electrical troubles

[AMFPinchaser]

I came in a couple of days ago, put some bowlers on 15 & 16, they throw their first ball, ball doesn't come back. I check the lift, sure enough it's not on, so I flip it over to aux and it comes on just fine. Later in the night, the camera quits scoring. I go to check it out and to reboot those two lanes, smell the horrid odor of burned circuitry. Turned out being the camera; replaced it, scores fine since then. The next day I notice that the masking cards (strike,foul,etc) are not workng on either lane and the ball lift up front still will not come on when the machines are switched on. So far I've replaced the chassis, camera, masking cards, checked all wiring & fuses, checked breakers, checked the safety interlock on the ball lift, and checked the controller board on the lift. So far all are or seem fine. The boss even had me replace the cpu on the two. I think I've narrowed it down to the front-end box as both the ball lift up front and the masking cards plug into it and those are the only things not working; but all of the machine controls on the FE box still work. Any suggestions? [img]/content/btubb/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/confused.gif[/img] I found all of this after a heavy storm, so I'm thinking lightning maybe. Don't really see how it would be though, since everything associated with these machines is on a lightning arrestor (which has not suffered a hit). But... I have seen stranger things....

Still using these lanes as a last resort... but turning the ball lift on by hand is getting annoying.

[TheGMan143]

Re: electrical troubles

If you have a 'lightning arrestor' as you say, that could be your problem... an arrestor is made to channel a direct lightning strike away from the building wiring, to prevent it from burning the building down. It will not stop damage caused by lightning striking the power lines a mile or more away and sending a large surge through, or the hi-line transformers shutting down and restarting, which also causes a power lash that can damage electronics... In order for the arrestor to be truly effective, it needs to be coupled to a 'surge protector' or a 'line power conditioner', preferably with an isolated ground line for electronic systems. Being that you said that several electrical problems occurred around the time of a thunderstorm, I would say a safe bet would be to blame it on surge damage.

[AMFPinchaser]

Re: electrical troubles

That's what I'm thinking it is. I'm not exactly sure how the wiring in this place is since the back was re-done for the 82-70s. I'm not sure if it's lightning arrestor or what that little black box is on top of the breaker box is. Anyway, all I know is that something got in the system and tried to fry these two lanes and now I gotta figure out what did fry and what didn't.