New LW3 owner

Dewey68

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Bought my first pin yesterday, a Lethal Weapon 3. I have a few questions on it, since I don't have any experience with one.

1) Can someone explain to me how the drop targets are supposed to behave? I have started to read the manual, but a quick explanation by someone that has experience with this game would be nice. They don't seem to be resetting properly, or maybe they aren't supposed to like I would think
2) Could someone steer me in the direction of troubleshooting the DMD? The bottom 3 rows do not light, but the rest work fine. I've reseated all of the ribbon cables, but no luck.
3) It's missing the little pin with the rubber on it that should sit between the outlane and the next lane on the left side, by the karate kickout lane. I would imagine these are easy to buy a replacement for?

All in all it's in pretty good shape. Playfield looks like it will cleanup nicely, and the cabinet has a few nicks but nothing bad. The topper is there.

I've fixed two broken wires so far, one that was keeping a pop bumper from firing, and the other running to the bottom speaker. Much better now that it has some bass.

This should be a good first pin for me to cleanup and cut my teeth on. Once I get an idea of what I'm doing with this one, I'll start to look for a nice Williams table from the late 80's to early 90's. Those were my favorites as I spent too many quarters on them between classes and at the bar when I was in college.
 
congrats and welcome to the addiction


posts are no biggie lots of places for that, including ebay,marco specialties, pinball resource etc...


as for your drop targets , a description of what they are doing is needed


but in general, when you drop a target it will stay down until you knock them all down or your ball drains, also this game wants you to hit specific targets for modes , hope this helps answer your question
 
If I hit some of the drop targets, I'll hear "Red wire" or "Blue wire", but they don't reset. I've had all of the targets down, and they don't reset until the next ball. I'm sure I need to adjust a switch or two with that behavior.
 
if you knock down all 3 targets in either bank, they should reset instantly no matter what software setting you have.
check the target switches themselves and wiring. there is also an adjustment if they reset or try to reset and then drop by themselves..

as far as your display, if u have rows out u probably need to buy a new display or repair that. its very hard to repair those when that happens and i cant even get into the steps it takes to repair or try to repair those.

spend the $120 and get a fresh display.
 
if you knock down all 3 targets in either bank, they should reset instantly no matter what software setting you have.
check the target switches themselves and wiring. there is also an adjustment if they reset or try to reset and then drop by themselves..

as far as your display, if u have rows out u probably need to buy a new display or repair that. its very hard to repair those when that happens and i cant even get into the steps it takes to repair or try to repair those.

spend the $120 and get a fresh display.


well said, the ability to repair a dmd is largely dependent on who made it and its age

i.e the early dmd's could be resoldered , the newer ones is next to imposible with the ribbons, replacing just the glass is a possibility but the cost/time doesnt make it worthwhile

ive bought around 10 used displays off ebay and all but 2 worked completely, i think the most i paid was 30bucks but im pretty patient, if you cant wait buy a new one for 135 off ebay
 
well said, the ability to repair a dmd is largely dependent on who made it and its age

i.e the early dmd's could be resoldered , the newer ones is next to imposible with the ribbons, replacing just the glass is a possibility but the cost/time doesnt make it worthwhile

ive bought around 10 used displays off ebay and all but 2 worked completely, i think the most i paid was 30bucks but im pretty patient, if you cant wait buy a new one for 135 off ebay

Thanks for the input guys. I can keep an eye on Ebay and wait, it doesn't really affect play, just annoying. Is there a trick to removing the displays? It looks like you'd need a pretty stubby screwdriver to get in the cabinet. I need to read over more of the manual.

I'll play with the drop targets tomorrow and see if I can get them working correctly.

One other thing; the artwork for the backglass is touching the glass in some spots but not in others. I didn't notice it when I originally looked at the table because of the lighting. It doesn't show at night, but during the day it looks like there is water between the glass. Can I remove the strips along the side of the backglass and reposition the artwork, or is that designed to not be removed? I don't want to screw it up worse than it is.

Thanks for helping the newb fellas!
 
welcome to the forums. i too own lw3 and really enjoy it. dont be surprised when you find yourself on craigslist/ebay/mr.pinball at 3am looking for your next pin to buy.it truly is an addiction.
 
the backglass on the newer tables isnt screened, it a plastic translite, you can replace it with a new one if its faded or move without worry

in 2 months or less youll be telling us about your newest pickup
 
Thanks for the input guys. I can keep an eye on Ebay and wait, it doesn't really affect play, just annoying. Is there a trick to removing the displays? It looks like you'd need a pretty stubby screwdriver to get in the cabinet. I need to read over more of the manual.

I'll play with the drop targets tomorrow and see if I can get them working correctly.

One other thing; the artwork for the backglass is touching the glass in some spots but not in others. I didn't notice it when I originally looked at the table because of the lighting. It doesn't show at night, but during the day it looks like there is water between the glass. Can I remove the strips along the side of the backglass and reposition the artwork, or is that designed to not be removed? I don't want to screw it up worse than it is.

Thanks for helping the newb fellas!

Not sure if this is what you mean, but the panel with the DMD and speakers should lift right up and out of the backbox easily. No stubby tools required!
 
Not sure if this is what you mean, but the panel with the DMD and speakers should lift right up and out of the backbox easily. No stubby tools required!

(Insert non-family friendly stubby-tool joke here.) That's exactly what I mean stevenp61, I figured there was an easy way to work on that panel. Thanks for the incite.
 
I still can't figure out the drop targets. I took the two banks off the board, sanded all the contacts and resoldered all of the connections but they still don't seem to be working correctly. I will get the red wire blue wire animations but they don't reset like they should. I've seen them all reset at times during a ball, but I've had long stretches where they are all down which takes away a lot of action in the game. Since these are just switches I would think they would be easy to troubleshoot

Edit: Ok, I've narrowed it down to both of the left drop targets in each bank. The middle and right ones register, the left ones don't. Any clues on what I should look at next? All the wires that run to the "pinch" connector look ok in the connector. This is going to bug me until I get it fixed! I get obsessed about crap like this. :)
 
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Make sure the leaf switch on the drop bank assembly is actually being activated when the target drops. You can use the switch matrix to do this *read manual for info on this*, but my guess is the switch isn't closing, has a bad diode, or a bad solder joint on the wire connecting to the switch.
 
No joy

Make sure the leaf switch on the drop bank assembly is actually being activated when the target drops. You can use the switch matrix to do this *read manual for info on this*, but my guess is the switch isn't closing, has a bad diode, or a bad solder joint on the wire connecting to the switch.

I had a hard time using the switch matrix because my lower three lines of the DMD are out, but I did check the non-functioning switches in the closed position and open position with my meter and they test fine when closed. I had to barely touch the bottom of the leaf as the tiniest bit of pressure would close it when open. My meter doesn't test diodes (have to get one that does) so I went to radio shack and picked up some IN4001 diodes and replaced the two on the drop targets that aren't registering. I traced down the wires that go to those targets also, and reseated them in the knife connectors. Both targets still don't register. Could this be a board issue? New diodes, resoldered connections, and reseated wires and they still don't register.
 
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Here is what i'm thinking: Look under the PF at the two targets that aren't registering. Push one and make sure it is causing the switch to close. I think you said it worked in test and I think if it was a board issue none of the switch would register.
 
Here is what i'm thinking: Look under the PF at the two targets that aren't registering. Push one and make sure it is causing the switch to close. I think you said it worked in test and I think if it was a board issue none of the switch would register.

Both drop targets test closed when tested from beneath the board in the down position, and open in the up position.
 
Are you sure the diode is installed properly? Try jumping ground to the switch and see what it does. Just wierd that both left targets aren't registering....
 
Pix from the board

Thanks much for your tutoring over the phone Spanks, here is a picture of the board with the bad looking connector. You can see the solder puddles below the transistors and above the connector. The wires look like they are gray going to this connector however, not white like the ones going to the drop targets. Not sure if this makes a difference, just thought I'd note it.
 

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Probably just someone jumping transistors to wires, but the grey wires are fine. You need to find the white wires *target wires* and look at that connector. The white connector should be going to the board on the bottom left of the head *maybe plug in the top* or the board on the botton right *plug in top*, but we are looking for the white stripped wires.
 
These should be it. The wire in question is at the far left pin, which does have evidence of having had some heat around that connector.
 

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Since we narrowed it down to either the connectors or header pins I would pull the board *take a picture of where all the connectors go incase they aren't pinned differently* and reflow the header pins on the drop target connector. Put the board back in and report back. If that doesn't fix it then it's one of the two connectors.

For others: I had him jump the "power" wire from a working drop target to the non-working target and the switches started registering.
 
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