Robotron error!

[joeks]

Hope I am lucky too
Will reseat all connectors and check for error codes on the LED tonight.

[level42]

Thanks for info on the 9016's. Looking forward to replacing them for proper 4116's though

Hellllooooooo, McFlyyyyyyyy.....


You need to replace the XX16s with 4164's....



But you MUST mod the board first, unless you like fireworks....

[joeks]

Haha! I must be dyslectic or something
Must have been busy at work.

I will mod the connector first, thanks for the heads-up.

[level42]

[joeks]

Replaced the ram tonight.
So all new 4146's on board. Soldered pins 5 and 7 together of the male connector on the main board and removed wires 6 and 9 from the female connector. Had no materials laying around to build an adapter, and I didn't feel like cutting traces and soldering on the board itself. So this was the easiest method.

I had high expectations, but it still doesn't boot up
Same vertical scrolling blocks of garbage and error code 1-3-1.
Tried moved the ribbons cables around a bit, but made no difference.

Measured the voltages at the new 4146 ram.
Pin 8 = 4.85v
Pin 9 = 4.9v
All the other pins have about 1.5v or so.
At least no accidental 12v anywhere.

Untitled by barrybuise, on Flickr
Removed wires at pin 5 (+12v) and pin 9 (-5v).

Untitled by barrybuise, on Flickr
Here you can see I soldered pins 5 and 7 together to connect the 5v to both pins.

Untitled by barrybuise, on Flickr

[philmurr]

Do you have a spare ROM board you can swap to see whether the fault is with the ROM board or the CPU board?

If not, remove all ROMs except ROM 12, and just reseat ROM 12 (this is the self-test ROM) and see if you get the normal rug pattern. (You probably won't get the rug but at least it removes the ROMs from being the problem)

[joeks]

Hi Phil, thanks for your help.

Don't have spare boards, wish I had.
By removing ROMs, you don't mean removing the 4146 ram on the main board do you?
Do you mean the larger eproms with the windows in them?

What do you think of the way I did the board's connector mod, should be ok?

[ajhippel]

are the horizontal black lines there or a cause of the pic....

if there are permanet (not moving) there, it could be an adressing problem...

[joeks]

Hi Jochen,

The black lines are there. These lines (black lines and garbage lines) scroll smoothly from top to bottom.
Like a slow vertical sync type scrolling. Tried making a video but the smooth scrolling wasn't that obvious then.

[philmurr]

By removing ROMs, you don't mean removing the 4146 ram on the main board do you?
Do you mean the larger eproms with the windows in them?

What do you think of the way I did the board's connector mod, should be ok?

Yes the EPROMs with the windows on the separate board, they should be labelled with numbers (if not, take the ROM board with the ribbon cable facing up, ROM 12 is top left, just next to the 74154)

Also if you disconnect the interface board and the sound board for now

The connector mod looks just fine

[Wurstkopp]

I could test the pcbs if you want. At least you'd know where the problem is located.

BTW: Is pin 6 also bridged to +5v? It looks so on the picture.
BTW 2: Once I realized that 95% of the problems are caused by shitty plugs I changed all plugs (and I mean ALL of them). Never had any problems since. You can buy them at most pinball shops, costs are around 50 Euros for everything.

[joeks]

Hi Wurstkopp, thanks for your input!

If you could test the pcb's, that would be really helpful too. Will keep that in mind.

Pin 6 is also bridged to +5v indeed. Only 5 and 7 needed to be connected but on the solder side of the pcb I could see pin 6 was also connected to them, afaik.
So I didn't see any problem with it, or am I wrong?

About the original connectors and pins, maybe it's time to replace them all indeed. Can't hurt.
I have read lots of posts about bad connectors on these Williams cabinets.

[Wurstkopp]

Ah, didn't know that pin 6 is connected to +5v, should be no problem then.

Connectors: It takes some time, but it's worth it. One shoud also resolder all metal pins of the plugs on the pcbs and it's certainly not a bad idea to clean/sand them either, as they usually suffer from corrosion.

Feel free to send the pcbs (RAM and ROM board) to me anytime, I'd be happy to test them.

[joeks]

Thanks for the offer Wurstkopp! The connectors and solder joints are probably the next thing to look into.
Will let you know.

[philmurr]

Please don't swap out the connectors yet.  They're something to look at once you get the game working and for reliability, not just to get it working.  You might cause more problems trying to do this.

If checking voltages, replacing RAM and trying the self-test ROM on its own don't get it booting then it's going to need a proper repair