Last week, thanks to the "stern/battery" thread, I had sent an email reminder from work to my home account to check the batteries in my firepower when I got home. I put it off but finally on Saturday, I got a chance to check into it.  Some history, Firepower's been acting up a bit, displays show garbled text but if I would nudge the machine, sometimes it would come back on ok. Lately, it stopped doing that. Some short?  This is an issue and the change in batteries, I should have looked at a few months ago, but I've been real busy and neglated the pin a bit.

Unfortunately .... the way my pinball is placed, it's hard to get to the batteries as I have a gianticus elliptical machine in the way preventing me access to the right side when the backbox door flips open.  Common sense says "move the exercise machine" but I opened her up, stretched my arm to it's fullest extend , undid the velcro strap and...

Next thing you know, the #$@R@$ battery holder swings off the mounting like tarzan and hits something on one of the board.

Crap!  Oh well, so I pick up the battery (still held on the swinging wires that's soldered to the main board) and that's when I notice the acid leak. Crap. Oh well, no big deal will clean it up and change batteries.

Sadly, that's when the story turns bad.  Somehow, when the battery swung and hit something, it must done some damage.  The game turns on, but all I see is the number "4" on the backglass. (I think it's where the credit is, can't remember, too pissed!).  I did have the problem with the scoring displays but the machine was still fully playable, but right now, it won't.  Rolling the credit sensor does nothing, no lights are flashing, everything is just on.

I'll have to research this, just to frustrated on Saturday and Sunday to continue. What is worse is this is all self-inflicted. If I'd not been a lazy bastard and move the exercise machine, I would have been able to hold onto the battery compartment properly.  IF I'd change the batteries at the one year mark (a few months ago), they wouldn't have leaked.

Let that be a lesson to all...

If the credit/match display looks like "04 00" this is audit mode - totally normal after the batteries have been removed. It should go away after power off/on though. If it doesn't then maybe the battery holder is no longer connected properly.

http://www.pinrepair.com/sys37/index2.htm#factory

Don't worry, whatever's wrong I'll help you get it working again.

Cool, since it swung on the wires, it's possible one got disconnected.  Hopefully that's all, I can't tell if the "00" in the "04 00" is there because of my scoring problem, which I will look at.

Thanks for the heads up Brett, I know I'm panicking too much here but you should have seen the look on my face when that sucker swung and hit the circuit board!  From upstairs, my wife could tell there was a disturbance in the force.

Moral of the story Rob is to get rid of that Elliptical trainer before it costs you more stress!

Funny you should mention that. I've ignored that elliptical machine and now I think karma is biting me in the a** with my weight gain.  This is something I need to address head-on so it's staying and I'll give it and Firepower the attention they both deserve .

Try flicking the power on and off twice in a row. It sounds like it's going into audit mode as mentioned. Also note the position of the coin door (closed) is important when doing this. There is a memory protect switch on the door.

Great news, and a bit of a puzzler too.

First, I tried what you suggested Glen, unfortunately that didn't seem to work.  Second, I understood it's in Audit mode, but it was really tough to see what the settings were at since the 4 (minus the "0") was all I could see with my ongoing scoring display problem.

Anyway, here's what I did, I removed the new batteries, turned it on, still nothing.  I then pressed various dipswitch buttons on the coin door in sheer frustration, and still nothing .  Then, I noticed I had a ball in the plunger lane.  The reason for this is because of an ongoing "minor" issue with this machine, if I don't leave a ball in the plunger lane, TWO will pop out when starting a game, if I leave 1 ball, then the game starts up and everything is fine (note, I can send the ball away and the game will start fine, it's only if there hasn't been a while that it does this).

ANYWAY, I removed the ball from the inlane, in case the game won't start up because a switch is enabled and... SHE STARTED!  Groovy, so I put the batteries back in, and the problem returned.  Shut it off, shot a ball into play, waited for it to drain and turned it back on and now, she worked fine but with one difference, the display were all working ok!

WTF?  I shut it off, turned it back on and it was fine.  I reset all the dip switch settings to my liking, played about 5 games and she worked perfect, displays and all.

So obvious question, I'm still quite convinced my display issue which was the odd letter for a while then it came back, then messed up and finally was completely blank, is probably a short.  But just in case, the question is, can batteries leaking cause something like this, where the displays are affected?

Whatever the case, SHE LIVES!

p.s. I can put a ball back in the inlane (so as not to have that problem) and she starts no problemo now. Weird but happy happy joy joy!

I haven't seen your display problem or heard a detailed description yet. But it seems doubtful that leaking batteries would cause that. More likely, weak connection somewhere.

Glad to hear she's playable again!

detailed description:  at the beginning, half the characters on all displays (scores, credit/ball) would pop in and out of view, garbled as well. For example, the number "0" could show up as "7" then back to "0". Then, it went from "half" the characters screwed up to almost all of them. Finally, a couple of weeks later, all were out except for that 4.  Pretty weird, probably something loose but moving things around never seems to help or make a difference.