I have attempted to wire my electrical outlets for my machines to distribute the power over three seperate circuits. TZ which I am finding out is notorious for resetting due to low voltage issues. Here is an excerpt from marvin3m.com whom I hold in very high regard for their expertise and willingness to share information on pinball repair:

"Proper AC Wall Voltage?
Important: Before starting to dig in and try to diagnose the bridge rectifiers, set the DMM to AC Voltage and test the wall socket voltage. Make sure there is 115 to 120 volts AC present! If there is only 112 volts, this can cause the game to reset. Some games, like Twilight Zone, will often reset if the wall voltage is below 117 volts."

So I am quite often below 117 and don't own the hydro company to do anything about what they are supplying me. It was recommended I get a voltage conditioner and proceeded to purchase a Tripplite 1800 Amp unit which has absolutely no effect.

On a good day I will get 115 Volts and on a poor day with air-conditioners and all I have read as little as 104 Volts on that circuit. Turning off my other machines does have some improvement in the situation and I have found running the machine for a warm up period also shows improvement.

There is nothing worse than a total reset on a TZ just when you get Lost in the Zone.

Any suggestions to rectify this issue would be appreciated. The winter is not bad due to reduced demands on the hydro grid providing the required power. But I like my TZ just as much in the summertime.

Interesting, i have 3 pins on one plug in my basement i never noticed this problem. I guess an easy solution would be to put a UPS on it. I have a few APC ones and they monitor the voltage and can be adjusted to make up for the loss in power if they do drop under 115 volts. I'll go measure my socket and see what kind of power is coming out of the one where i have three pins plugged into.

Ok took a reading - I'm getting a solid 124 volts out of three of my sockets in the basement. I guess thats why I've never seen this problem.

Once in while I get reset problems on my Roadshow.  I have to turn off a whole bunch of crap in the house to get the line stabilized enough to play.  It sometimes dips down to about 100.

Not much I can do I guess..

Mike

Unfortunately it often depends in the city you reside,or even area.And can even be time of day.Measure your voltage at different times throughout the  day then compare them to a Saturday or Sunday.If the voltages are fluctuating on different times and days then it sounds like a problem in your area(unfortunately not much you can do but maybe whine to your electrical utility and maybe they`ll install a transformer OR NOT, GOOD LUCK!).
However if there are no fluctuations and the voltages are always that low I`d dig a little deeper.Two much load on that circuit?excessively long run of wire for that circuit?wrong size wire?who knows could be many things but at that point I would have a qualified electrican check my wiring and possible have a look at my electrical service and maybe dig a little deeper.Hope this helps STEEL OUT!

I know that fluctuations occur and it is less as of a result of what I am doing to the circuit as it is more a function of what I am receiving from hydro. Currently it is not problematic as hydro consumption overall on the grid is down and we are not getting what I would consider borderline gray outs as we had during the summer heat. I am mainly looking to get TZ up to the stability of all the other machines that I own that show little effect from the reduced voltage. Has anyone had any success with altering the power supply for TZ to make it more stable for this very reason? I know that in Japan they run around 110 Volts or less and that many pinball machine transformers have a jumper selection for this option. TZ has a software selectable low line voltage setting. It entirely sucks by paralyzing the upper flippers during battleling of the Power and it doesn't resolve this issue at all. There has to be an overriding factor for the resets. I would think one could give up some amperage in leu of stabilizing the voltage with some sort of circuit or upgrade to the current supply. I am hoping that someone with more technical know how than I may have resolved this issue for TZ.

Why don't you just change the input side of the transformer voltage to 100V? (Japan setting)  This can be found in any WPC manual (not the game manual) and it's as simple as switching two wires.  The pin will still opperate all day long setup like this, even if your line voltage gets up to your normal of 117VAC.  Seeing as you don't leave your pins on all day / night there's not much risk involved, and especially seeing as you've recorded line voltage as low as 104VAC!

Let me know if you don't have the WPC manual or can't find the exact directions using google.  I'll see if I can find my WPC manual, but its buried somewhere in my basement.....

Doug

I read up on how to do this on a TAF and when I went looking around my TZ the connector for selection from the transformer does not have the alternate wiring in it. I am thinking they addressed the low line voltage within the firmware and left it at that.

Must have been looking at the wrong conenctor, because it is definately doable as I've seen it done on a few TZ's.  The connector is before the transformer not after (if I remember correctly) and you'll need to move the two incomming AC wires to connect to a different set within the same connector.  All you're doing is tapping a different transformer winding.  (Now with TZ I think the 100VAC setting is actually 103VAC, but don't quote me on that)

I'll keep looking for my WPC manual and let you know if I find it.  

UPDATE  *Found the manual*

The connector your looking for is a 9 pin plug with two wires comming from your AC line cord (probably black & white per the schematic) and the rest of the connector should have 2 jumper wires (loops) connected and three pins with nothing in them.  If it's setup for 115VAC the black & white wires should be located in pins 1 (black) and 7 (white) with the first jumper in pins 2 & 3 and the second in 8 & 9.

To rejumper the game to 103.5VAC you'll need to move the wire from pin 7 (white) to pin 4, and the second jumper from pins 8 & 9 to 5 & 6.  Leave the wire in pin 1 (black) and the first jumper in pins 2 & 3 the same.  When you're done you should have pins 7, 8 & 9 empty.

Pretty simple, as long as you've got a decent molex pin extractor handy.  The only thing I would do before the jumper change is continually monitor the voltage you're getting at that receptical.  I would want to confirm that you don't see any voltage increases over 120VAC too often (if at all) during your normal playing times.  Even though the pin will handle the higher voltages, you'd prefer to have a low line condition as often as possible and in your case it sounds like you do most if not all of the time.  You could always turn all of your pins on while playing TZ for peace of mind right?

Hope this helps!

Doug

You line wire going into the game may be a bit fired and causing resistance and turning your 124 volts into 100!  Also look at the plug connector, is it clean or grungy?  Might be a good idea to replace this as well.  If you have 124v at the plug and only 104v at the end of the plug, sounds like a line cord problem.  I wouldn't recomend changing the jumpers (taps) on the transformer because you may never know when the voltage may jump back up and overload your machine.  If the voltage was good and the game resets, I'd suggest changing the +12 volt bridge and filter capacitor... So guys, if your WPC is reseting you may want to consider this.