Pinbot flash lamp fails.

Frax

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Okay, so...lesson learned. You have to pay attention to what goes in the sockets, not just that they're all the same shape. Yes, I wear the idiot crown today.

Did not realize that the backbox for Pinbot uses some 1251's, which as far as I can tell are higher voltage than 89's. Whoops. Blew out my spare 89's before I figured out what was going on....knew that there were 1251's under the visor. Should've checked everything first. My bad.

So I had fixed some of the flashers in the head, there was a wire broken off, they work now. Great....sort of. I've got two issues now..one may not be something I can fix. That issue is that I'm popping a LOT of 89's....not just because I put them in the wrong socket! I had some that I bought for Shuttle from Pinball Life, and almost every single one of these new Eiko's died within minutes of going into the machine. I can put the OLD bulbs in the exact same positions, and they are perfectly fine. Went to try and test the voltages at the bulbs to see if maybe that was the culprit somehow...

Meter broke. Phsically broke. Thankfully, it's a 5$ cheapie from Harbor Freight. Easily replaced. :p I'm assuming that given the old bulbs are functioning fine and not going out like popcorn that I just got a shit batch of bulbs. Not amused, but okay...at least it's reasonable....I'm just not going to put expensive LED flashers in there until I can verify the voltages. :|

Bigger issue is that the bulbs under the playfield for the Increase Energy Value aren't firing at all. Was in the middle of testing those when the stupid probe broke. Didn't appear there was any voltage, but not certain since there was obviously a physical flaw with my probe that caused it to break in the connector. So just doing a sanity check for when I get a chance to work on it again...

1. Check for voltages. If no voltages present, continuity check the wire at both ends?

If that checks out, it's probably a problem on the driver board to check next, right? I think I can locate the driver on my own, just doing a procedure check....first time I've had something that may possibly go that far...pretty lucky for my first 5 months of pinball ownership, I guess. :p
 
There is a small board underneath the playfield in the far back right - near the energy value insert. It has 4 or 5 large sand resistors on it. (they are about
1/2" wide and about 3" long).

Odds are one of those has dislodged itself from the board - leg broken off at the board or where it joins the resistor itself. Should be clearly visible when you look at it. Very common problem due to vibration, etc.
 
There is a small board underneath the playfield in the far back right - near the energy value insert. It has 4 or 5 large sand resistors on it. (they are about
1/2" wide and about 3" long).

Odds are one of those has dislodged itself from the board - leg broken off at the board or where it joins the resistor itself. Should be clearly visible when you look at it. Very common problem due to vibration, etc.

Yeah...sounds good. I'll check that out when I get home tonight. Once my meter broke I just gave up for the night yesterday, lol.

I'm considering getting the repro playfield for this too, I just look under the playfield and cry in terror thinking about trying the swap on this thing...the wiring harness is insane. Shuttle looks like a breadboard by comparison. I'm not sure I can do Pinbot swap without completely rebuilding the wire harness from scratch, or desoldering EVERYTHING at the very least.

I dropped two screws in there last night, finally threw my hands up in the air in anger and trolled Amazon until I found a magnetic nut driver for 5$ used. That thing will be a godsend. :|
 
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