Bally Night Rider (Bally, 1977) SS - 10s digit display issue - need help

bchop7

Pinball Player
Joined
Mar 28, 2021
Messages
3
Reaction score
3
Points
9
Favorite Pinball Machine
Night Rider
I have a Bally Night Rider SS game that I have replaced all 5 of the displays with new low voltage LED displays built by Pinscore. Each display plugged in by itself works fine in every one of the 5 display slots (so they all work individually). And two displays plugged in at the same time in any position also seem to work fine. But once I add a 3rd display then ONLY the 10’s digit gets dimmer in that 3rd display. As I add the 4th and 5th display then 2 thru 5 (in wiring order) all get successively dimmer but only in the 10’s digit place. All other digits in all displays are fine. The game also has modern Alltek MPU and Solenoid Driver boards.

I have talked to Pinscore about this but they don’t have an answer. I sent a note to Alltek to see if maybe the MPU board might have the ability to cause this due to some type of control or timing issue but they said it wasn’t possible. So, I’m looking for some advice.
 

Attachments

  • Pincore displays.jpg
    Pincore displays.jpg
    172.4 KB · Views: 66
It might be that the 5volt dc is getting loaded down when additional displays are connected.
Voltage losses are also possible from the circuit board female connector pins. Repinning the female connectors may be needed.
 
Thanks for the input. I checked the 5V input to each of the 5 displays and the voltage is the same, I also jumpered the 5V from display 1 (which is fine) to display 5 with no effect. Not surprisingly as all the digits but the 10s digit are fine. I also tried to jumper the enable signal for the 10s digit with no effect. Note that if I only plug in the 5th display by itself (last in the series), the display works fine so that tells me it's not a poor connection as a result of the series wiring, I guess. And again, it's just the 10s digit.
 
I got the problem fixed. Thank you for all the responses. On the Aussie Arcade site, “Quench”, suggested I switch the MPU J1 pins between the 10s and 1000s enable signal and the problem moved to the 1000s digit! Meaning it had to be the MPU. I sent the MPU back to Allteksystems and
evidently one MPU enable line output resistor (on the 10s digit) was burned out. I guess this was caused by one of the displays at some point. Don’t know if it was the original gas displays or what. Curious that it caused the resistor to reduce its value (from 1.2k ohms to 1.07k ohms) as opposed to becoming open, which you would expect. In any case, the new MPU board fixed the problem and all LED Pinscore displays work perfectly. Thanks all !!!!
 
Forum activity
Help Users
You can interact with the ChatGPT Bot in any Chat Room and there is a dedicated room. The command is /ai followed by a space and then your ? or inquiry.
ie: /ai What is a EM Pinball Machine?
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
      Chat Bot Mibs Chat Bot Mibs: studiosix is our newest member. Welcome!
      Back
      Top