Battlezone Woes

FrizzleFried

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My Battlezone decided to not work yesterday. I now get a solid red (not blinking) LED start button. Nothing on screen...

I drop her in to test mode and I get the cross hatch, and it read REV 01D in the middle(ish) of the screen. I am not 100% sure if that is normal or not... but it does demonstrate the monitor works fine.

As soon as I drop out of test mode I get the solid LED and nothing on screen.

I've of course done the normal "laymen" fixes... removed and re-inserted both edge connectors... checked voltages (5.14 on the mainboard and 4.78 or something on 2nd board (which has always measured lower))... tapped on various socketed chips.

I DO have the BZ high score kit so that should eliminate many of the socketed chips I do believe.

Suggestions?



REV 01D
 
let me ask you this, do you use the switch on the back of the machine to turn on and off, or do you always keep the switch on the "on" position and use another wall/powerbar switch to turn it on???
 
1) Checked the fuses?

2) Checked the +5 coming from the ARII?

3) Reflowed/reseated the interboard connector?
 
let me ask you this, do you use the switch on the back of the machine to turn on and off, or do you always keep the switch on the "on" position and use another wall/powerbar switch to turn it on???

I always keep it on at the switch and I use a power bar... but each socket has an independent power on/off switch.
 
1) Checked the fuses?

2) Checked the +5 coming from the ARII?

3) Reflowed/reseated the interboard connector?


I'd think that if a fuse was bad, it wouldn't power up in to test mode? (is this not proper thinking?)

The +5 is at 5.14 at the mainboard... what would I be looking fro at the ARII and if I am getting 5.14 at the mainboard... why would I be checking the ARII? (just curious as to why the ARII isn't ruled out being I am getting proper voltage at the main PCB?)

I have not reflowed the connector but I did re-seat.
 
I remember Mark once saying that the test screen isn't very deep into the programming, which explains why the test screen shows fine but the game program doesn't. I don't think we ever got to the cause....
 
REV 01D is normal with the highscore kit.

No other errors on the test screen? T, L, H?

If the test screen runs, that pretty much leaves the aux board.
 
Update:

I re-re-checked everything. When I got to the interconnector I unplugged and re-plugged... tested... all seemed the same but when I hit the start button (which still was solidly lit) I got about 4 seconds of TANK sound then it stopped. I went to the back of the cab and while powered I tapped on the interconnect and sure as hell the image popped up.

I played for about 30 seconds then the vectors went wild. I then turned it off.

I need to re-flow the interconnect headers it seems...
 
Update:

I re-re-checked everything. When I got to the interconnector I unplugged and re-plugged... tested... all seemed the same but when I hit the start button (which still was solidly lit) I got about 4 seconds of TANK sound then it stopped. I went to the back of the cab and while powered I tapped on the interconnect and sure as hell the image popped up.

I played for about 30 seconds then the vectors went wild. I then turned it off.

I need to re-flow the interconnect headers it seems...

Interesting. I wonder if replacing the connectors and headers with trifurcon versions would eliminate that headache. That seems to help pinball machines be much more relaible.

Bill
 
FOLLOWUP: Confirmed 100%... cold solder joint on the interconnect. It seemed to have been "repaired" in the past as well...

Final Question - I'd fudged with the voltage a little when I was trying to diagnose the issues. What is an optimal voltage at the main PCB? Aug PCB? I assume it's "normal" to find about .4vdc less at the aux than main?
 
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