KISS Fix Failed

melchman

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I am repairing a KISS (Bally) pinball and replaced the MPU with a Brand New AllTek. The game now boots and starts to play! The old board was killed by the battery.

I shoot the ball and it rolls over the switches and NOTHING happens. Put it in test and can't get any switch to "fire" in the self test. So weird and so disappointing.

I must have a DIP switch wrong somewhere.
 
The connector for the switches is probably corroded or has broken terminals inside the housing where it plugs into the cpu board.
 
I would install new pins on both of the connectors on the right side of the MPU, they are the ones that get the most damage.
 
It's a reall PIA but buy a mpu connector kit and replace all the plugs going to the mpu. The corrosion damage eats up the connectors. (http://www.bigdaddy-enterprises.com/) They may look fine but will cause many problems in the future. Do yourself and the next owner a big favor and don't just crimp the connector on.

1) strip the wire
2) tin the wire with solder
3) crimp the pin on the wire
4) heat the pin to flow the solder
5) cool and insert into the connector.
6) no more connector problem

This method is time consuming and kills your back but will solve many issues. I've found it's a lot easier if you remove the head and set it on the bench to replace the connectors.
 
Soldering a crimp contact gives you a brittle point where the wire can easily break.
Just crimp them.

Ed
 
I was a certified terminator trained by amp in an earlier life and I can tell you that the industry experts prefer a neat mechanical crimp to any other connection between a terminal and some stranded wire.
 
I have always crimped the connection first then solder. I have seen too many wires pull out of a crimp and don't get me started about IDC connectors. :mad:
 
To each their own! I too have seen MANY crimped connectors fail, that's why I started soldering them. I'm not saying to cover the pin in solder but use just enough to ensure the wire doesn't pull free or lose contact. There may be thousands of virtues to just crimping, but in a home use/ routed pinball it really helps bulletproof an already weak part of the machine.
 
How about if one was to crimp to the wire jacket but solder to the pin itself. Thats what I do.

I've been in this biz for coming close to 30 years. I've seen A LOT of wires pull out of a crimped connector.

And +1 on changing those connectors. That corrosion can get into some really odd places.
 
I had a Eight Ball that I had to replace the bottom left and bottom right connectors for the MPU board. The original board was so bad as to be unrepairable so we installed an Alltek Ultimate MPU and I replaced the machine's female wafer terminals.
 
I've been in this biz for coming close to 30 years. I've seen A LOT of wires pull out of a crimped connector.

If you can pull the wire out of the connector, then it's not crimped properly.

A properly crimped wire will never pull out. The wire should break first.

Read this page

http://www.molex.com/tnotes/crimp.html
 
If you can pull the wire out of the connector, then it's not crimped properly.

A properly crimped wire will never pull out. The wire should break first.

Read this page

http://www.molex.com/tnotes/crimp.html

I think both viewpoints are valid; I've seen a lot of crimping going on with needle-nose pliars vs. the proper/correct tool for the job (and was guilty of it myself for many years prior to springing for a quality crimping tool).

A *good*, properly performed crimp, using the proper tools can and should suffice - a substandard crimp can be salvaged by adding solder, to be sure.

Once I learned to crimp properly and had the right tools, I've found it to work great.

Bottom line, whatever works (short of soldering the wires directly to the pins of course) to provide a proper, reliable connection. I do know that many times I tried touching up a crimp with a bit of solder, it just made it much harder to get the pin into the housing, and caused me more problems than it solved :)

On topic - glad to hear re-pinning the connectors did the trick; common issue!
 
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