Battlezone video - weird lines

MadocOwain

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Hi all,

Got my Battlezone mini out of storage and am encountering some video craziness. The game plays just fine, and there's no errors on the self-test, but it has some weird lines whipping through the screen, I've never seen anything like it. I'm hoping it's just something loose :) Anyone seen something like this before outside of a science-fiction movie?

http://www.facebook.com/v/3907828853492

Thanks!
 
Hi all,

Got my Battlezone mini out of storage and am encountering some video craziness. The game plays just fine, and there's no errors on the self-test, but it has some weird lines whipping through the screen, I've never seen anything like it. I'm hoping it's just something loose :) Anyone seen something like this before outside of a science-fiction movie?

http://www.facebook.com/v/3907828853492

Thanks!

It could be that your brightness is too high. I would also reflow the solder on the connectors between the two boards.
 
try reseating the interconnect cables and also reflowing solder on the heading pins to the monitor board. also check your +5. and check all connections throughout the game.
 
Awesome looking, but possibly expensive/PITA?

So I pulled the monitor and looked it up, it's a G05-05 Quadrascan.. and fortunately, my internet searches led me to the information that this is the same monitor that is found in my Omega Race. AND, seemingly beyond belief, they use the same plug between the game boards and the monitor :) So I backed the games up to each other and plugged the Battlezone boardset into the Omega Race, and got a perfect display.

So now it seems the issue is with something in the monitor's boardset, rather than the game's. I'm going to go through and re-flow the solder connections and see if that helps any. Since I have my vectors, I am hoping this means a simple cap kit may be the solution. Let me know what you think.

Thanks,

M.O.
 
Think I wasn't clear..

I tested the Omega Race monitor with my Battlezone game and it worked. My issue is with the BZ monitor at this point.
 
I tested the Omega Race monitor with my Battlezone game and it worked. My issue is with the BZ monitor at this point.

No you were clear, i just re-read it and for some reason i got it backwards the 1st time LOL. A monitor issue is much easier to deal with than a board issue, good luck.
 
Damnedest thing..

So I got the bright idea to pull the deflection PCB off the Omega Race and swap it with that of the Battlezone. As I was reconnecting the headers I realized that one of the headers was not pin-correct. Apparently there is a difference between revisions of G05-05 monitors that is great enough they had to screw with the connectors to keep people from doing what I'm attempting?

Attached is a photo of the boards in question. The board on the left is from the Battlezone, the right one is from Omega Race. Both look mostly identical except BZ has some ceramic resistors (I'm presuming that's what the elongated bricks are) and OR doesn't.

The connector in question is on the left side on each board. BZ has a 10-pin connector with the key pin as 4th from the bottom, while the OR has a 10-pin connector with the key pin as 5th from the bottom.

Anyone seen this before?

Thx
 

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So I got the bright idea to pull the deflection PCB off the Omega Race and swap it with that of the Battlezone. As I was reconnecting the headers I realized that one of the headers was not pin-correct. Apparently there is a difference between revisions of G05-05 monitors that is great enough they had to screw with the connectors to keep people from doing what I'm attempting?

Attached is a photo of the boards in question. The board on the left is from the Battlezone, the right one is from Omega Race. Both look mostly identical except BZ has some ceramic resistors (I'm presuming that's what the elongated bricks are) and OR doesn't.

The connector in question is on the left side on each board. BZ has a 10-pin connector with the key pin as 4th from the bottom, while the OR has a 10-pin connector with the key pin as 5th from the bottom.

Anyone seen this before?

Thx

Yep, you guessed it, you have one issue 4 (left) and one issue 5 (right) which are compatible except for the pins on P500. See page 16 of the B&W vector monitor guide.

BTW you can remove those resistors and put jumpers in their place which is one of the changes between 4 and 5 (see W8,W9,W10,W11 on the rev5 board).

Rather than bother converting, I'd reflow the pins on that header and all others. Add some fresh solder, then suck it all out, then resolder. I've heard 63/37 solder resists cracking. Also check the wires going to the CRT socket and reflow the header on the HV board.

If that doesn't do it, could be something in the Z channel.
 
Wow. That's some impressively bizarre shit.

Looks analog to me, so I'm thinking monitor or post-DAC circuits on the game PCB. Ideally, you'd like to test the PCB with a known-good monitor and/or test the monitor with a known-good PCB to isolate the problem.

Aside from that, maybe start by checking all the voltages on the PCB, such as 5VDAC, +15, -15. And try fiddling with the size adjust pots on both the PCB and monitor.
 
Wow. That's some impressively bizarre shit.

Looks analog to me, so I'm thinking monitor or post-DAC circuits on the game PCB. Ideally, you'd like to test the PCB with a known-good monitor and/or test the monitor with a known-good PCB to isolate the problem.

Aside from that, maybe start by checking all the voltages on the PCB, such as 5VDAC, +15, -15. And try fiddling with the size adjust pots on both the PCB and monitor.

I've since replaced the deflection PCB with one from another monitor, all works well though I occasionally have a bit of tracing (more normal) from sockets needing replaced on the game PCB.

I've got ArcRevival looking at the busted deflection board, I updated this thread with the pic so he could see what it was doing before.

Thanks!
 
Been working on this deflection board and I am having different issues with it now. I finally scored a monitor with the correct deflection pin out to test this ( Thanks Steve @ Grinkers) and I can't get the brightness high enough. All I can see are the ships, bullets and saucers. I have a fully working Asteroids game for a test rig. I know it's not a board issue. Not even sure if the squiggly lines are still there as I can't get it bright enough to see them.

I capped it, replaced all the pots and mpsu07's and 57's, all the transistors in the Z circuit,
metered all the traces in Z at least 3 times,
Metered all diodes in Z
all the resistors check out,
wave forms for Z look ok on scope,
90 and 400 volts are spot on.
Swapped another tube into this monitor and same result.
Swapped another HV cage in and same result.

This has got to be something really stupid that I am just brain farting on. Going to look at it again today. Stay tuned...
 
Pots were checked, double checked and then swapped.
Monitor is now working, brightness issue was harness related.
Honestly not sure what exactly fixed the retrace line issue but it looks good now.
 
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