OMG Maybe the worst week for my LOTR LE so far. Worst day was today!

Don't want to admit these even happened, but...
I'm going to push on and document this as it's a game log including all the gory details.  Maybe it will help someone else some day. Won't get "Bored of the Rings" at this rate, just tired.

Playing a game and the diverter in front of the Orthanc tower stuck and wouldn't return.

• Looked under the playfield at flipper mech that Stern used, ugh!  Spring didn't appear able to return the gate to "home". 
• Mechs including links and plunger did not seem to be binding.
•  Took the coil stop out and removed the coil and had a good look. Everything still looked new, so put it back together.
• Got a hex key set and followed instructions to adjust the "Diverter Gate" properly, in the inside front cover of the LOTR manual.
• Also in Service Bulletin #147.  Working correctly again.

I noticed that the orbit pin was never working when playing a game.  Found out later that this is a common problem, and not just from binding.

• Suspected that during the mode "Ents go to War", when you take the Right Orbit shot the ball should land in the back of Orthanc.  Makes sense.
• In fact I couldn't think of a single time that the orbit was stopped by that pin coming up. So I watched it with someone else playing, not happening.
• Next, game on diags coil test and pulsed the orbit pin coil #13, got a very weak result. It seemed to be trying to push the pin up.
• Open backbox, grounded the transistor for that coil (Q13) same weak result.  Put the playfield up and pushed the coil by hand. No problem moved freely.
• Tried to ground the coil, with the playfield up.  The pin extended fully. It would also coil test correctly, but not with the with the playfield down. 
• Had correct voltage on the coil at both sides all the time.  I had continuity from the transistor to the non-power side of the coil on the BLU-GRN wire.




My theory is that the copex (plastic sleeving) containing the playfield wires running from the backbox was fouling the coil action. 

Rearranged those cables and now the pin fires to full height with the playfield down. Game finally happy?  No. It gets worse.

Played a game and the diverter gate was fine, and even the Orbit Pin seemed OK. But had scoring coming from the PoTD when no ball was there.
• On the first ball, it collected 5,000 souls mostly 100 at a time. Gimli said "That's an army!" right away.  Stopped playing and started looking at the PoTD switches.  They seemed OK.
• Vibration? Went to active switch test, PoTD switches seemed OK to me.  Banged on the PoTD, didn't seem to be the source of the fault.
• Realised that when the spinner was closed, all the switches in that ROW were made. Took the spinner switch off the ramp, unplugged below and removed it from the game to test. You have to close a micro-switch to test the diode, or take it off the switch. Diode and switch both tested OK, put it back on the ramp checking for shorts to ground.
• Did some more switch tests, and found the same was true for ANY switch in that column (COL 7).  Including plumb bob tilt. If you closed, say the Left Bumper skirt switch (ROW 1, COL 7) then all the switches in ROW 1 lit up as being made. So that meant all the pop bumpers and the spinner were scoring PoTD hits.  Hmmm... not good.

Here's what to do next:

• Remove CN5 (COL Drive) and CN7 (ROW Return) from the CPU board.
• Power up the game and go into switch test, active switches.  The whole Switch Matrix should show blank.
• Take a jumper cable and put a diode at the end.  The banded side of the diode points to COL Drive so attach that side with the jumper to CN5 pin1.
• Touch the NON-banded side to pins 1-9 of CN7 (ROWs).  You should get an indication of a switch closure for COL 1 at the ROWS 8 to 1 for each pin you touch.
• Fine for me until CN5 pin 8 (COL 7), which I feared.  As I touched each row pin ALL the switches in that ROW were closed.  The problem was on the CPU and not the playfield.

If this test is perfect, then start looking for shorted switches out on the playfield.  Shorts to ground or between COLumns would be likely.

• Next I took a logic probe and connected it to +5v and Ground.  Touching the probe to each of the pins at CN7 you should see "High" (not pin #10 as this is not used).
• Touching the probe to each of the pins at CN5 you should see a pulse.  But my pin 8 (COL 7) was "Low".

*** WARNING *** If I was not 100% sure of the fix and my ability to do it, I would have sent the board to a repair person.  Or back to the Stern Distributor.
Because I was the probable cause of this fault (yes, I'll get to that embarrassment shortly) and being fairly good with board repairs, I went for it. YMMV.

• The fault was looking like Q7 (a 2n3904 according to the manual).  I took the CPU board out of the game and measured continuity between the outside legs (C-E) of Q1 through Q8. Only Q7 was shorted.  Found an exact replacement for the 2n3904 in my spares(!) - Clipped it off the board, desoldered the legs and replaced it.
• After dinner, put the CPU back in the game without connecting CN5 or CN7 and repeated the switch matrix test with a diode and jumper. Tested perfectly.
  Turned it off and replaced the connectors for CN5 and CN7.  Need a complete shake-out game, but the switch matrix is good now. Didn't even loose the settings or high scores.

I figured out what I could have had done.  D'OH!  Looking for a place to test ground the "orbit pin" coil, I picked the worst place.  Connected the jumper to the frame of the plumb bob tilt.

• It looked like a black wire on it. I could try and blame the dodgy wiring colors Stern used for the LOTR LE.  But it was my mistake.
• Grounded 24v DC (or so) through the Switch Matrix!  Looking at a switch wiring diagram later, it went back through CN5 pin 8 and shorted out Q7. Thank goodness it wasn't worse.

Tomorrow is my Birthday, would be cool to be able to play the game at my party with the figures on and most of the mods completed. It's still possible.