Pinball Test Fixtures

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1 Introduction

Pinball test fixtures were designed to aid in the testing and repair of circuit boards in pinball machines. These fixtures are best utilized by individuals experienced with board repair and who perform repairs frequently for games.

Most test fixtures primarily emulate a pinball machine's lamps, solenoids, displays, switches, and sounds. There are also various test sequences available, plus the ability to perform repetitious tests in order to "burn-in" a board.

The downside to these fixtures is that they are big, bulky, and tend to be rather expensive. In some cases, there is little or no documentation for the fixtures. Sometimes, fixtures were modified to accommodate boards, displays, or features that they were not originally intended to support. There is also little or no documentation on these modifications.

Since these test fixtures are designed to emulate the guts of a pinball machine, some collectors/technicians have built their own test fixtures using the guts of actual pinball machines.

Additionally, there are now some diagnostic tools available to help aid with circuit board testing and diagnostics while in-game or on the bench.

3 Diagnostic Tools

3.1 Univeral/General

3.1.1 Switch Matrix Tester

• 64 switch matrix tester (Pinitech.com)

3.1.2 Chip Tester

• Inquisitor chip tester; for RAM, PIAs, and RIOT chips (Neoloch.com)

3.2 Bally/Stern (Classic)

• Switch matrix tester, cabinet switch tester, bench display, lamp board tester, driver board tester (Pinitech.com)
• MPU FixIt diagnostic test module, Bally only, (twobits.com)

3.3 Gottlieb

3.3.1 System 1

• Playfield switch tester (Pinitech.com)

3.3.2 System 80

• MPU diagnostic test ROM module (Pinitech.com)
• QuickScan80 Test Fixture, MPU diagnostic tester (greatplainselectronics.com)

3.4 Stern/Data East/Sega

• Switch matrix tester, lamp matrix tester, special solenoid input/output testers (siegecraft.us)

3.5 Williams

3.5.1 System 3-11

• Switch matrix tester, lamp matrix tester, special solenoid input/output testers, bench display (siegecraft.us)
• System 9-11 MPU tester (edcheung.com)

3.5.2 WPC

• Switch matrix tester, lamp matrix tester, Flipper opto board tester (siegecraft.us)

3.10 Zaccaria

• Switch, lamp, and solenoid testers (pinballsolutions.eu)

4 Custom/Homebrew/Bench Test Fixtures

4.2 Gottlieb

• System 1/80/3 test fixture solutions & ideas (flipprojets.fr). Located under The Projects > Materials, The Projects > Displays, and The Projects > Various > Built by our Readers

4.4 Williams

• System 3-7 custom test fixture, with build instructions (smokingcircuit.com), Video
• WPC-89 bench test fixture, with instructions (pinballrebel.com)
• Video of a custom WPC-89 test fixture (youtube.com, posted by ddstoys)