Wednesday 16 November 2016

Never! New power supply + driver issue

Since the last update, there's been some progress and uncovering some more issues to solve...

If you're just landing on this post, all of my work on the pinball machine (part of my recent MA) is documented in past blog posts.

Progress
The new power supply (link to model) arrived yesterday and it was fitted right away. It's clear how much better quality it is, and I now realise the old one wasn't really suitable for the project. The advice is to always buy new (the previous was second hand) and to not go down the cheap and cheerful route.


Continuing my little self set assignment of experimenting with videoing progress and speaking to camera. Not perfect, but trying to find the balance between quick and quality.

Setbacks
Fixing this power issue made some other issues apparent - the solenoid (or coil) for the out hole kicker was burnt out. Luckily I have a big box of old parts and had a few spare. Once that was fitted, something still wasn't right...

The transistor on the driver board which relates to the out hole had also blown. I should have checked it closer before, but now is the time to fix these problems!

Will be replacing the transistor today, and hope to make another update tomorrow....

*EDIT* 18/11/16
After attempting to make the replacement myself, I damaged the driver board further. Lifting up the pads on the pcb board where you solder to make connections. I've been a bit flustered about making the fix, and also my solder iron is one of those cheap ones from Maplin. I should have thought through a bit more before diving in, I guess I was feeling a bit up against time, considering I will be on my way to the exhibition this time next week.

MyPinballs (who makes the boards) is stepping in to fix for me and should be turned around in a few days. I can take a breath, get on with a few of the other preparations.

Updates next week!


As always I welcome feedback, please comment or tweet @jonosandilands

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