Asteroids Deluxe Cocktail Resurrection

DrMathias

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Hello,
This is my first post, although I've read quite a lot of interesting material on the forums over the last few weeks. I'm a total newbie so please bear with me.

My grandparents owned two Asteroids games (an upright and an Asteroids Deluxe cocktail) since the early 80s. I acquired them recently when they had to move out due to advancing age- I have a lot of fond memories associated with these games, as many of you can probably relate, to so I nabbed them.

The monitor on the cocktail hadn't functioned for about thirty years. I'm not sure exactly when it stopped working, or if it displayed any odd behavior when it did. The game was playing blind, no neck glow.

I was unable to find a repair shop in Kansas City (my nearest major city) and decided I was going to tackle it myself. I've been reading about XY monitors and it sounds like playing blind is a fairly common problem for Asteroids. I've also been studying up on basic electronics (before I couldn't have told you the difference between a capacitor and a transistor, or recognized them) and have a better handle on what a repair job entails.

Anyway, two days ago I pulled the monitor chassis (G05-805) and discharged it with an HV stepdown probe. I removed the flyback pcb and the deflection board. As I expected from reading the B&W vector guide and the sticky here, the header connections had very poor looking solder joints, but everything else looks pretty good. Although I ordered some cap kits I decided not to wait any more and I reflowed all the sketchy connections yesterday.

I reinstalled the monitor pcbs and the chassis and fired it up... neck glow, and THE SCREEN WAS VISIBLE. It felt pretty damn awesome :)

The screen was not lined up correctly (asteroids and ufos appearing off screen before becoming visible, when one went off to the side it wouldn't reappear again for a half second) so I adjusted the X Y pots on the main pcb. I put it in test mode so I could use the diamond pattern edges to get everything visible.

So, here's where I am now: I adjusted the X GAIN pot until the display was correct. At that point, though, the extreme right side of the screen started stretching off, shaking, tracing, etc... I'm not sure what the correct terminology would be to describe the effect. It also often happens when the pot is being rotated. The effect goes away, but it does come back during play, very intermittently, and sometimes the extreme left freaks out a bit too. I've gone through about 18 plays on it, with power downs in between every two or three.

I do have a cap kit on the way for the HV and deflection pcbs. I was wondering if anyone has any advice on what to expect from here, or what I may need to do to fine tune the screen. Overall I'm extremely happy to have this thing going again after 30 years, and it is playing really well 95% of the time. Lastly, apologies for the novel length post, but you all seem to like more information rather than less :)
 
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Be aware that there are X and Y size adjustment pots on the monitor's deflection board, as well as the game board. Both can be used to adjust the picture. (You typically want the monitor ones in the middle of their range, so you can use the game board's pots to fine tune the picture.)

Often the ones on the deflection board get dirty, and cause issues. But the same can happen to the game board ones as well. You can replace the pots, or get a can of DeOxit, and try cleaning them first, which will often help. But if they are too far gone, they may need to be replaced.

You could have other issues, but it's best to start with the simple possibilities first.
 
i am glad the videos helped you get it going.
 
Be aware that there are X and Y size adjustment pots on the monitor's deflection board, as well as the game board. Both can be used to adjust the picture. (You typically want the monitor ones in the middle of their range, so you can use the game board's pots to fine tune the picture.)

It looks like the board has four pots- brightness, contrast and two others that are glued in place. After reading the service manual I'm presuming those are the other X Y adjusters? I was hesitant to remove the glue.

The manual says that the EHT needs to be checked at 12KV. Honestly, I don't know how to do that (as in where to put the probes, what the correct safety procedure is). I've read up on this stuff for two weeks and watched a lot of videos on monitor discharging, etc. but I feel like there's a lot of basic stuff that simply isn't covered (or at least I can't find it).

i am glad the videos helped you get it going.

Very helpful!
 
The other two pots are for linearity adjustment. The G05-802 and -805 black and white vector monitors have them, but the 15/19v2000 monitors do not. (Most color vector games also have them, but they are on the game board instead of the monitor board.)

They adjust also adjust the size of the picture in the X and Y directions, but only around the outer 2-3" border of the screen. They do not adjust the picture in the center of the tube. They are used on the crosshatch test screen to get the widths of the diamonds uniform across the entire width and height of the screen. Note this will also straighten the diagonal crosshatch lines as well. If the lines aren't straight (and the diamonds aren't uniform), you can use the linearity pots, along with the other size pots, to correct that. You also want them to be clean, like the other pots. Get yourself a can of DeOxit ($17 on ebay), and clean them all:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/272528188162

To measure the HV, you can use the same basic procedure that is explained in my 6100 color vector monitor setup guide, along with your HV probe. The only difference is that the HV should be 12kV for the G05 monitors, instead of 19.5kV for the 6100.

See 'Step 6: Connect high voltage (HV) cage wiring, and set up the HV probe' and on, in the document here:

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=404600
 
Thanks for the reply, that gives me an idea of what to learn about next. Appreciated!
 
Also, when working on any game, always be sure to download and read the monitor manual, which there is always a separate manual for, even though some of the info may be duplicated in the game manual. But the monitor manual almost always gives you more info.

Always make sure to check to make sure you have the latest revision for any manual you get online as well, as there are many older revisions floating around for a lot of stuff. In most cases the differences won't matter, except when they do.
 
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