Apollo 13
Sega, 1995My Apollo 13 is currently possessed. It’s launching 2 balls, call outs are occurring over each other, pops are popping for no reason, the score crawls up, and it randomly skips between missions, mid missions, and it is generally freaking out.
Technician read out says switches all over need checked and some are “stuck open.” It’s like the machine has gone haywire. It was fine, then turned it on a few days later and chaos.
Anyone ever seen anything like this? Any ideas?
For one check the pops switches they seem too be to close together too off all the time after that check all switches
Quoted from DD007:My Apollo 13 is currently possessed. It’s launching 2 balls, call outs are occurring over each other, pops are popping for no reason, the score crawls up, and it randomly skips between missions, mid missions, and it is generally freaking out.
Technician read out says switches all over need checked and some are “stuck open.” It’s like the machine has gone haywire. It was fine, then turned it on a few days later and chaos.
Anyone ever seen anything like this? Any ideas?
Check the batteries on the MPU. Sounds like something went catastrophically wrong.
Have had similar with Data East Star Wars. Complete chaotic behaviour. Turned out to be a flaky ribbon cable.
In the first instance try reseating the cables or swapping the ends around. Or swap in known working ones if you have access to any.
Thanks all. Still doing it. I’m going to keep poking around. The batteries are in a remote pack. No issues there. Boards look good. Everything is seated properly. Hard to isolate because when I say “haywire” I really mean it. It’s like the machine is trying to do everything at once - mechanically and with audio.
IMG_8703 (resized).jpegDoes the machine emit odd behavior while just sitting on in attract mode? How about while coining up? Does the odd behavior only happen once a game is started?
Quoted from Tuukka:How are the power supply voltages, especially 5V? The two black electrolytic capacitors under the heat sink look like a little bit bulging, or then it might be just light reflecting.
^
When everything is wrong, first suspect power.
The only thing the CPU needs for it's primary operations (reading the program rom, storing status in Ram, accessing the PIA's that activate coils and lamps) is +5v.
Reseat the power connectors. Power in to the CPU is CN2 in the lower left corner. Below it and to the right is the big connector on the top of the rottendog board. That's where the power for the CPU comes from. Reseat it.
Reseat the ribbon cables is a good idea.
Failed CPU chip can cause this. Failed Eproms can cause this. Maybe failed Ram. But common to all of those is +5v power.
Data East games just a bit older than this Whitestar game are having consistent power supply capacitor failures, causing +5v problems.
I don't know how old your Rottendog Board is, but if possible, take your Rottendog board to a similar pinball, and test the suspect part in the known good machine. The next option would be to get a known good power supply / driver board and test the known good power source in your suspect machine.
Keep observing symptoms, and let us know what you find.
The odd behavior is also happening in attract mode. Stuttering call outs.
I don’t think those are bulging but you bring up an interesting issue. Do you think it could be related to the power supply? Any suggestions on how to test that?
Quoted from PinRetail:When everything is wrong, first suspect power.
The only thing the CPU needs for it's primary operations (reading the program rom, storing status in Ram, accessing the PIA's that activate coils and lamps) is +5v.
Reseat the power connectors. Power in to the CPU is CN2 in the lower left corner. Below it and to the right is the big connector on the top of the rottendog board. That's where the power for the CPU comes from. Reseat it.
Reseat the ribbon cables is a good idea.
Failed CPU chip can cause this. Failed Eproms can cause this. Maybe failed Ram. But common to all of those is +5v power.
Data East games just a bit older than this Whitestar game are having consistent power supply capacitor failures, causing +5v problems.
I don't know how old your Rottendog Board is, but if possible, take your Rottendog board to a similar pinball, and test the suspect part in the known good machine. The next option would be to get a known good power supply / driver board and test the known good power source in your suspect machine.
Keep observing symptoms, and let us know what you find.
I’m thinking you’re onto something here. This has a pin2dmd and the last owner modified the power draw to fuel the pin2dmd which pulls more power. Wondering if that could be it. I may have to go with a colordmd, put it back to the original configuration and see if that helps.
Still odd that it worked normally for many games in this configuration then this malfunction.
If you have odd behavior while in attract mode, then I would start with checking my voltages, specifically the 5 volt logic. Though it looks like that led is on in the pic. My guess is reseating some connectors will solve. Good luck!
Ribbons reseated. Power reseated. Still flipping out. This may be beyond my skill set. May need to call in a professional. I’ll update here when we solve it.
If it was anything other than total malfunction I would keep picking away, but who knows what this is. Literally everything is flipping out at once. 
Quoted from DD007:Ribbons reseated. Power reseated. Still flipping out. This may be beyond my skill set. May need to call in a professional. I’ll update here when we solve it.
If it was anything other than total malfunction I would keep picking away, but who knows what this is. Literally everything is flipping out at once.
Yea that is a real tricky one that’s for sure ,hope u guys find out what’s going on with it
Quoted from DD007:Ribbons reseated. Power reseated. Still flipping out. This may be beyond my skill set. May need to call in a professional. I’ll update here when we solve it.
If it was anything other than total malfunction I would keep picking away, but who knows what this is. Literally everything is flipping out at once.
Dang . Unfortunately only way to rule out a bad ribbon cable is to replace them . Not too expensive and to be honest on games this age not a bad idea anyway. I have had failing ones on a few games in the last 5 years.
Good luck and let us know when you find the cause.
Quoted from DD007:Ribbons reseated. Power reseated. Still flipping out. This may be beyond my skill set. May need to call in a professional. I’ll update here when we solve it.
If it was anything other than total malfunction I would keep picking away, but who knows what this is. Literally everything is flipping out at once.
The way to get something fixed like this is to break it down by module.
You have a power board. You have a CPU board. Odds are that only one of those is the problem.
Power board is easier to test in another machine.
If power board tests good, then you have CPU board issues.
I approach this by sections. Swap in replacement Ram Chip, CPU chip, Replacement program Eproms.
If the board still is erratic, I'm probably going to send the CPU off for professional board repair. Good test equipment can find problems in seconds that I might take a long time to fix.
Good luck!
Sounds like you swapped in a different display? Perhaps you have ribbon cables incorrectly attached? I have seen some weird behavior from a machine someone had plugged a ribbon cable in incorrectly and it was off by 1 pin. Double check the ribbon cables....you can flip them around and see if you get different results to diagnose a bad cable. Keep us updated!
The answer is finally here- the CPU board failed. New Rottendog CPU went in and everything returned to normal. Board failure was the answer.
Quoted from DD007:The answer is finally here- the CPU board failed. New Rottendog CPU went in and everything returned to normal. Board failure was the answer.
Oh wow didn’t know that would be it ,so are u getting your old board fixed
Quoted from Williampinball:Oh wow didn’t know that would be it ,so are u getting your old board fixed
I wish. But I’m going to have to live with the Rottendog. The issue with the old board is a total mystery. Nothing obviously wrong but it just won’t work. But the good news is that Apollo is back on track. 
Quoted from DD007:I wish. But I’m going to have to live with the Rottendog. The issue with the old board is a total mystery. Nothing obviously wrong but it just won’t work. But the good news is that Apollo is back on track.
Yes that’s great news for sure A13 is back up and running
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!
This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/weve-lost-you-apollo-13 and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.
Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.
Collingwood, ON
Buffalo, NY
Singapore
Brighton
Lempäälä