Xenon - Can’t even self test.

Slam_Bradley

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I am trying to help a friend of mine with this. I went over there today and wanted to do a self test first (specifically the 3rd one that tests all the solenoids.) but the test button does nothing. On machine boot, the green LED only blinks 6 out of 7 times on the MPU board.

I gather a common problem when this happens is that r113 has failed. When I checked it with the multi-meter ohm setting that resister didn't give the same reading as the ones near it, so I supposed replacing it is the next step. That whole area of the board looks rather nasty from old battery most likely. I was hoping to get the MPU board going again and then troubleshoot. The owner told me when it originally broke down that he was playing the game and sunk a ball into a hole and the game froze. He removed the ball and tried again. Then it would boot, but then would not be able to start a game. He was able to run the self test up to about months ago.

Open to any ideas and opinions on this as it my first attempt to try to work on a pinball machine.
 

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clean up that corrosion damage first.

pay attention to the trace going up by the BT1 on the silk screen.

make sure the 5101 ram socket is clean and not corroded.

that is where i would start.

after you get it to boot then replace all the sockets on there as they are all garbage and will cause issues.

Peace
Buffett
 
That's a clean board - well worth spending a bit of time to get working assuming you verify the +43VDC is good as noted.
 

Got it fixed! Did the ZEP thick toilet bowl cleaner trick followed by water hose outside and left to dry, then used iso alcohol and tested the ohms of every resistor within the "corrosion kit" and found 4 bad. 2 of which very much so.


Then replaced the following resisters:

R1
R140
R17
R29

7 flashes on the test bench now. At this point I assume it's time to check fuses, power supply voltage, and then see what the self-test sequence bitches about?
 

Got it fixed! Did the ZEP thick toilet bowl cleaner trick followed by water hose outside and left to dry, then used iso alcohol and tested the ohms of every resistor within the "corrosion kit" and found 4 bad. 2 of which very much so.


Then replaced the following resisters:

R1
R140
R17
R29

7 flashes on the test bench now. At this point I assume it's time to check fuses, power supply voltage, and then see what the self-test sequence bitches about?
Rebuild the power supply, change the caps on the driver board, check HV section on driver board if you havent. Nice work so far
 
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Went over to the guys house today finally. Plugged up the board I repaired and everything fired up. We were delighted but eventually saw signs going back to previous diagnosis of "we don't have enough voltage" everything in self test looks and sound fine.

Progress! The owner seemed ecstatic that he could even play the game at all. Next step is rebuilding the power supply it seems..

Random things happen like sometimes 2 balls in the shooting lane and the voice/sound randomly dropping out only for at least the latter to be fine after reboot. Again, this must be PS related so I will get the owner to raise the table to let me measure and fix next trip.
 
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Friday I replaced his power module with the new modern one. Consistency! Now the machine does the same thing every time you power it on. However, this was good and bad for the owner.

It now refuses to start a game at all. Attract mode behaving itself consistently, but if you trigger a coin-up and try to start and you just hear the game over "whhhiirrrp!" audio sound effect once.

I know the driver board is suspect here, and I do want to replace the caps on his, but she is passing the solenoid test, stuck test, basically every test now except the voice check. While she does say "Xenon" I see reeeeally burnt resistors on that voice board I need to replace. At any rate, I want to focus on it getting back to actually starting games again.

Here are a few threads on pinside that seem relevant, but really curious on any of your thoughts at this point.

Connectors likely need to be "re-pinned"



Bad Pin to MPU preventing startup



Another example of bad "trough switch" or bad connections (pins)

 
Repin the 3 .156" power connectors for sure, then repin any damaged/corroded/fraying/burned connectors elsewhere, then after that only repin connectors you think are causing specific issues. No need to repin every single connector in the game. If it were me I would recap the sound board as well as replace the burned resistors.

I would also clean all contacts on the PF with flexstone. Make sure the trough wire is properly bent, I had an issue with a Lost World not being able to kick the ball from the trough into the shooter lane because of a misadjusted trough wire.

I've not worked on many SS pins but the Lost World I did repair was a joy to work on in comparison to the finicky Sys80 Gottlieb Im working on now
 
Alright, finally returning to this one. So, upon going to install the capkit I ordered it looked as if the large caps in the kit were not compatible with this solenoid driver board (both were like 2300 uF and the wattage wasn't as close as I'm comfortable with despite the originals being less than 2000uF. Is this normal?) I replaced the axial cap and the smaller cap, got slightly different results.

What should I do or check next?

Startup:

Audio, but game not starting.

Test Mode:

(In this one the owner is commenting on the test sound in the beginning being awkward and I am counting up how many times I am hitting the test button)
 
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Alright, finally returning to this one. So, upon going to install the capkit I ordered it looked as if the large caps in the kit were not compatible with this solenoid driver board (both were like 2300 uF and the wattage wasn't as close as I'm comfortable with despite the originals being less than 2000uF. Is this normal?) I replaced the axial cap and the smaller cap, got slightly different results.
It's recommended to replace the two big caps on the solenoid driver board with higher rated ones. They were undersized for the job from the factory, which seems common on filter caps in pinball machines.
At a minimum, replace both large capacitors on a working or non-working board, especially if they look original. Original caps are often metallic blue or metallic silver, and are at least 30 years old and due to fail, owing to the electrolytic chemicals in the capacitor drying up. The capacitor at C23 has a factory value of 11,000uf and 20 volts, but these values are not easily found these days. An electrolytic capacitor of between 11,000uf and 16,000uf and 25 volts or greater can be safely substituted. A screw terminal capacitor makes for a easy installation, but a snap cap with leads can be used as well. Recent prices for screw terminal caps have increased greatly so this may be a factor in your decision.
The high voltage capacitor at C26 has an original spec of 160uf and 350 volts and is an axial electrolytic capacitor. Once again, this part is difficult to encounter with these exact specs, but an axial or radial cap from 150uf to 180uf and at least 350 volts can substitute. 400v or 450v caps can be had in a radial format and size that will fit. With a radial cap you will have to make leads that bend back to the negative (-) solder pad.
 
Thank you man. I started to trust the kit and throw them in anyway but hesitated.
Of course. I would also check out the other suggested modifications (like tying TP1 and TP3 together, and doing a ground mod for one of the caps)
Audio, but game not starting.
Start with the simple stuff... does it have credits? Is there a ball in the trough (I can't remember if early Ballys require there to be a ball in the trough or not)?
 
solenoid.JPG

check the fuse under the playfield between the flippers (1amp slo-blow, I think)
also, the lockout solenoid on the coin door can get stuck (#16 solenoid on the self-test). disconnecting it wont hurt anything.
the flippers should engage on #17 if you hold them in during the test

page 47 on the below attachment talks about the start button grounding out which can cause issues
lots of good info in this guide
Xenon has some differences from the earlier machines. This covers Bally SS from 1977-1985

https://manualzz.com/doc/23233899/pinball--repairing-bally--stern-pinball-games-1977
 
page 86:

Game starts but won't serve the ball to the shooter lane."
Make sure there are enough balls in the ball trough, and that all the ball trough switches are working. Also make sure the tilt switch is not stuck closed (a game will not start if the tilt or slam switch is closed). Also check for a bad capacitor on these switches. If that is not the problem, chances are this game uses a "solenoid expander board". This board multiplexes a solenoid driver board transistor so it drives TWO coils instead of one. If the solenoid expander board develops a problem, certain coils may not work. See the section titled Solenoid Expander Board section above for more details.
 
I started trying to help pinpoint the exact issue, but it sounds like you have a lot of stuff going on there.

First of all NEVER USE A FLEXSTONE FILE to clean the switches under the playfield! You will destroy the plating on the switches making them worse or completely unusable. Use a business card or a rubber eraser. You can use the flexstone file on the flipper end of stroke switch, and the cabinet flipper switches.

Elsewise, every other suggestion is correct, unfortunately. Some of the suggestions I have to start with are:

It does look like there was corrosion at some point. I would repin the connector at J4 (it's possible the corrosion worked it's way up in the connector, and if it did it is still there causing a bad connection). If the header pins do not look relatively shiny at that location, I'd repin the header also.

Check and make sure both pinballs are registering in game over mode. (remove both balls. go through the solenoid test faster to get to the switch test, no switches should display. Power off and on, do it again with the balls in place and make sure both are registering in the switch test).

You can also test for +5 on the mpu, leave the backbox open or have a multimeter in plain view as you are trying to start a game. +5 should be registering close to 5v DC.

Start there and then worry about all the other stuff. There is an issue with the sound board I can tell, because it's not playing the game over tune when you test it (after the solenoid test and before switch test), and apparently there may even be a problem with the voice board too. Check the easy stuff first, then worry about fixing the rest of it.

Unfortunately again, this probably isn't going to be an easy "Check here, replace or fix that thing, and it'll work". If you need help or anything, continue to post and we'll try our best to help. :)

-Pat
 
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