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.
2 Test Fixtures
2.1 Bally/Stern (Classic)
Bally took a different approach than most other manufacturers and built four discreet test fixtures for testing individual boards, which are commonly known as "Bally brown box testers".
2.1.1 Bally MPU Test Fixture
This test fixture can test Bally MPUs, however, the helpfulness of this test fixture in troubleshooting many problems is limited.
2.1.2 Bally Lamp Board Test Fixture
This test fixture can test both classic Bally and Stern lamp driver boards
2.1.3 Bally Solenoid Driver Board Test Fixture
This test fixture can test both classic Bally and Stern solenoid driver boards. It can also test early Bally sound boards, but that may require modifications.
2.1.4 Bally Display Test Fixture
This test fixture can test 6-digit Bally and Stern displays, and can be modified to also test 7-digit displays.
2.1.5 Stern SAM II Test Fixture
This is a complete test fixture with switch and lamp matrices, which can test Stern MPU-100 MPUs, lamp boards, solenoid driver boards, SB-100 sound boards, and 6-digit displays.
2.1.6 Stern SAM IV Test Fixture
This is a complete test fixture with switch and lamp matrices, which can test Stern MPU-100/MPU-200 MPUs, lamp boards, solenoid driver boards, SB-100/SB-300 sound boards, and 6-digit/7-digit displays.
2.2 Gottlieb
2.3 Stern/Data East/Sega
2.4 Williams
2.5 Alvin G
2.6 Atari
2.7 Capcom
2.8 GamePlan
2.9 Zaccaria
3 Diagnostic Tools
3.1 Univeral/General
3.1.1 Switch Matrix Tester
3.1.2 Chip Tester
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
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
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
3.6 Alvin G
3.7 Atari
3.8 Capcom
3.9 GamePlan
3.10 Zaccaria
4 Custom/Homebrew/Bench Test Fixtures
4.1 Bally/Stern (Classic)
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
4.3 Stern/Data East/Sega
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)