Area 51 / Max Force guns not tracking on K7000

dukesilverfan

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I found an old thread with a similar problem, but didn't want to resurrect a 7 year old conversation:

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Here is my issue I am trying to figure out:

I was testing some equipment on an Area 51/Max Force dual stack pcb, and 3 "working" Happ lightguns all fail to track in a Midway cab with a K7000 in it. It's basically the exact same situation as listed in the thread above. The guns were opened, cleaned, tested, and should be working, but they refuse to track in this cabinet.

I believe the factory monitor for Area 51 is a Hantrex Polo, so I was curious if perhaps the monitor voltage jumpers on the game pcb need to be adjusted when switching to a K7000? Any experience here?
 
K7000 will work in A51. You may just need to color balance the monitor. Try turning down the lights in the room and increasing the brightness/contrast on the tube. Guns with weak emissions and/or tube with burn can cause issues with tracking. This is all assuming the guns AND your game PCB are verified 100% working.
 
Yeah you really need to KNOW your guns are working before looking at the monitor. The trigger is a basic switch and doesn't tell you if the gun optics are working.

You need strong contrast on the monitor and the closer you are to the screen the more likely it is to pick it up. So if the screen looks good and you're not registering 6" from the screen, it's going to be the guns (or board, but not too likely).
 
Just to verify, I can leave the pcb jumpers (JMPR, JMPB, JMPG) to the standard jumper settings (factory default) with the K7000?

The picture looks good, so I don't think any adjustment is needed there. All 3 guns were previously working in another cabinet, so it's just odd to me that all 3 stopped working at the same time, while in storage...
 
Are you getting the screen flash and the sound of the trigger pull, like a reload if it's not tracking on screen?
Yes, I am getting that with all 3 guns on trigger pull.

In addition, while in the service menu's gun calibration screen, no matter then gun, there is no movement of the cursor on the screen.
 
Yes, I am getting that with all 3 guns on trigger pull.

In addition, while in the service menu's gun calibration screen, no matter then gun, there is no movement of the cursor on the screen.
Hmmm okay.

This sounds exactly like the issue with Carnevil if you do not have the SYNC wire going to the IO board, but obviously A51/MF don't have an IO board.

Could it be something with the SYNC wire on the JAMMA harness or monitor maybe?

EDIT:

Also, are you connecting the guns via the 4 pin connector directly from the gun? Or are you using the adapter connector? I believe my Maximum Force cabinet had an adapter that the happ gun plugged into when I first got it before I did all my work to the cabinet.
 
I am connecting the 4-pin connector directly from the gun's cable to the board, with the colors matching what's printed on the PCB. I know of the adapter you are speaking of, but I think it's just a simple wire-to-wire adapter, without any logic.

I'm tempted to buy a new board just to try it on one of the guns to rule out the possibility that all 3 gun pcbs died at the same time.


Hmmm okay.

This sounds exactly like the issue with Carnevil if you do not have the SYNC wire going to the IO board, but obviously A51/MF don't have an IO board.

Could it be something with the SYNC wire on the JAMMA harness or monitor maybe?

EDIT:

Also, are you connecting the guns via the 4 pin connector directly from the gun? Or are you using the adapter connector? I believe my Maximum Force cabinet had an adapter that the happ gun plugged into when I first got it before I did all my work to the cabinet.
 
I am connecting the 4-pin connector directly from the gun's cable to the board, with the colors matching what's printed on the PCB. I know of the adapter you are speaking of, but I think it's just a simple wire-to-wire adapter, without any logic.

I'm tempted to buy a new board just to try it on one of the guns to rule out the possibility that all 3 gun pcbs died at the same time.
Is there anyway you can confirm that the yellow SYNC wire on the JAMMA harness is actually connected to the yellow SYNC wire going to your monitor?
 
I found an old thread with a similar problem, but didn't want to resurrect a 7 year old conversation:

----------------

Here is my issue I am trying to figure out:

I was testing some equipment on an Area 51/Max Force dual stack pcb, and 3 "working" Happ lightguns all fail to track in a Midway cab with a K7000 in it. It's basically the exact same situation as listed in the thread above. The guns were opened, cleaned, tested, and should be working, but they refuse to track in this cabinet.

I believe the factory monitor for Area 51 is a Hantrex Polo, so I was curious if perhaps the monitor voltage jumpers on the game pcb need to be adjusted when switching to a K7000? Any experience here?
for posterity they came with Neotec 2515Cs

if you see the game on the screen there's nothing wrong with the sync wiring, Area 51 doesn't have a separate sync wire like Carnevil

low +5V or bad tube can cause gun tracking issues. you can turn the brightness up higher to see if it catches then.

if you haven't calibrated the guns you should probably do that too.
 
Ahh, yup, that's right. I think I am mixing up my Killer Instinct 2 cabinet and my Area 51 cabinet, both sold, but owned at the same time.
yeah the Killer Instinct games only make sense with Polos lol what an era

you shouldn't have to change any of the jumpers on the board at all. the Area 51 at work had a shitty K7000 in it for awhile until I pushed for a K7400 to replace it.
 
Good news, I got all 3 guns to work by turning up the brightness. It looks washed out, but this was just to test the equipment; it won't be the cabinet that it stays in.

So, success, but it must be the Neotec puts out more lumens than the K7000 or something 🤷
 
Good news, I got all 3 guns to work by turning up the brightness. It looks washed out, but this was just to test the equipment; it won't be the cabinet that it stays in.

So, success, but it must be the Neotec puts out more lumens than the K7000 or something 🤷
I just had this same issue with the Neotech that came with my Maximum Force. However I was having the problem with tracking working in Windows with my PC emulator build. The tracking in Windows would work fine but I had to have the contrast/brightness up a bit more than I would like so it was washed out more than I'd prefer.

The way I ended up fixing it is here in this post - basically I adjusted the RGB gains and moved them all the way up, and that let me turn down brightness/contrast and it looks better now and tracks fine.

 
Good news, I got all 3 guns to work by turning up the brightness. It looks washed out, but this was just to test the equipment; it won't be the cabinet that it stays in.

So, success, but it must be the Neotec puts out more lumens than the K7000 or something 🤷
I'm telling you the Area 51 at work had a horrible looking K7000 and it worked for years until I said it's making us look bad. LOL

a lot of K7000 tubes are just junk now. much of the 25" tubes were made by Zenith in the beginning of their lean years.
 
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