Friday March 15, 2024

Gottlieb System 1 Switch Tester (prototype)

Author: Wayne Eggert
Date: 3/17/2013

IntroductionGottieb Switch Tester
This is a switch tester for Gottlieb System 1 MPU boards. You disconnect the playfield switch connector at A1-J7 in your game and hook this up in its place. You can then activate all game switches via this switch tester.

What It Does
This can save time in several ways.  First, it can be used to isolate the MPU board from the playfield switch wiring so you can test that the switch circuitry on the MPU board is working properly.  Any wiring, connector or physical switch contact issue (improperly adjusted contacts, oxidized contacts, etc), stuck switches, etc will then be easier to pinpoint.

Probably the neatest thing though is when using this with Gottlieb's "T" test ROM.  When the "T" ROM is installed in place of the normal game chip, when you start a game you can actually turn on/off individual lamps and solenoids by activating switches.  Normally you'd need to remove the playfield glass from the machine, find each switch number you wanted to test & then find out what lamp/solenoid it should activate.  The switch tester makes it much easier since you don't have to remove the playfield glass & can easily activate the correct switch without searching for it on the playfield.  Once again during the use of this tester with the "T" test ROM, by isolating the playfield switch wiring from the machine it also helps to know that if a lamp or coil isn't activating it is in fact something in the lamp/coil circuit and not due to bad switches or switch wiring issues.

Who Is This For?
Mainly I see this being useful to people that own many Gottlieb System 1 machines or for people that are often repairing System 1 machines or MPU boards.  Once a game is working properly an occassional switch or lamp issue should be relatively easy to identify, but when repairing many boards or machines a testing tool like this can be a huge time-saver.

Availability
If you are interested in purchasing this switch tester, please contact me.

Switch Tester with Harness
Picture: Switch Tester with Harness

Switch Tester (hooked up)
Picture: Switch Tester connected to MPU




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