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Star Trek the Next Generation


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-Ball trough keeps spitting out balls=trough board opto/s buggered. Replace transmitter LED. Switch test will show which opto/s are bad.

-Random multiball=Subway opto/s dirty, dry jointed or broken, switch test will show you where.

-Cannon not finding home and/or you keep blowing F116=Cannon wiring loom broken and or shorting to ground. Remove cannon covers, inspect and pin out as required, replace wires.

So many things that can go wrong with this game. See Clays' site for a much more complete list of issues.

Great famliy game but STtNG can require lots of running repairs.

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-Ball trough keeps spitting out balls=trough board opto/s buggered. Replace transmitter LED. Switch test will show which opto/s are bad.

-Random multiball=Subway opto/s dirty, dry jointed or broken, switch test will show you where.

-Cannon not finding home and/or you keep blowing F116=Cannon wiring loom broken and or shorting to ground. Remove cannon covers, inspect and pin out as required, replace wires.

So many things that can go wrong with this game. See Clays' site for a much more complete list of issues.

Great famliy game but STtNG can require lots of running repairs.

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-Ball trough keeps spitting out balls=trough board opto/s buggered. Replace transmitter LED. Switch test will show which opto/s are bad.

 

Just started getting this tonight:laugh:

 

Had a feeling it was trough optos out and did the switch test. First though I'm thinking give the optos a clean:unsure

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Just started getting this tonight:laugh:

 

Had a feeling it was trough optos out and did the switch test. First though I'm thinking give the optos a clean:unsure

 

 

A quick way to test the transmit LED's is to unscrew the board, leave the connector on the board and power up the game. Once you have verified that the board is getting power (Red LED is on), you can see if the IR LEDs are working by viewing them through a digital camera, yes the one on your mobile phone is fine.:D

If the IR LED's are working they will glow when viewed through the digital camera.

Quick and easy way to check if the IR LED's are working. You have to remove the board to clean the LED's so you may as well test them while you have the board out.

Cheers,

Dan

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  • 3 years later...
-Ball trough keeps spitting out balls=trough board opto/s buggered. Replace transmitter LED. Switch test will show which opto/s are bad.

-Random multiball=Subway opto/s dirty, dry jointed or broken, switch test will show you where.

-Cannon not finding home and/or you keep blowing F116=Cannon wiring loom broken and or shorting to ground. Remove cannon covers, inspect and pin out as required, replace wires.

So many things that can go wrong with this game. See Clays' site for a much more complete list of issues.

Great famliy game but STtNG can require lots of running repairs.

 

Hi Maxprofits,

Where is Clay's site for a more complete list of issues.

 

thanks.

 

Bill

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Hi Maxprofits,

Where is Clay's site for a more complete list of issues.

 

thanks.

 

Bill

 

he removed it - got pissed off with someone and shut down the site I believe. But here is the game specific issues mentioned:

 

Problem: Star Trek Next Generation diverter coil stuck on!

Star Trek Next Generation (STNG) uses more coils than there are transistors on the Power Driver board. Williams solution was to add a small auxiliary driver board, mounted above and to the right of the main driver board in the backbox. This small auxiliary driver board holds more TIP102 driver transistors for the additional coils needed in STNG. This board needs +50 volts for a "tieback diode" voltage for the circuit. The power is connected by a thin violet/green wire which connects to the playfield's single drop target coil (at the back of the playfield). If this wire breaks, or if some other power wire in this coil power daisy chain breaks, it can cause the two diverter coils to lock on (after they are first activated in game play!) If the problem is not found quickly, the diverter coils and their driving TIP102 transistors (usually Q15 and/or Q7) can fail. Transistors on the auxiliary driver board will fail in one or even a couple of activations if the tieback voltage is not present on the board.

 

Answer: If the two diverter coils lock on after a game is started, check the violet/green tie-back wire which connects to the playfield's single drop target coil. This wire than daisy chains to the other coils controlled by the auxiliary driver board. It's not a bad idea to add a second back-up wire from the single drop target coil (or another adjacent coil) to the circuit board, just in case one wire breaks. Additionally, add two 1N4004 diodes to each of the under-the-playfield diverter coils (banded side of the diode to the power lug with the thick wire).

 

Also check D7 and D15 on the aux board with a DMM's diode test (and while you're at it test TIP102 trans Q7 and Q15). With the coil power fuse removed, you can also test U1 pin 13 and pin 8 with a logic probe or DMM - if high (and the diverter is not supposed to be energized), then that U1 is bad (74LS576). That is, the U1 pins that connect to the driver transistors are normally high (when an output U1 pin goes low, the driver transistor completes the ground path for its associated coil). So a logic probe or DMM is useful to look at the U1 output pins (anything low and the associated coil will be energized). Another test of this is to use an aligator jumper wire connected to ground, and touch each U1 output pin - the associated coil should energize. The Aux8 U1 chip is driven through the ribbon cable from the CPU board's U7 chip. A damaged cpu-to-aux8 ribbon cable can also cause some wacky behavior.

 

Also make sure the diverter coils are the correct type and resistance. The correct coil type is very important (AE-25-1000, but always confirm with the manual). Remove one wire going to each coil, and measure the resistance with a DMM. It should be around 12 ohms and no less. Another common problem is when moving the game and the backbox is laid down, the ribbon cables get pulled, and it wasn't plugged in fully on the board. So if a wire in the ribbon cable is faulty, a diverter coil can lock on and burn and ruin its associated driver transistor on the auxiliary board in the process.

 

Finally, these 8-driver Auxiliary boards are not necessarily exchangable between game titles. The boards are the same, but there are a set of four jumpers on the Aux board, and the jumpers vary depending on the game title. So if a Aux8 board is transplanted from say Demo Man to STNG, make sure the Aux8 board jumpers are changed accordingly.

 

 

Problem: Star Trek Next Generation cannons work intermittently, or upon power on, the cannon(s) continue to rotate and won't stop (this applies to many other games with similar cannons, such as Terminator2, or other similar moving devices like the Trolls on Medieval Madness).

 

Answer: The constant back and forth movement of the wires leading to the moving device cause an intermittant break in the wires. Usually this break can not be seen, since it is inside the insulation covering the wire strands. Usually the break is at a wire tie or some major angle. Checking the wires using the a DMM continuity setting is helpful, but does not alway work. On Star Trek Next Gen, just replace the cannon wiring loom! (Believe me, they need replaced, it is a high wear part.) They are available from pinballheaven.com/cannon.htm. After replacing the Star Trek cannon wiring loom, check the optics for each cannon in the switch test (the optics tell the game when a ball is loaded in a cannon). If an optic is dead, this can can confuse the game too. Finally, sometimes the cannon plunger becomes magnetic, and will stick in the fired position (and this in turn will block the cannon opto, confusing the game). Replace the plunger to fix this.

 

Problem: My STNG (Star Trek Next Generation) has random multiball problems, and I have done all the ball trough upgrades, as described earlier in this document.

 

Answer: This was a combination of problems including dirty optos below the playfield in the diverter tunnels, and a not properly working drop target below the borg ship. Even if the optos are cleaned and appear to be working normally in the switch test, an opto transmitter or receiver may be staerting to go bad and cause intermittent problems. This is especially common in STNG and diagnosing it can be a headache. On a STNG (user reported), every time the game initialized with six balls in the trougn, it would load the first ball into the right gun, then immediately kick it out, but then then next 3 balls loaded normally one into each popper. Then during game play, an extra ball would randomly be kicked out from the upper left popper. All of the optos tested normally in the T.1 switch test and the connectors and were all well seated. Finally diagnosed this by leaving the game on for a while in the switch test mode T.1 and eventually the bad opto showed up in the test (in this case it was #33 , the right gun #2 opto), showing as the last switch activated. During game play, the opto occasionally must have blanked out and the game sensed an extra ball at that gun and kicked a ball out. Replacing the bad opto pair solved the problem.

 

Problem: On STNG (Star Trek Next Generation), when I turn the game on, it constantly tries to load balls in the under ball runways.

It starts with all 6 balls in the ball through. Now it starts the initialization and shoots one ball via the catapult into the left side tunnels below the playfield. It ends in the upper tunnel, then it kicks out a second ball via the catapult which is again going into the upper tunnel. Now the strange thing happens. It ejects one of the balls from the upper tunnel and lets it drain. As soon as the ball drains, a new ball gets kicked out via the catapult (and going into the upper tunnel again). This is an endless loop as the ball drain and re-catapulting steps are repeated. Why?

 

Answer: the game is trying to load the two guns endlessly (the machine loads a ball under each gun at initialization). It should put one ball in the upper tunnel and one ball under the left gun, and one under the right gun. Then three balls should stay in the trough. Be aware if fuse 103 on the Power Driver Board is blown (3A slow blow), the game will not start and will constantly throw out balls. Fuse 103 powers the solenoid which controls the upper diverter on the under-the-playfield diverter. Without a working diverter, the game can't load the balls where it wants, and the game will attempt to load and reload balls continually.

 

As a test, try this: go into the feature adjustments and set both guns to "Broken=Yes". This will disable the guns. If the machine then starts up OK, you have a problem with a gun assembly optos, or the under-playfield diverters. Enable each gun individually to see which one causes the failure. Also a dirty/broken opto in the upper tunnel can cause this problem.

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  • 3 years later...

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