Post by Mike SrAs this is my first post to the group, novice is my status with repairing pinball machines. I have however been able to keep my Catacombs working over the last 25 years. My current problem is the lack of what I believe to be termed "general lighting" in the lower and upper playfield. Self test fails to light those bulbs under the plastic covers. This happened about the same time as the Catacombs voice ( play fast or loose them, prisoner escaping) stopped working -that also fails under the self test mode. The "roll over" star at the top of the machine fails to indicate noise as the ball rolls over it. The background noise does seems to be work. Should I first be looking at the rectifier board and pin connectors? Thanks.
Yes, GI stands for General Illumination. These lamps do not fall under the self test option, these lamps should always be lit when the game is powered on. GI lamps are also found in the backbox to light up the backglass. If those are out as well, I would check for a blown fuse on the rectifier board located in the base cabinet. It's F5 on the board, the 5th fuse from the left. Be careful when removing these fuses because the board is only helf in place by some plastic clips that can be dislodged easily if you pull on the fuses. be careful there because there is high voltage running through this board that powers the score displays. Remove fuse and test with meter set to ohms. It should read about 1 ohm or less. If fuse is good, go to test point 4 and read voltage with game on, place pos lead to the test point and the neg lead to the cabinet ground braid. It should be around 7 Volts. AC if I remember correctly. If no voltage or low voltage, the rectifier probably failed.
If the GI is working in the backbox, check the connectors at the rectifier board, could be loose wire, burnt or worn connector pin.
Speech for this game comes from the VSU-100 board located on the left side wall of the backbox. Check connections there, if you have other sounds,it's possible that the VSU-100 has an issue. No sound from the roll-over switch can be switch stuck closed, capacitor for the switch is bad or the sound roms are bad on the sound board.
If you are comfortable working on electronics, I would go to pinwiki.com and start reading up on Bally/Stern solid state repair. If not, get a technician over to look at the game. Since you have had for so long, it's probably time for some maintenance.