Your remarks about Philips electrolytic capacitors caught my attention: I recently repaired a couple of Racal 9478 Frequency Distribution Units. They both dated from the late 1980’s and both used Philips electrolytic capacitors. These were the ones with the blue coloured sleeves, all dating from 1987-1989. Every single one of those nearly 100 capacitors was defective, measuring only a fraction of its marked value and ESR values into kilo ohms. None had failed short (a good thing in retrospect). Thanks for the video👍🏻
Awesome repair vid. Initially I thought where would one start on a complex board like this? Visual, Power lines and data lines appears to be your logical approach. The skills you demonstrate during your vids gives me confideceme to tackle (simple) fault finding and repairs for myself, thank you. Can't wait till part 2. And if we are lucky, see some game play too. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge. My Creature from the Black Lagoon 1993 uses the same driver board that still works flawlessly. I do have burnt pins on J115 and J120. I will be replacing the header and connector for both. I am afraid of through hole connectivity damage when desoldering so any tips / videos on how you do it will be great. Also while I have the board out should I replace all the caps as preventive maintenance? Any other preventative maintenance I should be looking at?
Getting out the pin connector can be difficult. What works best is to carefully cut the plastic pin holder on the board inbetween each pin and then simply heat each pin from underneath and pull it out. Use side cutters and cut gently. As far as preventive maintenance replace C2 near the 12V regulator. It has a tendency to leak. And also any blue Phillips branded caps, they all fail.
The insidious capacitor plague strikes again. Looks like a huge time sink to get that board back to reliable. Are the PCBs (bare or stuffed) available as replicas? The Flintstones game looks cool... Cheers,
pinball basement is making power driver boards and cpu.s from williams files for wpc machines. 350 us dollars. I was going to buy one for my Hurricane but my board guy did a helluva job rehabbing my board to save it. They also have DMD controller boards too.
why are they using Triacs for dimming the GI lights? because Triacs are ment to be used for AC voltage not dimming DC voltages. Any reasons why they use those big square power resistors for the Flash light bulbs?
I should mention that the GI lights are in fact powered by 6.3 VAC from the transformer, and the Triacs are controlled by the one of the latches. If you're referring to the gray squares near the top of the board then those are bridge rectifiers.
@@artifactelectronics Most pinball games have Flash Bulbs which are connected to these big square power resistors not sure why they use those square power resistor for the flash bulbs circuit. The latches are digital latches that the Triacs are controlled by the latches or the Triacs to vary the AC or DC voltage of the GI lights? I'm not sure what the latches are doing to the Triac
Your remarks about Philips electrolytic capacitors caught my attention: I recently repaired a couple of Racal 9478 Frequency Distribution Units. They both dated from the late 1980’s and both used Philips electrolytic capacitors. These were the ones with the blue coloured sleeves, all dating from 1987-1989. Every single one of those nearly 100 capacitors was defective, measuring only a fraction of its marked value and ESR values into kilo ohms. None had failed short (a good thing in retrospect). Thanks for the video👍🏻
thanks Artie this help me so much to check and confirm .looking forward to watching the second one
What a damn cool video. I can't wait to watch the rest of your videos! Thank you!
Thanks Artie, pure entertaiment. Greetings from the Uk
Awesome repair vid.
Initially I thought where would one start on a complex board like this?
Visual, Power lines and data lines appears to be your logical approach.
The skills you demonstrate during your vids gives me confideceme to tackle (simple) fault finding and repairs for myself, thank you.
Can't wait till part 2. And if we are lucky, see some game play too.
Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Artie ! Looking forward for the next episode.
I love the way you step through everything so methodically. I learn a lot from you. Thanks from Australia.
Thank you youngman for sharing your insight and your troubleshooting methodology
Thank you for sharing your knowledge. My Creature from the Black Lagoon 1993 uses the same driver board that still works flawlessly. I do have burnt pins on J115 and J120. I will be replacing the header and connector for both. I am afraid of through hole connectivity damage when desoldering so any tips / videos on how you do it will be great. Also while I have the board out should I replace all the caps as preventive maintenance? Any other preventative maintenance I should be looking at?
Getting out the pin connector can be difficult. What works best is to carefully cut the plastic pin holder on the board inbetween each pin and then simply heat each pin from underneath and pull it out. Use side cutters and cut gently.
As far as preventive maintenance replace C2 near the 12V regulator. It has a tendency to leak. And also any blue Phillips branded caps, they all fail.
The insidious capacitor plague strikes again. Looks like a huge time sink to get that board back to reliable. Are the PCBs (bare or stuffed) available as replicas?
The Flintstones game looks cool...
Cheers,
I think Rottendog made a close replica board, but those are no longer manufactured. (And the price of existing stock seems to have risen by $100)
pinball basement is making power driver boards and cpu.s from williams files for wpc machines. 350 us dollars. I was going to buy one for my Hurricane but my board guy did a helluva job rehabbing my board to save it. They also have DMD controller boards too.
why are they using Triacs for dimming the GI lights? because Triacs are ment to be used for AC voltage not dimming DC voltages. Any reasons why they use those big square power resistors for the Flash light bulbs?
I should mention that the GI lights are in fact powered by 6.3 VAC from the transformer, and the Triacs are controlled by the one of the latches.
If you're referring to the gray squares near the top of the board then those are bridge rectifiers.
@@artifactelectronics Most pinball games have Flash Bulbs which are connected to these big square power resistors not sure why they use those square power resistor for the flash bulbs circuit. The latches are digital latches that the Triacs are controlled by the latches or the Triacs to vary the AC or DC voltage of the GI lights? I'm not sure what the latches are doing to the Triac
I would absolutely run that board in a machine.
👍👍👍👍