• Help Williams Space Shuttle

    From johnie.terry@johnie.terry@windstream.com to rec.games.pinball on Monday, March 30, 2020 15:13:09
    From Newsgroup: rec.games.pinball

    With some extra time from COV-19 working on my Space Shuttle. Here's a history of what I've done.
    1. The game was working before not being played for about six months. When I turned the game on, it had lost its settings so I'm thinking dead batteries. Worse than that, leaking batteries. I put remote battery holders on every game I own except this one! Arghhh!
    2. Remove the damaged battery holder install remote one. Turn on game and the outhole kicker engages 7-8 times. By turning the game on and off quickly I can get it to go into attract mode but can never start a game. Diagnostic LED has a 0 (zero).
    3. Let it sit a couple of months because I didn't have time to mess with it. Now the displays won't come on. Check the power supply and missing the 100 v. I rebuild the power supply high voltage section. All voltages on 3J5 are now good (3J5 pin 3 -100, 3J5 pin 4 +100, 3J5 pin 6 +5). Displays still not working.
    4. So, I need to get the displays working and then troubleshoot what else might be wrong.
    At this point, I'm thinking it is the blanking circuit. When I boot the game the diagnostic LED goes straight to 0 which is what it is supposed to display on successful boot. However, I read that it should momentarily be blank before going to zero. Mine is immediately zero.
    So, my first question is, on a System 9 board, what components comprise the blanking circuit? In my reading, I can figure out some of the components on a System 11 board, but not a System 9.
    Second, any other suggestions would be helpful.
    Thanks, Johnie
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  • From pinballdude50@pinballdude50@gmail.com to rec.games.pinball on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 00:16:37
    From Newsgroup: rec.games.pinball

    Does the game go into diagnostics? Can you press the button on the cpu board and see if it may display another number other than zero?
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  • From Johnie Terry@johnie.terry@windstream.com to rec.games.pinball on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 14:28:30
    From Newsgroup: rec.games.pinball

    On Tuesday, March 31, 2020 at 2:16:43 AM UTC-5, pinbal...@gmail.com wrote:
    Does the game go into diagnostics? Can you press the button on the cpu board and see if it may display another number other than zero?

    When I push the button, it still shows a zero, though at times when I push it a 7 might flash briefly before the zero shows.
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  • From Johnie Terry@johnie.terry@windstream.com to rec.games.pinball on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 14:30:47
    From Newsgroup: rec.games.pinball

    On Tuesday, March 31, 2020 at 2:16:43 AM UTC-5, pinbal...@gmail.com wrote:
    Does the game go into diagnostics? Can you press the button on the cpu board and see if it may display another number other than zero?
    As for any other diagnostics, without the displays, I don't know what it is doing. That is why I thought I'd start with the blanking circuit to make sure it was OK. Then, once the blanking circuit was known to be good, start with the other possible chips that might be causing the blanking circuit to shut things down.
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  • From pinballdude50@pinballdude50@gmail.com to rec.games.pinball on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 20:54:10
    From Newsgroup: rec.games.pinball

    If I remember correctly the 7 is the worst if all of the numbers. I would think that since the game was working, it would be an easy to solve problem. I would consider replacing the RAM and go from there first.
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