A baby is RE-born: BABY PAC restoration project

[zapposh]

So, at last it happened! I am now a proud dad, of a little baby. Baby pacman.

First roadtrip (through amazing storms and sleet for those who heard about the amazing weather in Germany last Sunday), first arcade machine.

Anyway, to make a long story short and all the other news following up in the next posts, here is the situation:
-200W stepdownconverter between the cab and my wall socket. Switch on: bang, there goes the fuse!

Ok, so you've all gone through that 1000 times. Not me. In a nutshell, amongst the many many reasons this can obviously come from, what is the most common reason for this?

Two words about the cab: bought NOT working, but at least should be able to be powered on.
Solenoid board, power board and the MPU boards should be working. Same goes for most of the bulbs, coils and other pinball parts.
Not working should be the Vidiot board (apparently 2 flashes only), and the monitor does not switch on.

Fact is I cannot even get that far to test anything.
I think this first challenge is going to be a hard one, but a nice one to learn a lot, with a machine I absolutely fell in love with, but I sure will need some help from you guys.
SOS

[zapposh]

[Etienne MacGyver]

first find the cause of the blown fuse, many times this indicates a short somewhere.

the fuse that blew, is it in the cab, or in your stepdown converter ?

[zapposh]

The fuse blows in the converter.

By the way, how do I insert pics into the posts?
I use the img tag, with the inserted link to my flickr image, but it does not work.

[Etienne MacGyver]

[img ][ /img]

I dont see a link in between this

it should look like this :

[img ]http://www.picturesource.pic/pic.jpg[ /img]

(note that i did put a space in the code because if i dont do that the code is not visible..

[zapposh]

Image test



How on earth will he find the short in the circuit if he can't even upload a pic? 

[2-mad]

you are using flickr .. thats not the best pic-source to embed pictures here ..

[Etienne MacGyver]

Image test



How on earth will he find the short in the circuit if he can't even upload a pic? 

you put in the wrong link.... 

[zapposh]

Thanks Etienne! :-)

[zapposh]

Ok, found the short. It's coming from the monitor.
Work on all the rest is progressing well, will need to make a post on it.

Now, signs like "HIGH VOLTAGE" scare me to death. On the power plate here, basically, what am I allowed to touch, and what should I avoid at all costs?
Does current stay in the transformer when the cab is unplugged?



The sticker says one can just change the current on the trafo. I don't have any instructions in the "black box" like written. Anyone has ever switched current on one of these?



Cheers

[Etienne MacGyver]

Does current stay in the transformer when the cab is unplugged?

no worries at the transformer when the cab is disconnected

The sticker says one can just change the current on the trafo. I don't have any instructions in the "black box" like written. Anyone has ever switched current on one of these?

there is a "jumper cable block" (that orange bunch of wires next to the fuse) if you are lucky, the other that you need for 220 volts is there too
let me lookup the topic that has something simular
be right back..

EDIT:

I am back...

in this topic from Ully you will see the "jumper" and it looks like this:



In that topic also the manual mentions something about the fuse that you need to change too, so maybe thats a good idea to look into as well.

[DarthNuno]

So, at last it happened! I am now a proud dad, of a little baby...

Congratulation... it's the best moment in live and ...

... Baby pacman.

...ah? OK! Just a cab  ...Congratulation anyway 

OK the first rule is ...  pictures please    Just provide your flickr link, no problemo of course.

[level42]

Hah, yeah I thought we had another real baby in "the family" too

[zapposh]

So, at last it happened! I am now a proud dad, of a little baby...

Congratulation... it's the best moment in live and ...

... Baby pacman.

...ah? OK! Just a cab  ...Congratulation anyway 

OK the first rule is ...  pictures please    Just provide your flickr link, no problemo of course.

Thanks, I am a "real" daddy too. :-)

Sure for the flickr link. It does not explain how I'm doing it, but shows a little progress. Just ignore numerous cables and board shots. They are for me for reference for rebuilding when I forget. ;-)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55408069@N04/sets/72157627661296918/

[zapposh]

Does current stay in the transformer when the cab is unplugged?

no worries at the transformer when the cab is disconnected

The sticker says one can just change the current on the trafo. I don't have any instructions in the "black box" like written. Anyone has ever switched current on one of these?

there is a "jumper cable block" (that orange bunch of wires next to the fuse) if you are lucky, the other that you need for 220 volts is there too
let me lookup the topic that has something simular
be right back..

EDIT:

I am back...

in this topic from Ully you will see the "jumper" and it looks like this:



In that topic also the manual mentions something about the fuse that you need to change too, so maybe thats a good idea to look into as well.

Thanks Etienne for your valuable input! I will check in the morning if I have such a jumper. Like this I cannot see as the cable twists out of sight under the fuse bit, but now that I'm not scared anymore of the high voltage trafo I will unscrew it and look where the cables go.
If I don't write by tomorrow night, call an ambulance! :-)