Frax
New member
Odd controlled lighting issue...troubleshooting with LED lamps? lol...
So I got in my latest order of parts for Space Shuttle, I'm playing around with replacing bulbs with leds. My score multiplier row has been out for a while now, haven't bothered fixing it because I knew I was going to change it over to LED anyways, didn't figure it was worth looking into until I learned a bit more. The 2x would light, but any subsequent multiplier was extremely dim, and if you had 3 or more lit, they all go very very dim.
Just for laughs, I checked to make sure that it wasn't a diode snapped off, no go there, all look fine (Yeah yeah, I need to actually test them I know.), none of the solder joints along the line look crappy. I went ahead and decided to replace the 2x bulb with a green LED just to see what would happen. Worst case scenario, it doesn't light, right? Not only did it light, but when I lit 3x it was bright as well. 4x, they're all on, LED is bright, the inserts are dimmed. 5x, everything goes off.
Okay, well...whatever. I replaced all the bulbs on the multipliers with green LEDs. Now it works regardless of how many are lit up, works great in attract mode, but I know inherently the problem is still there, it's just that the LEDs pull so little power that they're making do with what's available. Where do I start to troubleshoot this? It seems to me there's just not enough current getting through to these sockets to power bulbs.
My power board is burned up and GI is hacked back in (Soldered directly to the board, no molex connectors because they BURNED OFF THE TRACES..). I'm planning on buying a Pinscore replacement at some point, but probably not until after I do the playfield swap once the repro is available from CPR...would like the machine to stay playable until I get to that point.
So I got in my latest order of parts for Space Shuttle, I'm playing around with replacing bulbs with leds. My score multiplier row has been out for a while now, haven't bothered fixing it because I knew I was going to change it over to LED anyways, didn't figure it was worth looking into until I learned a bit more. The 2x would light, but any subsequent multiplier was extremely dim, and if you had 3 or more lit, they all go very very dim.
Just for laughs, I checked to make sure that it wasn't a diode snapped off, no go there, all look fine (Yeah yeah, I need to actually test them I know.), none of the solder joints along the line look crappy. I went ahead and decided to replace the 2x bulb with a green LED just to see what would happen. Worst case scenario, it doesn't light, right? Not only did it light, but when I lit 3x it was bright as well. 4x, they're all on, LED is bright, the inserts are dimmed. 5x, everything goes off.
Okay, well...whatever. I replaced all the bulbs on the multipliers with green LEDs. Now it works regardless of how many are lit up, works great in attract mode, but I know inherently the problem is still there, it's just that the LEDs pull so little power that they're making do with what's available. Where do I start to troubleshoot this? It seems to me there's just not enough current getting through to these sockets to power bulbs.
My power board is burned up and GI is hacked back in (Soldered directly to the board, no molex connectors because they BURNED OFF THE TRACES..). I'm planning on buying a Pinscore replacement at some point, but probably not until after I do the playfield swap once the repro is available from CPR...would like the machine to stay playable until I get to that point.