Centipede Heat Issue?

Brog319

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New to the forum. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

I recently purchased an original centipede. After playing for an hour or two straight the sound would become distorted and it started to have strange video issues. This happened each time I would play for any decent length of time - would turn off game immediately each time.

Tried to research a bit on internet and thought maybe it was related to AR2 issues and/or edge connection issues. I tried to recreate this morning and it played perfect for three hours straight. The only difference was that i had back panel off so that I could test the voltage going to main pcb. It stayed steady at 4.91 the entire time. Is it possible that i have a heat issue and having the back door off allowed it to stay cool? If so, does it make sense to leave door off and maybe install a fan?

Thanks
 
It could be a number of things, as there are many different chips that could be heating up and affected by temperature. However normally the board and AR are very tolerant to heat and temperature fluctuations, so leaving the back door off is just treating the symptom, and not the root cause.

You could check the voltage as you have been, but with a longer pair of test leads, to see if the +5V is actually changing when you keep the door on. That would give you more info, and help narrow things down a bit.

Also, you should check the other two main voltages that the AR provides, which are the +12V and -5V, which are on the right side of the AR, and there should be test points on the game board as well. One of those being out of whack could occur if the respective regulator on the AR is going. They are easy to replace though. (I also sell refurbished AR's too if needed, see my sig).

Also, as is the case with any AR-based game, you should clean the fingers on the edge connector of the game board. This should be done anyway, as there is likely 35+ years of oxidation on them, so it's worth doing regardless. See this thread with more details (see post #5):

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=393588
 
... After playing for an hour or two straight the sound would become distorted and it started to have strange video issues...

What's common to both the audio and video circuits?
ANSWER: not much and everything ... each use +5VDC ... so that might be the issue and the ARII is overheating and/or there is induced voltage drop on the wires/connectors due to poor connectivity. The big blue might be old and failing too and there is more AC ripple present (happens a lot on Centipedes, so it seems). Also, the CPU could be failing or have poor connectivity in it's socket.

You should monitor the +5V (both DC and AC) to see if it does not regulate etc.


FWIW, most of my games don't have their backdoors. Just a personal preference which may or may not have reasons to reduce heat inside the cabinets. Ah, vectors, gotta luv the hot b@st@rd$. :)
 
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