Centipede control issues

Robotron Jon

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I have a centipede cabaret with a rebuilt trackball. The game has intermittent problems with up and down control. Sometimes it does not allow you to control up and down movement - only side to side - and you slowly move up to the top. Other times, I turn on the game and it works fine. I had this same problem with this game before I swapped out PCBs and the problem went away for a while. Now it's back. I was thinking this might be a wiring harness problem rather than a PCB issue.

Thanks.
 
Might be a bad solder joint on the trackball opto or maybe that opto is going bad. Switch the two pcbs on the trackball and see if the problem shows itself on the left/right movement.


Brian
 
Thanks I will try that. I just saw a centipede board for sale ad here and the seller indicated that the board has the same issue - no up or down. So maybe it can be a board problem and both the boards I had have the same issue...
 
The edge connector should be the first thing replaced imho. It solves and prevents a lot of issues. Especially if you have a nice edge on your main board. Buying more working boards over replacing a couple of cheap edge connectors makes no sense. Replacing the board should be the final option, not the first.
 
The edge connector should be the first thing replaced imho. It solves and prevents a lot of issues. Especially if you have a nice edge on your main board. Buying more working boards over replacing a couple of cheap edge connectors makes no sense. Replacing the board should be the final option, not the first.

Yep I would agree. I have two centipede boards because the original one initially had the up and down issue but then there were other problems and I got a spare one to use while I fixed the original one. The second one also plays a different version of the game - there is a rom hack of centipede which uses a different color scheme - kind of cool series of pastel colors. I actually liked it better and never got around to fixing the first board.

As I recall I tried playing with the edge connector and it didn't help but I will take a look at it again.

Thanks for the reply.
 
I was working on the BZ at Idaho arcade and it would fire, then it wouldn't , then it would, then the game would start but still say game over on the screen, it all looked like board issues and was all fixed by replacing the edge connectors.
 
It was the opto. I replaced it and I am back in business. Managed over 120,000 points today. This has always been a game that I would like to be halfway decent at. Got a ways to go.

Got the opto from Quaterarcade.

Thanks for the replies.
 
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