Eleco reel LEDs fixed

[tmartin]

To everyone who has a beast sapp, sindbad adventure etc. and has noticed the reel LEDs turning yellow or going out I think I have a simple solution. My SA lost 2 sections (top and middle) of the middle reel (6 individual LEDs, 2 per section -top-middle-bottom) and I thought it was unlikely that both LEDs in both sections would go out at the same time. So, I decided to reflow the solder on the affected LEDs (6 pins per LED 2-red, 2-blue, 2-green). After reinstallation wa-la, perfectally working lights! So the problem isn't burnt out LEDs but poor solder joints probably due to heat and vibration causing a loss of connection. It may not be a bad idea to reflow the solder on the blue resistors as well. Good Luck!

http://marvin3m.com/begin/index.htm

p.s. the above site has good basic info on soldering and pcb repair.

[Sid]

Wow i hope this helps a lot of the Beast sapp owners..
thanks
tmartin

[MrGneiss]

Wow, nice fix.

I hope it works for others.

[slotter]

I hope the others chime in and let us know. That is a great fix.

[chaz70]

I'll be trying this on my Sinbad Adventure very soon. Thanks!

[watcher]

Well I thought I try reflowing the solder of the LEDs on my beast sapp. Most of the LEDs look to be dead. Only a little light coming from the rest of the LEDs. Only two work on the middle reel. So I gave it a try.
YES. IT WORKS, ALL MY BEAST SAPP LED,S NOW WORK
I think this may be the problem with LEDs. All that vibration from the reel motors are causing the solder on the LED connections to crack over time!
Just reflow the solder so full power can get to the LEDs!
Seem's to do the trick!. And it's alot cheeper that buying new LEDs!

[slotter]

Wow, that is just SUPER! This is a great fix. tmartin you're a genius!

(Well, almost... )

[logicprobe]

WOW...
This problem could just turn out to be cold solder?
AMAZING!!!

I'll have to dig out my Beast Sapp and give it a try!

[chaz70]

I tried this on my sinbad adventure. It didn't work for me.

[tmartin]

Hi guys, first of all let me apologise to everyone who tries this after getting their hopes up and meets with disappointment...electronics are often cruel. Part of the problem I suspect lies with those 750 or 820 ohm ceramic 2 watt resistors. They have been used on the ball return trough (notorious for vibration) on many modern pinballs and often cause intermittant failures due to internal break down. Replacing the resistors may be the solution though I doubt you will find them at Radio Shack. Also, it's possible internal breaks in the pcb could exist in which case a jumper wire between components may solve the problem. I hate to mess with my machine now that things are working but if I have any similar or recurrent problems I will try to devise a more reliable fix and post any solutions with explanations and pictures. Best of luck to everyone.

[pinball_0]

i have found that the led chips (tricolor) breakdown internal connections..

I resoldered mine, checked the resistors... the resistors are fine

squeezing the ic will cause it to illuminate dim/partly sometimes completely

I have 25 yrs electronics tech experience..lots of problems are caused by poor solder connections/or bad capacitors

Needless to say the led ics are the culprits on mine... (one reel)

[jdsabin1]

Didn't work on my Sinbad either .

[Darren]

tried this on my BEAST SAPP. It didn't work for me.

[chaz70]

Whats the voltage of the wires going to these boards? How hard could it be to get a project board from radio shack, and wire 6 normal LEDS in the right spots? I'm going to try this myself if at all possible. I can easily cut a project PCB exactly to size on a mill at work. I just need to measure the voltage and see what is required to do this.

[websherpa]

I ordered new RGB LEDs from Mouser, I asked for Fedex so I'd have them for the holidays, they shipped them by USPS ... I'll let you know in 3 weeks or so how my Reel LED restoration project goes.

[SteveFoxUK]

Thanks to all the folks who are investigating this - many of us are going to be following your findings with deep interest as there appears to be very few of us with Eleco machines which DONT have dodgy LEDs behind the reels!

Im looking forward to hearing back from you all - dont forget those all-important pics, RGB LED details and specs please!!!

Cheers,

Foxy

[websherpa]

Thanks to all the folks who are investigating this - many of us are going to be following your findings with deep interest as there appears to be very few of us with Eleco machines which DONT have dodgy LEDs behind the reels!

Im looking forward to hearing back from you all - dont forget those all-important pics, RGB LED details and specs please!!!

Cheers,

Foxy

I have my camera clicking away and will be posting pics of all my mods (L-Pad installation, on/off switch, Reel LED surgery).

My dealer owes me a new Reel Cage, I was hoping to have it first before going to town on my only reel LEDs, but he appears to be AWOL, so I am going ahead anyway as soon as I get the new RGB LEDs that I think are or are close to the right ones.

What is funny is that my HH reel LEDs are now taunting me, they turn on and off and change colours (though they appear very sick), a week ago they didn't do this. The "good" ones remain fully bright white, but they are dwindling even in the past 2-3 weeks I've had this machine.

It makes me wonder whether the reel LEDs are supposed to do any light changing on the Eleco models (Hanabi Hyakkei here), does anyone know?

[SteveFoxUK]

In the meantime, maybe its worth resetting and running my Sinbad Adventure and Beast Sapp machines side by side to see if the reel lights do similar things during normal operation?

What do you guys think?

Cheers,

Foxy

[drcrippen324]

hi peeps dont know if you have found the answer to this problem but if not i may be able to shed some light on the subject the pick posted by compirate looks like 6 clasick tri colered leds i used to work for a laser games company called megazone as an enginear/ manager and we used the same style in our game packs they were either red/green/yellow or red/green/blue depending on wich type of pack being repaired if you are still sufering i will have a dig through my old paper work for a supplier on the first request i should be able to help with us people to as megerzone is an international company with sights in usa australia and europe and we all needed the parts

[websherpa]

I still haven't had a chance to get at this yet, and I'm still waiting for the test LED's from mouser (and my replacement reels to experiment on). Drcrippen, it would be helpful to have a reference to the LEDs used in the Eleco machines. I assumed RGB since some of mine only show blue now. The test part I ordered was 604-AAF5060 - RGB Kingbright LED Chameleon Full Color. Once I get them (they sent them by snail mail by mistake) I will be soldering one in as a replacement (and testing the resistors) to see if they work appropriately.