help needed with latest acquisition: TIME WARP

vintagegamer

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Made a trade over the weekend for a TIME WARP pin. It powers up and plays, but has 2 issues:

1. The pin completes the sound check OK (I was told at least, have not run it myself yet), and if you hit the
button on the sound card it does play sounds.

When you start a game, you hear the initial low hum that is supposed
to slowly increase as the gameplay continues. However, once the ball
hits its first point on the playfield where another sound tone is
generated, the low background hum noise that's supposed to continue
simply stops. If you reset the game and start a new game, the process
begins all over again.

It's not the volume pot on the sound card or on the main part of the
game (under the playfield). Both of those allow the volume to go up
and down as it should.

Any thoughts?

2. When the ball goes into the
drain at the bottom of the playfield, the game doesn't recognize the
ball has done so.


I looked underneath of the playfield and found the switch that would
recognize this, and used a small wire with the alligator clips on the
end to "jump" the connection of the 2 switch points. When I did so,
it activated the eject solenoid and the ball would hop back over to
the plunger to start the next play. The only problem is, after doing
this about 5-6 times while troubleshooting, even that stopped working.


My questions are:


a. did I kill the solenoid by doing this jump? Or did it maybe just
die from being used again after many years of being down?
b. is the switch the problem or the solenoid?


At the time I got the pin, there was only one ball in it- I added
another to see if that anything had to do with the problem so I added
a second ball of the same size but no change.


Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
a. did I kill the solenoid by doing this jump? Or did it maybe just
die from being used again after many years of being down?

You'd know if you killed the solenoid. It would likely be burned. You may have killed the driver board transistor or a fuse. Or a connection came loose somewhere.

b. is the switch the problem or the solenoid?

It's unlikely it's the solenoid. Those things don't go unless they're locked on and then they heat up and melt. One way to check it is to put a meter on it and make sure there's resistance between the wire winding leads (usually >4 ohms and less than 20 - varies depending upon the coil and mfg and specs). If the coil is shorted, then it is bad. Still, depending upon whether the coil actually melted or the winding wire broke at the lead, it may be fixable.

At the time I got the pin, there was only one ball in it- I added
another to see if that anything had to do with the problem so I added
a second ball of the same size but no change.

The general rule of thumb is to:

1. Check the fuses.. get the manual/specs for the game and/or check any notes on the boards and make sure you have PROPER fuses in place. A fuse rated differently than what is recommended (and of course one covered with tinfoil) can cause things to fry.

2. Look at the connectors - in older machines, the connectors are often the cause of a lot of problems. Look for broken contacts or corroded pins - a lot of times it's not a bad idea to re-pin connectors. Being able to understand schematics and trace back where certain solenoids run to the driver board via cable/connectors is a good way to track down potential problems.

The general rule of thumb when picking up a machine is to go over it very carefully, examining every part, looking for loose wires, broken connections, switches that are incorrectly installed or broken... make a note of anything that seems unusual -- ideally before you even turn it on. Look at the system boards; look for signs of damage, not just acid damage but heat damage from connectors or components; look at electrolytic capacitors and notice if any are bulging -- that's a sign they may be bad.
 
You'd know if you killed the solenoid. It would likely be burned. You may have killed the driver board transistor or a fuse. Or a connection came loose somewhere.



It's unlikely it's the solenoid. Those things don't go unless they're locked on and then they heat up and melt. One way to check it is to put a meter on it and make sure there's resistance between the wire winding leads (usually >4 ohms and less than 20 - varies depending upon the coil and mfg and specs). If the coil is shorted, then it is bad. Still, depending upon whether the coil actually melted or the winding wire broke at the lead, it may be fixable.



The general rule of thumb is to:

1. Check the fuses.. get the manual/specs for the game and/or check any notes on the boards and make sure you have PROPER fuses in place. A fuse rated differently than what is recommended (and of course one covered with tinfoil) can cause things to fry.

2. Look at the connectors - in older machines, the connectors are often the cause of a lot of problems. Look for broken contacts or corroded pins - a lot of times it's not a bad idea to re-pin connectors. Being able to understand schematics and trace back where certain solenoids run to the driver board via cable/connectors is a good way to track down potential problems.

The general rule of thumb when picking up a machine is to go over it very carefully, examining every part, looking for loose wires, broken connections, switches that are incorrectly installed or broken... make a note of anything that seems unusual -- ideally before you even turn it on. Look at the system boards; look for signs of damage, not just acid damage but heat damage from connectors or components; look at electrolytic capacitors and notice if any are bulging -- that's a sign they may be bad.

Thanks guses- I will take a more in-depth look tonight.

I don't remember the solenoid appearing burned but I'll look again tonight.

I had some gremlins like these in my Sorcerer pin too that I finally got worked out but it just took me a little bit of time.

I have not yet found the manual for this game online. I did not see it over at ARC ARC. If anyone has a copy or can point me in the direction of a link to it I'd appreciate it! HOW can there not be a copy of the manual for this game online already? I mean, it has BANANA FLIPPERS! :D
 

Thanks Burt- actually the doc they are pointing to is just a little 8 pg booklet-flyer-something or other. It's a little diff than a manual with a binder-like end on it. I'll have to look around and see if there actually was a manual made for the game or if that's all there is. If the little 8-pg thing IS the manual, then I have the original one that came with the game.

Thanks for checking for me though!
 
I have a very nice made manual(schematics) for Fire Power.When I had Time Warp I have worked with it.Original manual for Time Warp is awful.
Just go here(section "Tech support"):

http://www.firepowerpinball.com/

This will help you

Thanks! I got to sort through more of the things that came with the machine last night, and found the original manual, along with........... FIREPOWER schematics! And they're big enough to hang on the WALL! This guy really loved his machine!
 
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