Robotron Restarting

copious

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A friend of mine has a Robotron that keeps restarting. No errors codes? I'm thinking ground issue but I believe Williams might have trouble with switchers?
 
A friend of mine has a Robotron that keeps restarting. No errors codes? I'm thinking ground issue but I believe Williams might have trouble with switchers?

Make sure the +5 is as close to +5 without going under that. WMS games are picky about that...

You should also check your connectors on the harness to make sure none of them are burnt. Check the connectors on the boards for cold solder joints as well.
 
Mine has a failing ribbon cable going from the CPU board to the ROM board... if the cabinet gets played too rough, or rocked too hard, or looked are in a weird way... or if it just feels like it, it'll reboot. I really need to replace it, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Check your friends, I figured out it was the cable by the fact that when the game is up, if I BARELY touch the cable, it'll reboot. No error codes when it comes back up, just a "clean" reboot. Turn it on, let it warm up and try tapping that cable... see if that's the issue with your friends machine.

That was just my machine though, I'd probably point the blame at failing connectors (fuse holders are included in that) and possibly dirty/goof voltages from the PS. Yes, I know its a switcher... I put a switcher in a Defender last week or so, and it had been giving us problems every since (the original PS was shot as well)... put in a brand new switcher, right out of the box... fired up and has been working perfectly ever since. Never rule out the PS just because it's a switcher... they fail too.
 
I fixed my resetting Stargate board by:

- cleaning it with a wet toothbrush to remove all corrosion shorts
- fixing a bad nicked circuit trace with CircuitWriter
- lowering switcher voltage so that the boards are below 5.2 V input at the plugs

The Stargate mainly reset because the RAMS were starting to fail but it didn't show up in the RAM tests yet until they fully failed.
 
A friend of mine has a Robotron that keeps restarting. No errors codes? I'm thinking ground issue but I believe Williams might have trouble with switchers?

Switchers drift over time. Verify the voltages and adjust the +5vdc to +5.1vdc.

Make sure the +5 is as close to +5 without going under that. WMS games are picky about that...

You should also check your connectors on the harness to make sure none of them are burnt. Check the connectors on the boards for cold solder joints as well.

Under +5vdc on the boards will cause random resets and board failures.

Burnt connectors is a common failure point, as are flakey old connectors.

I fixed my resetting Stargate board by:

- cleaning it with a wet toothbrush to remove all corrosion shorts
- fixing a bad nicked circuit trace with CircuitWriter
- lowering switcher voltage so that the boards are below 5.2 V input at the plugs

The Stargate mainly reset because the RAMS were starting to fail but it didn't show up in the RAM tests yet until they fully failed.

If you need to crank up your +5vdc to +5.2vdc in any Williams game you most definitely have bad connectors and they should be replaced.
 
Check wiring around door that swings open. Wiggle them all the way down on the left side from rom board to power on cpu board. I have seen this many times. Also check for crack solder joints on boards.
 
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