Lethal Weapon 3 lighting/coil/whatever issues

mecha

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got a Lethal Weapon 3 that was working great for a couple months until the GIs quit on it. instinctively from an experience with the very similar Jurassic Park, I pulled the lighting board and checked the solder joints for cold solder or burning, etc. and that wasn't the case.

had a time where I lifted the playfield and I guess wiggled some wires and they came back. now neither step works. I went as far as to swap light boards with the JP to see if the problem would carry and it didn't, so I'm leaning towards it being wiring related.

while I was doing this, in the ball trough there's I'm guessing 2 coils, one that kicks the ball over to the out hole, and another that shoots it the ball launcher? lol well none of these activate now, the ball never comes out to the launcher. the first coil that shoots the ball over had a broken off wire, I soldered that back on and touched up a lot of shitty solder work to the coils and it still didn't fix it.

the only thing that changed was unplugging and re-plugging the connectors coming from the backbox to the playfield. none of these connectors look burned at all, and they're connected as tight as any of us could get them.

if anyone has any ideas of where to start with this, please let me know. I don't work on pinball machines.
 
Start with your meter and measure power. At the sockets, connectors, leaving the power supply board.

Once you figure where power stopped, then you know what needs fixing.

Assuming all the bulbs are good.
LTG :)
 
yeah, I need to track down a manual first. I don't know wtf I'm metering. and I've pulled random bulbs out and the filament isn't broken soooo... yeah, it's not those.

I haven't pulled the power supply board yet, do the GIs get a different feed? the coils?
 
The upper right connectors on the power supply board have the power for the GI Lighting, and they are usually burned to a crisp. Then the GI power goes through the PPB board, and those connectors are usually fried also. On the PPB Board the fuse holders were not very good and they crack and need to be replaced. That is usually a good start in fixing the GI on a Data East Game.

As for the manual, go Here:
http://files.flipperspill.no/Support/Pinball/Pinball_Manuals.htm
And look under "L"
 
CN8 on the power supply board was fucking DESTROYED.

so.. I'm really glad I bought those .156 headers from Bob Roberts. lol

now I have to re-crimp the damn connector
 
ok, I replaced the CN8 header and did patchwork on the connector. I got all the GIs to shine again, but I'm still missing all my trough coils.

the violet/red wire goes to one of them, I traced that back to a connector on the light board for some reason, is that just a general driver board after all? I haven't done any reflow work on that yet, was just focusing on the power supply board tonight. I reflowed every major header and all the fuse holders on that, so that should be solid.

I'm also missing action on the middle targets that you hit down. they won't go back up on their own. so, yeah...

I just need more time. I ran out of that tonight. any other ideas?
 
they all worked before. the whole game worked. wasn't until I resoldered one of the trough coils (the wire broke off) that I lost everything... which was also when I started reseating connectors. the CN8 on the power supply board controls a lot of shit.
 
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