Battle zone playing blind, no beeps, no spot killer

Also, for A9, does anyone have a decent schematic for tracking down the pin outs across the board? I have one that runs through like 4 pages without references. Trying to make sure things are getting where they need
 
All schematics for just about everything you could want are on arcarc.xmission.com.

Look in the 'PDF_Arcade_Atari_Kee' folder, then Ctrl+F for the game you want (for anything Atari).

Also, for Atari documentation, filenames with 'DP in the name are Drawing Package (i.e., schematics). 'TM' is for Technical Manual, which is more the owner's manual for the cabinet. All Atari games have at least two docs, as the schematics are a separate doc from the user manual. On arcarc, many of the schematics are broken out so each page is a separate file. This has pros and cons. If you want everything in one file, you can find those elsewhere on the web via Google.

Also be aware that many docs have multiple revisions. So looking at the 'printing' number in the filename can matter sometimes. (e.g., 1st Printing, 2nd Printing, etc). Though generally speaking for Atari stuff, any revision will do, for most stuff. Except in cases where it doesn't. ;)
 
Replaced both DACs and bodged a ground and we are fixed! Thank you all!
 
Bad idea to leave it on for a few days since I'll be in another shop for the weekend and I can't properly burn it in?🤔 Probably should watch it to make sure I don't wreck the screen if something breaks
 
Ah, so with just the +-5v gnd +-12v, the dacs should operate properly? Honestly, I'll replace them anyway, but learning to power and identify issues with ICs is probably a worthwhile skill
Don't replace until you test. You can do more damage with random replacements than you might expect.
Never mind, you already did.

Here is the challenge with what we call "Easter Egg" repairs:
You think it is the Chip at A9, so you remove that and replace it. That didn't fix it. So you move on to the next chip and replace that. That didn't fix it, so you remove and replace a diode. That didn't fix it. So you remove and replace another chip.

And that didn't fix it.

What you don't know is you left problems at every chip you removed and replaced. In each one, you had a bad solder connection or damaged trace.

Which makes fixing problems harder (because now instead of 1 problem, you have 4 more added to it.) It is much harder to fix a board with multiple problems, as sometimes each of them can stop the board from running correctly.

The moral of the story is to "work the problem."

Develop a problem statement: Game is playing blind. I can hear the sounds, and get no "Beeps" on self-test.
Now list what can cause that.
Now figure out how to TEST what can cause that.
Then test each component to see what it is doing, and make an educated repair.

Otherwise, you can in some cases, chase your tail forever.
 
Last edited:
Just like writing code, except I can't always revert when I mess something up lol

It's actually still working great, all but the audio which is super chunky. You can tell it's the right noises, but it sounds way more robotic than it should.

And the background is an SoB to align lol I can't see my dang radar
 
Audio is usually either the Pokey chip on the aux board, the LM324 preamp on the aux board, or the TDA2002 amps on the AR. Swapping out the AR with another good one from another game can rule that out.

In this case, I'd actually suspect one of the caps for the audio circuit may have broken off. Look to see if there are any parts missing on the aux board. Possibly C25, but maybe others. Do a careful visual inspection under a bright light.
 
Still sounds great! Something did pop up eventually that I have never seen before.

Occasionally, it will just start counting coins out of nowhere. I have it on behind me just running to watch for more issues and every hour or two, it will just click 5-10 times in a random pattern and tempo. Not regular in any way. Seems to be truly random.
 
Not sure why I didn't get a notification here 😔

I am not sure actually. It always happens when my back is turned lol I'll stand and watch it for a while with a glass of whiskey or something. The game is waiting on new control parts, so I havent been play testing at all
 
Not sure why I didn't get a notification here 😔

I am not sure actually. It always happens when my back is turned lol I'll stand and watch it for a while with a glass of whiskey or something. The game is waiting on new control parts, so I havent been play testing at all

Just check it after. It'll either have no credits on it, or a bunch of credits.
 
High proof Pinhook straight rye I've had for a few years! It's finally nice enough to work in the garage without a heater, so I'll be sipping and building out my centipede test rig for the 10 boards I need to verify then sell lol and of course watching battlezone.
 
Finally caught it happening. It's the second coin counter counting randomly. It adds credits and doesn't restart the game. Everything else is normal. Very weird.
 
Ok. That's good, as it means it's an input problem, which narrows down what it could be (compared to if it was resetting, which would be a larger set of possibilities).

This is the area of the schematics that is applicable in this case:


1746516137418.png

The first thing I'd suspect are one of those caps (C72/74/76). Those are small, usually glass caps on these, and they can go bad, causing unstable inputs. They become resistive, which messes up the divider circuit that is implemented by the other 1K and 470 ohm resistors for each input.

You can test the caps for resistance, and compare to the adjacent ones. You may need to lift one leg to get an accurate reading. But you'll have to figure out which one corresponds to the coin slot that is misbehaving. (Assuming only one of the inputs is what's acting up, and causing the counter to count). You could also just replace all three, and see if the problem goes away. But you can do better than that in terms of isolating the bad part first.

If it isn't any of that, R11 itself could be bad. But I'd start with those caps.
 
One other thing to consider is if pins 11 13 15 are charged to 5 volts the unactivated state of the switches. I have had an ic that was iffy draw down the voltage to around 3 volts that made those switches flukey and of course as @andrewb said the caps could be drawing down the precharge too
 
Back
Top Bottom