Tim's JOKERZ! thread

[tim.sanderson]

Thanks for the offers guys! I think I may have listed the wrong flap. The one that's in my manual is for the bottom of the ramps... they're wider than the top ones. Maybe the upper flaps came on the ramps?
Drano, I'm in Mississauga. (10 minutes from 401 & Mississauga Road) I go to Adam's fairly often for TOPL, so it's probably easiest if I bring it with me sometime.

 

[tim.sanderson]

It looks like I've lost the bottom line on my upper alpha numeric display. Is this something fairly common?


I checked the displays connection, nothing seemed loose. I'm not sure what else to check.

Is this something repairable, or should I look for a new display?

 

[spiroagnew]

I had cold solder joints in a Pinbot display which caused segments to go out. Check that. Also, I've read the ribbon cables are a usual point of failure. Clay's Sys11 guide walked me through the two display issues I had in the past on Sys11 games and was able to clear them both up.

By no means am I an expert, perhaps someone with more experience can chime in.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Menace]

Tim,

If it's not a cold solder joint you are most likely looking at a failed UDN7180 chip, which I will state for the record now are made of unobtainium. (unfortunately) The worst part about these types of failures is they are almost impossible to verify if the UDN is bad with standard tools like a DMM, so usually it's just shotgunned.

Best thing to do is get out your schematics and ring out ALL of the traces related to that segment drive pre and post UDN to verify you have no broken / open traces. If everything rings out and you find no open resistors or cold solder joints or bad traces, the only thing to do is try and somehow locate a good UDN chip and pony up the dough and hope that solves the issue. (these UDN chips are another reason beyond finding new glass displays why the LED replacements are as popular as they are)

D

 

[tim.sanderson]

Well, with Rollergames on route to it's new home, I figure it's time to pick up where I left off on Jokerz.
Three things I see that need taking care of: (#'s 1 & 2 seem to be new problems since the last time I played it a few months ago)

1) Left bank of drop targets doesn't play an audible sound when being knocked down, nor do they reset.
2) At least one of the three pop bumpers are very weak. At least one almost never works, and when it does, it's super-sluggish.
3) Replace the switch in the shooter lane.​

I gotta say, I've missed working on this one! I'm looking forward to a little quality time with Jokerz again.

 

[tim.sanderson]

First things first; REMOVE SUPER BANDS. How much I like the look of them no longer justifies how much they change game play. It is safe to say I won't use them again anytime soon.

The drop target problem was easily diagnosed. It was just a misbehaving connector on it's board.

 

[WARLOCK]

Not a fan of superbands.
I'm with Tim on this one.

 

[luch]

I like them !

 

[WARLOCK]

I find they change gameplay too much.
They maybe cleaner, but ball control is different.

Tim is on the money.

 

[tim.sanderson]

Yup. On Rollergames I found that one of the biggest issues (other than catching/trapping) was how much of a spin they would put on the ball.

Here's a video of the rather lack-luster action of the upper-right pop bumper:

It's hard to get it to even trigger, and when it does it still seems sluggish. I guess I'll take all three apart for a little TLC.

 

[luch]

yes but all relative , if they play for me they play for everyone the same way . I find ball control better they stick like glue .

 

[tim.sanderson]

So here I am, home sick from work for the first time in something like 6 years. So I figure it's a good time to tackle the pop bumpers. (and give a little bit more content to the PBrev during the slow holiday season

I've done a bit of reading, and see that it can be a bigger job than one might think.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how difficult of a job can this be the first time 'round?

 

[Vengeance]

On a scale of 1 to 10, how difficult of a job can this be the first time 'round?

It's not that hard.

The biggest issue is the wire leads for the socket inside the pop bumper, it's stapled right to the bottom of the PF and the only way to actually remove a pop bumper is to cut those leads, and replace the socket.

Once the leads are cut it's simple, but if you don't have a new socket, you'll need one in order to get the light working again.

 

[tim.sanderson]

I’ve taken apart the worst of the offending pop bumpers so far. It actually was a snap.

I think I’ve found the problem to my poorly responding pop bumper. The switches contacts look to be almost non-existent. When I touch the switch together, and put my multimeter probes on the copper (brass?) strips (A and B in pic), it’s super-hard to get it to ring out.

I assume this switch needs replacing.

 

[luch]

seems pretty simple

 

[tim.sanderson]

So, taking a momentary break from Skylab, I decided I should finish putting Jokerz pop bumper back together. After a brief issue of not triggering properly, it's now back to it's regular level of pep and vitality. I just need to re-solder the lamps leads to make it complete.

 

[Jordan B]

Hey Tim, I took a peek at a youtube video you posted but haven't read through this thread yet. Just thought I'd mention that it looks a bit like your flashers behind the back red and white plastics are either burned out or missing.

I was watching a vid the other day and noticed this bright light show around the back of the upper deck, and thought it was an aftermarket mod. So I took apart my Jokerz to double check, and sure enough, someone had pilfered all of the flash bulbs from back there (5 in total I think). I replaced them, and it really does add a lot to the game.

Looking forward to going back and reading through the thread, and sorry if you already discovered this (or they're functioning properly and I just missed it in the video).

Cheers!


Jordan.

 

[tim.sanderson]

Hi Jordan. I can't remember if that was sorted out, but I've sold Jokerz quite a while back. Good eye, though!

Tim