Interflip Dragon issues - game won't start and repeater motor just runs

[Seven]

I'm new to EM machines, so forgive me for not knowing all the proper terms for the internal gizmos.

I bought this a month or so ago. For the most part it has been playing fine. I have it at my work and the other employees have been having fun playing it.

The other day someone was playing it and it must have started acting up because they just turned it off on ball 2 and walked away.

When I turned it on, the repeater motor under the playfield just spins. Behind the backbox, the relay for resetting player 3 and 4 to zero is energized. Score motor doesn't move.

If I advance the score motor and power up the machine, it cycles through and stops.

If I trip the game over and game start relay, when I first power it on the motor under the playfield spins about an 1/8th of a turn and stops.

When I start a game via the front door (this is set to free play BTW), the relay under the playfield marked "J1 first player" chatters for a second then stops, the repeater motor under the playfield starts spinning, player 3 and 4 to zero is energized. Score motor doesn't move.

All score reels are currently at zero.

I'm not really sure on the series of events that happen to start a game on this machine, so I'm not sure of the path to follow to troubleshoot it. I have the schematics from IPDB but I'm not sure how to read it to map the events and how they play in order.

Is anyone here familiar with Dragon? Have any ideas?

Inside, the machine is pretty damn clean. All switch contacts are bright and shiny. Nothing looks abused or bent out of shape. Everything lights up.

It's probably something crazy simple but I just can't track it down.

 

[DRANO]

I only had my Dragon for a very short time so I can't really help.
It'll be hard to find any real documentation online either.

Are there any good EM techs in your area? We have a couple of really knowledgeable guys here in the East.

As clean as the switches are, 99% of EM problems are contact related.
One trick that I picked up from a friend is to use a small flat-head screwdriver to make contact on switch leaves as I'm trying to perform a particular operation. Sometimes there are breaks or other contact issues we can't see easily with the eye.

The contacts you need to test should be relatively easy to map out on the schematic. Obviously you only need to do this for switches that should be NC at the time of the event you're trying to activate (such as game start). More often than not, if I am closing a switch with the screwdriver and hit the start button or the relevant relay, the game or feature will activate and I've found my culprit.
Seemingly clean contacts can't always be trusted. Also, I don't recall if dragon had gold contacts, but if it did and anyone used a Flexstone file on them, they are shot!

Good luck!

 

[Seven]

I know a guy who could probably fix it in a matter of moments, but I'm trying not to bug him. If it comes down to it, I'll hire him to fix it, but I'd like to try and sort it myself.

 

[Menace]

Schematics will be your best friend with this.

D

 

[Seven]

Yes, I have them. I'm just having a difficult time following the path of events on it.

I did discover one actual thing wrong with it today which at least sends me in a direction. The bonus counter. If you advance the wheel and put a few bonus points on, it is supposed to reset this during the start up procedure. The relay for this will lock on but the coil to reset doesn't fire. If I manually remove the bonus points, the relay goes on then off again.

With the bonus points removed, the J1 First Player relay doesn't chatter.

At least now I have a path to follow on the schematics. Before I'm looking at the machine, I'm looking at the schematics, and I don't have a clue where to start. Anything could be wrong but I couldn't actually identify one thing.

I might be walking backwards, but at least I'm walking now. I just have to keep chugging away until I have that AH HA moment and this shit starts making sense.

 

[Seven]

The Dragon has awoken!

I finally got a change to look at this.

Once I isolated one thing not working (the bonus counter reset) I was able to follow the schematics and find a small bank of switches on the repeater that appeared to have been slightly mushed - like something fell on it at some point. It wasn't mushed enough so I noticed it UNTIL I was looking at it because something was wrong. Then I saw it.

I set the one switch and the game fired right up. It wasn't scoring 5000 points, which was another switch in the mush group. Tweaked that and it started scoring properly.

What's funny is the machine was working fine. It gets a lot of use at the office so after 500+ games that group of mushed switches worked its way out of alignment or something.

 

[sylvain]

Nice job, congrats!

One additional thing to always check in EMs when adjusting contacts:
Make sure the two screws for each contact stack are present, and tight.
Do not over tighten to break or strip the screws, though.

Why? Because EM machines over time, exposed to temperature and humidity variations,
plus the vibrations, cause the phenol? contact spacers to slightly shrink, and the screws to loosen.

With loose screws on contacts, switch blades adjustments do not last...

Cheers,
- Sylvain.

 

[Seven]

Nice. Thank you. I'll check that.

I didn't think to look at that when I was adjusting the blades. In fact, I should probably make a point to check screws on all machines when I'm working on them - or at least the ones in the general vicinity I'm working in. I usually don't.

I bought a non-working EM from a guy a few months back. The reason it wasn't working is because a screw fell out from under the playfield, stuck between a switch blade, and popped a fuse. He assumed the machine was broken, turned it off, and it sat for years until he sold it to me. It's funny to think such a simple thing as a tiny screw can throw the entire thing out of wack.

I need to give the tiny screw more respect.

 

[Menace]

PF screws falling out is pretty common... it sucks on games that have PCB's mounted to the bottom of the cabinets, especially when they are missing their protective covers! (p2K, some -35 etc etc)

D

 

[Seven]

I had another look in there today to check the screws. They're fine. But I got to wondering why those switches looked mashed. It didn't make any sense to me. Sure, someone had "adjusted" them a little haphazardly, but what could have mashed them down.

Then I saw it. They looked mashed because the lowest spacer had fallen out. I found it half way across the cabinet.

A touch of super glue (which I hope holds), I better adjusted the blades so they sat more correctly, and we're up and going as intended.