Battle Zone Cabaret

kiel0909

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Hello, Arcade Museum. I recently was gifted this Battle Zone cabaret cabinet. It had been stored in a garage for many years. I am in the process of cleaning it and tried turning it on today. I got both the L error and the T error at different points today. I have never tested connections or soldered anything more complex than a wire before. I fear I may be in over my head. The monitor works but when the cab is out of test mode the game does not. Should I attempt to repair or just sell it to someone more knowledgeable than myself? Thank you for any advice.

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If you're willing to learn then it could be a fun project. You're starting with the base price of free so it's not like you have that much to lose. You could send the board set off to be looked over and repaired by @andrewb or @lilypad19 while you focus on cleaning everything up and the simpler things. Definitely get all of that dust off the power brick in the bottom of the cabinet. For everything else you can go pretty far with a multimeter and soldering iron.

Also first thing to check is the power supply from the AR-II. That's the board in the middle right above the speaker. The board's not going to work right if the voltage from that isn't correct. As a matter of course you should also replace the 20355 transistor, the big one in the middle of the heatsink, it's pretty simple to desolder with big leads/pads. A cheap soldering low power iron might have issues though since it is on a big heat sink.
 
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I'm always going to encourage learning, but I also get the fear factor, especially with board repairs and soldering. I can solder now, but I was terrified at first.

If you're going to be in the hobby, you have to get a multi-meter at the very least. I've been in the collecting life now for about 8 years, and 17 games later, I've leaned that most issues are related to power, and you'll always want to start there when troubleshooting. Pushing on/reseating some chips can bring games back to life, and having a can of DeOxit and a fiberglass pen can fix a lot of stuff too.

Plenty of good folks out here that can help!

I have a BZ cabaret too, and mine was a basket case when I bought it. Everything's fixable.

Jason
 
Where in CA are you located? The fact that it displays an image is a nice start.

If you are close I can help you repair it, if not I can get you the info needed to repair it. PM me your info.
 
Reseating connectors can also help. Have you tried that yet?

Remove the edge connector on the board and make sure everything is looking clean. Disconnect and reconnect the connector between the two boards. Move the wires between boards around while it is running and see if anything different happens. This way you can see if it is a simple connection issue.

Test voltages, reseat connectors, give it a good cleaning.

A free Battlezone cabaret is a smoking deal. I would use this as a way to start learning how to maintain these games. Sounds fun.

And if you can't get it running, you can always send the boards out.

The fact that you have a successful test mode image is promising.
 
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