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Paragon -- All playfield lights out

E

epicstaple

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Joined
Apr 18, 2020
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7
Location
Davis, CA
My beloved Paragon developed a problem that I just can't figure out. Desperate for advice.

ALL of the playfield lights got flickery, and now are not working at all. First, I replaced the rectifier board (AS-2518-18) with an all-new replacement. No change. Then I got a replacement lamp driver board (AS-2518-23) -- again no change. I've re-checked all the connections, and they look OK. I'm comfortable with basic wiring, but this is now outside my comfort zone.

After reading one post, is my next step testing (or repairing?, or replacing?) the transformer? I read a suggestion to test the voltage across the fuse connections -- is that safe while on?
Any other places you suggest looking? Thanks!
 
hi i too have a paragon. there are two types of lights on the playfield. the GI lights that are on all the time. and then the feature lights that come on at certain times. are they all out or just one type?

The back box also has both types gi and features. are those working or not?


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On the rec board what reading do you have on Tp1 and Tp4 ?
Does sound like a wire or bad connection or even a fuse blown !

O yes machine needs to be on and be very careful as there is a bit of power on that board so check Tp points only
 
Thanks! for the replies. Some of the playfield lights come on (pop bumpers and rollover lights -- the ones that are always on). It is all the feature lights that are off. When I put the new rectifier board on, it came with the 4 all-new fuses; I've also tested resistance across them (within my electrical comfort zone), and those 4 fuses seem OK. I tried test mode, and none of the playfield feature lights come on. Thanks again.
 
are you sure you have all the connectors in place on the lamp driver board?,if you are getting no lights in test mode then your missing voltage somewhere
 
So it’s feature lights.

on the rectifier board chrech you are getting around 5.4v dc on tp1. that’s the supply for the feature switched lights.

Are the feature lights on the back box working? an easy one to check is the high score to date light which flashes on when the hstd is shown on the 4 score displays when no game is started. also the game over lights should go out when a new game is started.

next check you are getting at least 5v dc on tp1 on the lamp driver board. tp2 is ground by the way. so measure between tp1 and tp2.

we will get to the bottom of this.


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ps. be careful of tp2 on the rectifier board. it is 230v dc and can therefore give a nasty electric shock. also fuse f2 is at around 180v ac.

tp5 is 43v dc. rest are all low voltage tp3 11.9v dc. tp4 7.3v ac.


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Fuses can look ok but may still be blown so you do need to pull one end of the fuse to check it with the meter , ie buzz test ,just so we can move onto the sol board test points . If you are not getting power to the sol board than it will be that 24 pin square connector at fault it's a bit of a week spot , so it could be a simple disconnect and reconnect a few times or a wire has broken off .think I had that issue on a vector I once had .
 
Thanks again for the replies. I'm a bit embarrassed here because I'm iffy even using my multimeter. AlanJ suggested testing the voltage across tp1-tp2 on the lamp driver board. I am attaching a video of the result -- I THINK that's ~5 volts, but maybe someone can tell me if I'm reading the meter wrong. Thanks!
 
And ... I found the following post about the Paragon rectifier board:

"Remove the fuses from the rectifier board and check you get roughly the following AC voltages across the pairs of "E" points ....
E9-E10 7.8 VAC - Switched Illumination (this is used to power lamps controlled by the AS-2518-23 LAMP DRIVER) ...
The E-122-125 transformer used on PARAGON is the weediest of all the transformers. If it's not kicking out these voltages maybe it's toast"

The following video is voltage across the F1 fuse (far one on left; 10A) on the rectifier board. Please note that this is set one notch lower on the multimeter, so isn't this a really low voltage? Too low? And it bounced all over. Any help in a diagnosis?

 
First reading of 4.95v is correct, second reading for the AC voltages is incorrect as you still have the meter selected for measuring DC and not AC. The 500 and 200 to the right of the off position are for measuring AC indicated by the squiggly line above the V.

You really need to test the relevant fuse by removing it and testing it using the diode setting on the meter before attempting anything else...
 
OK, thanks. With the multimeter set to AC, fuse F1on the rectifier board shows 7.3 V:
IMG_1574.JPG

(Again, please tell me if I'm reading something wrong.)

I tested the F1 fuse and can post the result. But it is a brand new fuse that came with the new rectifier board. I also popped in a new 10A fuse, and no difference.

Question -- Is the F1 fuse the right thing to test? The instructions from that other post -- "Remove the fuses from the rectifier board and check you get roughly the following AC voltages across the pairs of "E" points ... E9-E10 7.8 VAC - Switched Illumination" suggest that maybe I should have the board off and testing between E9 and E10 on the back? (Nervous about this after seeing AlanJ's post about 230V on parts of that board).

While we're tracing this down, anything else to check on the lamp driver board?
 
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