shipped my orbitor 1, need some thoughts

flex

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It arrived physically ok, but is having a few problems. Any thoughts or advice for the new owner?

He wrote:

The Ball in play reads 27 all the time.
7 or 8 of the playfield lights are out, jiggling the wires doesn't have any effect. Checked the bulbs and they are good.
The sound is pretty buzzy, and I cant really hear the tests very well at all.

Always played ok for me, but seemed kind of noisy on start up?
 
I'd have him verify and reseat all connectors. After that check the power supply outputs.

This is the email I just got. I don't understand how it got so messed up during shipping.



Thanks for your email, and your help.

The display looks like this:

350000 00
00 0000027 00


I did check both credit switches, and no joy. I found a severed ceramic capacitor in the body of the machine. I hope it didn't come off something, but I don't know where else it could have come from :( - I need to keep a lookout for where it might have come off of.

Regarding the lights...The first thing I attempted to do was check the connections in the lamp sockets (start with the easy stuff right ?), doing just as you said, buy rotating the base to see if the contact would clean it up a bit, and then messing with the bulb to see if they would light. Doesn't appear to be simple bad connections. There are specific lights out, so I guess that will be a gnarly troubleshooting excercise (boo).

I took a meter to the lamp array in back by the ORBITER plastic, and there are only 3 of the array sockets getting any significant power (the three that are working are in caps orBIteR). I looked into the backbox, at the lamp driver board, and noticed a few of the transistors were smashed down to the board and the legs were touching. I carefully bent them back up off the board, to but that didn't seem to make a difference. I wonder is that could have caused any issues - what do you think would be the result of any of those transistors legs shorting themselves? At one point the 2x light that has been out, was in fact on for a while, so I was encouraged, but after the next reset... out again bleh !

I powered up the machine today (just to say good morning to it - can you tell I really want to play LOL) and the display flickering is back. Touching/tapping on the connector on the upper right of the solenoid board makes a sizzling noise and makes the flickering come and go. Maybe a cracked solder on the other side of the board, not sure.

PLAN FOR TONIGHT.
1 Display flicker - Remove Solenoid board check for cold solder cracks - re-flow if any seen. If none seen then examine connector (any tips for making sure the connector makes good contact?)

2 Lamps - Get under the playfield and catalog all lamps that are out.

3 Hope - for some more progress


I am not that good at working on pins, so any advice is appreciated. His zip is 01752. I guess having someone here local is a long shot, but thought I would try.
Thanks
 
What kind of restoration work was done to the machine before you sold it?

Connector problems are almost a guarantee but there could be any number of other issues that manifested themselves as a result of shipping the game.
 
Those numbers sound similar to what happens if the game loses memory, like a bad or missing battery maybe?

Still cold solder joints and connectors are probably all that's wrong....
 
game is semi working but still some bugs. Here is his latest email::



Hi Warren,

I worked the whole day on the Orbitor. You will be pleased to know that I traced the coin mech wiring, and found the red-yel wire severed in the machine. After looking at the schematic, and making sure that I was connectinf the right wires... the machine NOW will give credits through the coin mech :)

That was kinda huge, because now I could actually play. Things were still wrong (the sound) but I could pay the game YAY !!!!

After 20 or so games, I felt like I could go on shooting the problems, especially since the sound was so horrible. I pulled the speaker and found the second pinball stuck to the magnet (the first one fell out of the machine while we were moving it into the house, and it fell below the deck :p I was wondering what had hapened to the other one. Mystery solved.

The speaker tested fine. The game also has no speech, which is a big bumer :(. After examining the sound board, and seeing nothing visualy wrong, I decided to power up the machine with the VSU disconnected. Now the sound is perfect, NO buzz on powerup, and crystal clear. I re-conected the VSU, and BUZZ CITY and makes the sound really BAD. So I don't know whether it is the VSU or the MPU that has a problem, but something is definetly not right there. I am guessing they aren't easy to come by.

I checked all of the lights that are out, and there is no electric pulse getting to them. There are like 20 lights out most noteworthy are most of the ORBITOR lights. I didi get 1 or two to work, that were simply bad contact.

There is one other unusual intermittent issue, when the game starts, and a ball is moved to the shooter lane there is a sound (like the ball hitting the lower spinner motor), you get 1000 pts and the flashing lane light goes out, and the timer begins. The same thing can be reproduced by hitting one or both flippers. I would really like to get that solved.

So we are in MUCH better shape today Warren. Got just those problems I just mentioned left woo hoo PROGRESS.

1 - ~ 20 lights still out, all connections seem good - I have not done any deep diag on the lamp driver board (bleh)
2 - There is no digital voice (bleh)
3 - The phantom switch closure when coils fire on new ball or flips (not sure wht this is)
 
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