Re: More TZ resets

Sounds like you have a power fluctuation going on where the voltage drops and
then the 5 volts drops low enough to cause a reset.

Do you by any chance have an air conditioner turning on or running during any of
these resets? I saw this once at a buddy's house and it turned out that every
time his resets occurred was either when the air conditioner was running,
starting up, or in the winter when he had problems - when the heater blower was
turning on. Other things such as an oven being on, electric stove top being
used, dryer running, etc., can cause the voltage to drop as well if the game
doesn't have the fuse panel and circuits sized correctly.

One other possible cause if you are using one is a power strip. If you use one,
try replacing it with another power strip with a shorter cord and of good
quality. I've also seen problems where the power strip has a rotating plug and
the connection is crappy which causes a power drop. If you plug directly in to
the wall, note the other things that may be on the same circuit. Are any of them
on when the game is also on?

Just some ideas to mull over.

I went over to a guy's house once that was complaining of a TZ resetting and at
first I too thought it was the bridge rectifiers. It turned out that he was
using some kind of power strip that was for TVs that was supposed to suppress
voltage surges. We replaced it and sure enough, it was defective and once
replaced, the problems went away. Another time a guy had two other games turned
on and couldn't figure out what was causing one of his games to reset. It was
too many games on the same circuit I guess since when we turned off his other
games there was never a problem.

Kind of suspicious when you replace boards and it appears to fix the problem but
when replacing them the problem isn't there as it was. That's what's pushing me
to think it's more of a power problem than a game problem.

Ask our Pin Footie doctor Bryan, I think he's an electrician if I remember
right.



stevebo

On Sun, 26 Aug 2007 18:23:57 -0400, Jeffrey Ross <jeff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Like many others I gather, I also have problems with occasional resets
on my TZ, yesterday they got so bad that you start a game and press
either flipper and the machine reset.

I had previously gone through replaced all the caps and BR's on the
power board and visually checked the condition of the connectors on the
wiring harness (as well as the mating pins).

I turned it on early this afternoon and it complained about all four EOS
switches during its POST. I didn't believe they were truly bad and I
went into the diagnostics and *manually* moved each flipper bat one at a
time and verified that the EOS on each of the flippers was recognized,
they were.

I then started a game hit a flipper and an immediate reset occurred. I
tried this several times and the same problem happened each and every
time, it did not matter which flipper. I did notice that the other
solenoids (eg kickout hole, pop bumpers etc) would work fine, just the
flippers caused resets. I then walked away from the machine leaving it
in attract mode, about an hour later I was near the machine and I saw
(initially heard) the machine while in attract mode resetting, the
machine would complete a reset and less than 15 seconds later it would
reset again!

At this point on a whim I pulled the power connector on the DMD display
and the resetting stopped. In addition I have played several games with
the DMD disconnected and left the machine on in attract and running in
mid game and I have had no problems over the last few hours with the
power to the DMD disconnected.

So, before I spend lots of money on parts for items that may or may not
need rebuilding or replacement, what should I test and then be suspect
of, or did I isolate the problem to where a single part or component is bad?

If it makes any difference, the DMD display was/is bright and all the
dots worked with equal intensity.

So where do I go from here?

TIA, Jeff
.