to fast for a System 1. You need to unplug everything and start from the start (fuses, transformers, etc) then check your powers at the supply, if they are good then plug in A2J2/A1J1 into the MPU and check for 5 and 12. Then check your 60/42/8/4 for the displays....if thats good plug that in. After that try each connection J5/J6/J7 etc one at a time. Each time turning the game off and on. And do all of that AFTER you do the grounds and repin the connections. Sucks, but it's the best way to go. I had to do the same thing to my Buck and now I'm doing a Countdown the same way.
 
First off, your moving way to fast for a System 1. You need to unplug everything and start from the start (fuses, transformers, etc) then check your powers at the supply, if they are good then plug in A2J2/A1J1 into the MPU and check for 5 and 12. Then check your 60/42/8/4 for the displays....if thats good plug that in. After that try each connection J5/J6/J7 etc one at a time. Each time turning the game off and on. And do all of that AFTER you do the grounds and repin the connections. Sucks, but it's the best way to go. I had to do the same thing to my Buck and now I'm doing a Countdown the same way.
Yea, I didnt go into full detail in my 1st post. 1st thing I did was check fuses, 2 blown, 2 amp under playfield and 5 amp by the transformer. Then I corrected all the wiring under the playfield, then checked all the coils. Next step was to disconnect the top and right plugs from the PS and check voltages. Voltages checked ok, but I went ahead and put a replacement pS in anyway so I didnt have to worry about it in the near future.

Im waiting right now for parts, I had to order new edge connector pins, didnt realize I was out, plus rebuild kits for the drivers. projects on hold until after I get them and do the pins and ground mods
 
I want to see the thing when you are done. Mine is a basket case and I am know pulling the whole machine apart and repainting everything..... even the playfield. I know I will have WAY more into it then its worth, but I don't care. I am also working on the glass art in Photoshop.
 
Ill take some pics today, this things a beauty. Theres no wear on the playfield, cabinet is really nice. cosmetically the only problem with this one is the flaking on the princess (backglass), and from what I can find out thats basically every BR backglass. (thank you #47 bulbs:rolleyes:)

if he could have figured whats wrong with it I never would have got it:D
 
I want to see the thing when you are done. Mine is a basket case and I am know pulling the whole machine apart and repainting everything..... even the playfield. I know I will have WAY more into it then its worth, but I don't care. I am also working on the glass art in Photoshop.
That reminds me of the Bally Star Trek Ive been working on. Got it about 95% working. Still have to replace 2 of the display glasses where the digits are burnt. Only reason I saved/revived this one was that the playfield only has 1 small spot of wear by the kickout hole, it cleaned up beautifully. Great playing game, lot more fun than I was expecting from one from this era. However, backglass is missing about 75% of the ink, been looking for one for several months now, and the cabinet is going to have to have some woodwork done, and a complete paint restinceling done. Been kinda holding off on that until I find a backglass. figure Ill have way more in it than its worth by the time Im done. But then Ill have a like new game too, though
 
I would troubleshoot with the playfield disconnected as a start. Do the ground mods and make sure you've got good connections at the boards. That just might solve the problem of transistors locking on. Sounds like a classic case of bad connections causing coils to lock on. I've fixed this a few times just by cleaning the edge connectors, cleaning up power supply connectors and doing the ground mods. Re-pinning all the connectors is another good idea. That needs to be done first either way (ground mods and clean edge connectors). If that doesn't solve the problem of locked on coils then you've either got shorted transistors, pre-driver logic on the MPU or some other weirdness.

As far as the transistor that fried goes, you've got 2 problems there. The first problem is obviously that the thing is "turning on" when you turn the game on. That's going to be one of the causes I mention above (probably). The other problem is that it's driving way too much load and destroying itself. My guess would be that something is not wired correctly or the coil diode is shorted or installed backwards.

Coincidentally I'm shopping out a Buck Rogers to sell right now.

EDIT: Oh yeah... do the slam switch mod too. You'll know if that is a problem because the game will boot with the displays all "000000". Either way... it's a good mod to do.
 
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The other problem is that it's driving way too much load and destroying itself. My guess would be that something is not wired correctly or the coil diode is shorted or installed backwards.
can you take a picture of soloniod 6 for me? thats the one thats frying on he board. that should be the kickout hole at the top of the playfield. That coil was completely disconnected and jumpered to a different coil before I rewired it. One end of the diode was loose, I had to reattach the diode, then attach the 2 wires (banded side of diode) and the single wire to the other lead. IM pretty sure thats right, but it wouldnt be the first time I goofed
 
can you take a picture of soloniod 6 for me? thats the one thats frying on he board. that should be the kickout hole at the top of the playfield. That coil was completely disconnected and jumpered to a different coil before I rewired it. One end of the diode was loose, I had to reattach the diode, then attach the 2 wires (banded side of diode) and the single wire to the other lead. IM pretty sure thats right, but it wouldnt be the first time I goofed

Make sure the coil diode isn't shorted. To me it sounds like it's connected correctly (positive solenoid voltage to banded side) but the diode could be shorted causing the problem.
 
promised pics. you can see the aforementioned Star Trek in the background of the 1st pic
526144143_o.jpg

526144098_o.jpg

playfield has not yet been cleaned/waxed
526144126_o.jpg
 
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