Asteroids G05 801 monitor ...no glow..plays blind.

obs

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Hi All..

Plugged in my asteroids, its plays blind. It worked before...now it does not. Monitor is g05-801

No glow in the neck. On the board where the contrast and brightness controls are, there is a red LED, which is off. When I turn the machine off, the light comes on for a fraction of a second.

Al plugs have been pulled out and reseated.

I'll order in a cap kit since one has never been done to this unit.

Where is the best place to start testing??

Dave
 
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You want the LED to be off, the monitor is in shutdown when it's lit. Is there deflection chatter? I would start by reflowing all the headers on the deflection board and HV cage — this is the #1 problem I've encountered with B&W vector monitors.
 
Do a google search for "black and white vector monitor FAQ". It'll walk you step by step through how to fix anything on these babies. There's a troubleshooting section that shows you what's wrong with each thing that's going on. Most comprehensive monitor info I've seen anywhere.
 
Neck glow is necessary to get a picture

It is a little 6.3Volt AC heater in the tube, fed from the Main power brick at the bottom of the cab. The same 6.3 is fed to the coin door light bulbs.

It is always concerning when there is no neck glow as the heater is not repairable if it is burnt out

You need to carefully measure the neck voltage while the machine is running, looking for 6.3 VAC across the 2 x heater pins

If the voltage is present, the monitor is gawn! :(

If there is no 6.3V there you are in luck as that could simply be a blown fuse on the power brick or broken wire in between

So are the coin mech lights working?

PS also present on the monitor on one of the pins: 500V focus, and 200V also, so only do this if you are 100% sure of what you are doing
 
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No neck glow..and coin lights are present.

OK, with the machine turned OFF
Follow them coin light bulb wires up to the neck from BOTH sides of the globe, looking for broken wires or bad connectors on them 2 x wires

If you get to the tube having found no bad joins or wires, measure the resistance of the heater (On the actual tube)

If you get a low resistance, re-assemble the harness & measure the voltage at that same point when the game is ON - careful must be them 2 pins - should be 6.3 Volts with the game running

If you get open circuit (No reading or "OL") time to get a new tube, sorry

My suggestion

Have this double checked, tubes are hard to come by.
 
Bad solder joints on the monitor chassis are very common issues, and will prevent the heater from coming on. The "light" on the board in the monitor you are referring to is the "spot-killer". The fact that it comes on for a second and then goes out tells me the low voltage drive on your monitor is good. First thing to do is to pull out the board with the LED on it, and reflow the solder and make sure all connections are good. I am doubting the heater in your tube went up, but I guess it isn't impossible.
 
I checked the fuses again. F6 was blown. Will get a replacement in the morning.

Now I just need to fix the annoying hum....I figure replacing the big blue will clear this up...

suggestions??

BTW...thanks to everyone on helping with this. I have a star wars with simular probs...but i'll get to that issue when I get to that machine. I have a gravitar machine issue next....two boards will not work...coin mechs going crazy when plugged in. I have a third board and works fine in my space duel. I have replaced my big blue in the gravitar..will need to check voltages next.

cheers..and I'll keep you posted on the fuse issue.

Dave
 
Yes that will work. I suspect the fuse didn't just blow on its own, there is still probably an underlying cause, such as a bad component or what I'm betting on cold solder joints causing it to draw too much. Go ahead and try one of those fuses in it, but don't be disappointed when there is more to it than that. As for the audio hum, I've see 3 things, big blue, your A/R needs rebuild, or a bad connection on the end of the board which could be burnt traces on the board where the edge connector meets or a bad connector. Try wiggling the connector and seeing if it helps with the hum.
 
When I first got the game, which was about 5 years ago, I plugged it in and played it prob for a total of 30 since then. The game has been moved up and down 7 flights of stairs prob 4 times total....that when I plugged it in, I got the blind play.

Hopefully thats all that contributed to it.

Dave
 
replaced the fuse.......now have pic...but missing some images. A cap kit will be needed.

You don't really explain what you mean here, but it would behoove you to diagnose a bit further before shotgunning your caps. If you're missing the dimmer objects like the rocks but can see your ship and shots, you probably just need to adjust the brightness & contrast pots on the deflection board.

If you're missing half your image, you need to inspect the P600 & P700 for cold solder and the frame transistors for shorts.

Anything else sounds like a game PCB problem.
 
robbed a 3 amp fuse from my spy hunter.

game works fine...but needs a cap kit. gonna replace the big blue and redo the AR board with bob roberts kits.

He has an asteroids cap kit for the PCB...anyone know what exactly this does?????

Dave
 
The Asteroids cap kit replaces the couple of capacitors on the game board, they are in the vector section, and if they are bad can cause some random weird issues.
 
The Asteroids cap kit replaces the couple of capacitors on the game board, they are in the vector section, and if they are bad can cause some random weird issues.

Never seen these issues, but I did recap a PCB recently because some jackass swapped all the axial caps with radials.
 
Well...to be safe, I ordered in the pcb cap kit, monitor cap kit, power supply rebuild kit and the AR rebuilt kit.

The game should be good for another 30 years.

Dave
 
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