Amplifone blooming

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Working on an Amplifone PCB set. Totally re-worked both boards. Deflection board running perfect in my SW cockpit (so with my own HV board with Cinelabs HVT).

Just tried the other HV PCB (which has a Wintron HVT) and it works great except for one thing. It's blooming.

Now, as far as I understand the word blooming means that the picture size changes in total (so both H-size and V-size at the same time). If that's the wrong word then it is doing what I described and it happens whenever there is a lot of current demanded, so when I am hit by shots or destroying the deathstar.

I checked with my HV meter and the HV was kinda low, so I upped it to 19,5 kV but it's still doing the same. I noticed that the HV dips at the moments the shots hit or the deathstar blows....

I changed back my own HV board and I have noticed the same effect on that one but too a MUCH less extend. The HV seems to dip much less at those moments.

Now, can it be the Wintron being a worse HVT than the Cinelabs not being able to "keep up" with the power demands ? Or is there anything else to check ?
 
Mmmm, I did some googling and it seems that I find a couple of combinations of Wintron running HV PCBs and reported blooming. If the Wintron wasn't such a PITA to desolder and solder again with all those tiny wires I'd drop in one of my spare Cinelabs one's to try it out and know for sure....

I have a feeling the Wintron might not be as good as it's reputation....
 
No one else have had this happening on an Amplifone ? Haven't had time to measure the 24V and -24V yet...


I had the same problem. I ultimately sold the Amplifone to someone here (I cannot remember who) and bought a 6100.

I had a Wintron.
 
AH ! Another Wintron with blooming....

I _think_ I am going to try a Cinelabs in it even though it's a lot of work. We MUST know if the Wintron is the cause !

This will have to wait a bit though....
 
I am anxiously awaiting your repairs. I too have an amp with a Wintron on it. There are some burned components on the board so I will tackle it some time in the near future and see what is. Guess those overly-priced HV units weren't worth their salt.
 
I just replaced the Wintron with the other HVT. Now the over voltage LED is constantly on :(

Tried adjusting everything but no change...

Are there any mods done when a Wintron is installed ? I have no idea why this happens...
 
Mmm, the Amplifone FAQ has a part of someone having continuous over voltage kicked in after installing a Wintron (which the FAQ says to be better than the Pen Trans, it turns out there was a Pen Trans on this board, not wintron, but I thought they were all the same).

There are also some tips to disable the over voltage protection temporarily to make it possible to find out what is wrong... going to check on that...
 
I would think if a diode was bad it would bloom all the time. My Star Wars is buried in the garage so i can't look right now but I always thought that the "bloom" at the explosion or when getting hit was normal. There are no mods when putting the Wintron in. The board was made for it. If anything, it would be the Cinelabs that would need a different resistor in the HV over protection circuit to keep it from shutting down or maybe one of the resistors is out of tolerance. Put your hv probe in there and fire the game up and see if you can get a reading where it's at before it goes into shut down mode. You might see the voltage for a split second before it shuts down. If it's over 25k you have problems, but if it's only around 20 or 21 and it's shutting down then the circuit is being a little over-protective. What's your B+ at on the Wintron anyway ?

As for Wintron or Pentran being sub par, no offense, but that almost seems like a "troll" post. I have Wintrons in both of my games and would never swap them out for a Chinese made Cinelab. I think my pictures look better than when I first rebuilt them with the chinese made transformers. The HV does spike during the Deathstar explosion because for a split second there is nothing on the screen, you might only notice the dip after the spike. I think that is where the 6100's usually blew up.
 
Mmm, the Amplifone FAQ has a part of someone having continuous over voltage kicked in after installing a Wintron (which the FAQ says to be better than the Pen Trans, it turns out there was a Pen Trans on this board, not wintron, but I thought they were all the same).

There are also some tips to disable the over voltage protection temporarily to make it possible to find out what is wrong... going to check on that...

You can disable the Overvolt, (Pull middle leg out of Q4) but you will burn a spot in the middle of your CRT during startup while doing it. For me I burnt a TV from the side of the road, but I am sure your tube is an orig Med res tube. :eek:

The red LED comes on for a few seconds during startup normally to prevent that, so you will be allowing that if you disable the OV
 
Does that really happen so quickly ? Burning I mean ?

If that is the risk I am not going to do it. This is not my own HV board and I am not going to risk my excellent condition 25" CRT.....

I can still do some basic testing like voltage regulators etc. but why would the board work with the Pen Trans and not with the Chinese HVT....never had this before.
 
Mine burnt after 5 attempts. I had a problem I was trying to solve. In the process I turned the test bench on 5 times and near the end I could see the little mark

I had problems with the connections on the new neck board. I soldered the wires directly and problem was fixed.

I will never disable this again, as it takes a while to do a convergence, and I don't want to waste time doing it over
.

Does that really happen so quickly ? Burning I mean ?

If that is the risk I am not going to do it. This is not my own HV board and I am not going to risk my excellent condition 25" CRT.....

I can still do some basic testing like voltage regulators etc. but why would the board work with the Pen Trans and not with the Chinese HVT....never had this before.
 
Ahhhh, the wonders of analogue electronics logic......

Thought I would start to find out why the new "Chinese" HVT wasn't working on this HV board. So, I first decided to turn it on to do some measuring around the HVT board, and to my surprise I hear the well-known (and much welcomed) crackling of the HV !!! So I look at the screen and YES we have picture ! :)
A bit too "loud" so I quickly turn back the screen pot and have a fine picture !

And I changed nothing from former tries ???!?!? Weird !

Checked HV and it's nicely on the 20kV mark, will have to lower it a tiny bit.

This is going to need some good test-running (poor me, more SW playing to do...sigh ;) ) to see if it stays OK.

Now for the million dollar question: YES the blooming is WAY less than on the Penn Trans and totally similar to that of my own HV board with Cinelabs HVT on it.

The conclusion would be that the Pen Trans can't cope with the extra required current during hits and death star explosions and thus lowers the HV. BUT this is just one Pen Trans.
Although I've had some people here confirm the same effect with a Pen Trans, this could still be an issue for just one or a couple of them....but somehow I have a feeling that it is simply a design spec issue.

Now, from the Amplifone FAQ it says this:

The common replacement for the red HVT today is the WinTron transformer / multiplier. WinTron is actually Penn Trans, they just changed their name after the company changed hands. Their part number is still 926862802. These things are not cheap. Currently they are $190 each, and there are no quantity discount that I am aware of. While they are expensive, the replacement HVTs are put together VERY well, and are supposed to be even superior to the PennTrans HVT's. They are pretty similar to the Penn Trans HVT's in appearance and carry a one-year warranty.

Supposed to be better....well it could be they improved the Pen Trans when they "transformed" into Wintron...who will know for sure. I'd love to see a Wintron running in my machine...

For now, I am convinced that the Chinese "Cinelabs" HVT is the better one.

I will make a video which shows the difference clearly.
 
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Ahhhh, the wonders of analogue electronics logic......

Thought I would start to find out why the new "Chinese" HVT wasn't working on this HV board. So, I first decided to turn it on to do some measuring around the HVT board, and to my surprise I hear the well-known (and much welcomed) crackling of the HV !!! So I look at the screen and YES we have picture ! :)
A bit too "loud" so I quickly turn back the screen pot and have a fine picture !

And I changed nothing from former tries ???!?!? Weird !

Checked HV and it's nicely on the 20kV mark, will have to lower it a tiny bit.

This is going to need some good test-running (poor me, more SW playing to do...sigh ;) ) to see if it stays OK.

Now for the million dollar question: YES the blooming is WAY less than on the Penn Trans and totally similar to that of my own HV board with Cinelabs HVT on it.

The conclusion would be that the Pen Trans can't cope with the extra required current during hits and death star explosions and thus lowers the HV. BUT this is just one Pen Trans.
Although I've had some people here confirm the same effect with a Pen Trans, this could still be an issue for just one or a couple of them....but somehow I have a feeling that it is simply a design spec issue.

Now, from the Amplifone FAQ it says this:

The common replacement for the red HVT today is the WinTron transformer / multiplier. WinTron is actually Penn Trans, they just changed their name after the company changed hands. Their part number is still 926862802. These things are not cheap. Currently they are $190 each, and there are no quantity discount that I am aware of. While they are expensive, the replacement HVTs are put together VERY well, and are supposed to be even superior to the PennTrans HVT's. They are pretty similar to the Penn Trans HVT's in appearance and carry a one-year warranty.

Supposed to be better....well it could be they improved the Pen Trans when they "transformed" into Wintron...who will know for sure. I'd love to see a Wintron running in my machine...

For now, I am convinced that the Chinese "Cinelabs" HVT is the better one.

I will make a video which shows the difference clearly.

Nice writeup, could just be the HV Diode buried deep within the wintron that failed

Just a 1 off . . .
 
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