I'm making this post so that others may learn from the work that I have put into debugging (and solving) a problem with the 'Node 8 Not Initialized Error' on a Stern Pinball - Elvira House of Horrors LE.
TLDR: An Elvira HoH LE Node 8 that was failing to initialize was "fixed" by resoldering an opto switch.
The screen showed a red flashing error "Node 8 Not Initialized" when booting up. Sometimes you see this when the coin door is open because the 48V power is switched off. In this case, the door was closed. So I checked to see if the 48V power was on. It was.
After some research on Pinside and Reddit I tried several things to fix the problems.
Starting with the easiest, Here's a list of everything I tried before stumbling into the solution.
Checked the RJ45 Cable.
Swapped cables with another node.
Swapped out with a completely new cable to make sure but to no avail.
Checked the Jumpers.
This machine worked previously, so I had no reason to think a jumper was incorrectly set for Node 8 (off-off-off-off).
I checked to make sure - it was set correctly.
Updated the Firmware
Performed a software update using a USB key with version 1.05.
Performed a complete SD Card replacement of the firmware.
Removed and re-seated all the connections for Node 8.
I also replaced the Node 8 board entirely with a spare. (this didn't fix the problem)
I removed all the connections to the node, and the node could initialize!
I re-attached each connection set one by one, and I could isolate the failure to CN11.
The board would initialize without CN11 attached.
At this point, I called in a technician who helped with the next set of debugging.
We went through each switch attached to this connection and visually inspected each switch to see if it looked ok.
This Elvira is a very new machine with low usage, and everything looked good.
We de-soldered all the switches and disconnected all the optos from the power.
Eventually, we isolated the problem switch. It was #35 'Left Ramp Exit Opto'
We pulled out the ramp and checked the opto. It looked ok to us. However, I saw a weird spot of solder on the opto receiver board, so we decided to resolder it anyway.
Node 8 fully initialized! The technician was stunned; he had never seen a Stern node board fail to initialize from a single switch having a faulty connection.
Hopefully, this post helps someone else out there!
Elvira Switch Layout (resized).pngNode 8 - CN11 (resized).png
Cooks Beach
Chesterfield, MO
Skippy2904
