Games in space, with rocks and saucers......Atari Italy Asteroids

[level42]

And a couple of minutes later there is this cry through Level42's house.......YESSSSSS....

Never give up....never give in....

I checked the output of the 555 and there was no block wave....I had swapped out the original 555 with one I had on stock.....so...mmmm,let's put the old one back and.....

[level42]

Some interference but......at least it's back

[level42]

..........aaaaaaand some minutes later.........


I reassembled the HV cage to the frame, reinstalled the cover ....lets do a power up......no picture, and something starts to smell....a see something glowing up in the cage.....R 9 is cooking and TR3 is glowing hot again......damn !!!

TR5 seems shorted all ways......maybe I shorted something to ground by reinstalling the HV cage or.....the 406D is not up to the task ?

Anyway, I know what's wrong and where to look.....point is....can I fix it before Eurocade still have shitloads of other stuff to do.....calling it a day now.....nighty night....

[level42]

Still following this soap ? respect !

Had a quick look this morning....works again after removing it from the frame.....I think one of the screws that hold the HV cage to the frame touches one of the tracks near TR5 !

Anyway BU406D still OK

Bad news: still some shaking so I guess it's the pot on the game PCB .....argh

Glad as hell it's running though, my Amplifone experience was pretty handy now

already ordered some BU606D's, cheapest I could find were from Germnay, yippie

[Luigi]

Reading all this stuff I consider selling all my arcade related stuff and turn my focus on ....collecting stamps 

[level42]

Hah, you know how many times this has gone through my mind the past weeks ?

[Etienne MacGyver]

Glad as hell it's running though

STOP TOUCHING IT RIGHT NOW ! 

[vernimark]

Andre,
I've the bertolino's plexy in my car.
it is mainly a black frame with instruction on one side.
Do you want I scan the side with the instruction only? I think it is enough because the rest of the scans should be just black strips...

[level42]

Yes Marco I think that will be just fine ! IIRC the text and is yellow right ?


Etienne: you want to play Asteroids with the monitor on the other side of the cab ? LOL

I found out what went wrong, I had mounted the BU406D to the inside of the metal frame for cooling, I could exactly solder it on the PCB _AND_ use 1 hole for this..but the screw was touching the metal....classic fuck-up

Now mounted it with plastic screws and runs fine

Monitor is back in cab, works. Now I won't touch it anymore, I promise....

[Etienne MacGyver]

Good !

Plastic screws, or isolation sleeves, thats the way to go.

[level42]

I will check that firebutton without spring next weekend

And, what did you think ? What did everybody think ?

[Q*ris]

It worked for me 

[level42]

Fixed my first Asteroids board today....well almost...

As mentioned before I had screwed up with making the Asteroids to Asterock adapter and wrong voltages came on wrong places....

I replaced all ICs in the vector output stages except for the actual DACs (AD561JN) because

a) I didn't have them
b) these babies are expensive, sometimes like $30 a piece expensive.

However.....I did a bit of googling and found them on eBay from HongKong/China for around 5 bucks a piece.....which sounded a lot nicer for my wallet....but I've had some bad experience with fake parts from China so I was pretty hesitant.

However I found this thread on KLOV: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=300424
and it seemed the guys had them working just fine so I went for it and offered $4 a piece for 4 pieces and they accepted

Note about that thread: The guys there found out that Analog Devices actually restarted production of the AD561JN (they probably noticed the prices these babies fetched and smelled money....). They sell them for way of 30 bucks a piece now. I also found a nice friendly source in the South of Germany who offered a great price for original NOS one's but.....I just had to try these...

They arrived yesterday and I just installed one and we have picture again ! :D

However, the sounds is distorted, maybe this is another victim of my abuse....let's check the audio amp section.....I "smell" a bad LM324

[Etienne MacGyver]

Nice ! 

[level42]

Thanks !

OK LM324 replaced and thrust and explosion sounds are back, however there are no sounds when I shoot and the saucers produce no sound either....I do hear some "pops" though at the moments there should be sounds....

Mmmmm, let's check the Asteroids repair Encyclopedia:

http://www.ionpool.net/arcade/asteroidtech/asteroidsrepair.html#S2

2. Problem:  Missing Sounds.

Suddenly several of the game's sound effects have vanished. Specifically, the ship shot, saucer shot, and saucer flying effects have degraded into various quiet clicks, pops, and buzzes, though they activate at the proper moments and for the proper duration's. From looking at the schematics it seems strange to me that these would all fail simultaneously, while leaving the thump, explosion, and new life sounds intact.

Fix: 12V regulator had failed, and was only putting out around 4 volts. This was the cause of the problems, and was easy to fix.

AH....it actually describes EXACTLY this problem and....it supposed to simply be a 7812.....mmm, thought I'd checked all 78xx's and 79xx's.....let's check again...