Dart Star 2000, beyond repair?

blustang05

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Hello, My name is Michael this is my first post and I hope I can get some answers. I moved into a house awhile back and the previous people left a Dart Star electric dart machine. Its from 1988 according to one of the stickers. One of the outlets in the shop was wired 220v with a standard 110v plug, unannounced to me. I plunged the unit in to that outlet and the light bulbs came on for a few seconds before going out. I quickly unplugged the machine and decided to check the output of the outlet and found out what the issue was GRRRR...... The unit then set in the shop for a couple of years until tonight when I decided to see if i could get it working. I'm pretty sure it needs a power supply. There is what looks to be a LED on the PS that wont come on at all. Is it possible that the unit is beyond repair being it was plugged in to 220? I am pretty sure the Monitor Is also toast. I keep looking around and I am hoping not to spend an arm and a leg on one.. I have an older flat screen monitor in the shop can i use this http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Arcade-...415877751598696&_qi=RTM1062687#ht_5761wt_1110 with my 15in VGA monitor?

I went ahead and jumped on EBAY a couple of days ago before I found this site and got a new PS coming. hoping once it shows up I will at lest get something to make sound to see if it work. I dont want to spend a lot getting a monitor rigged up If the game is dead.


thank
 
There is an RCA video output jack on the gameboard. You can feed the output of that jack to any television or monitor that has a video input jack.

There are two types of Dartstar 2000 cabinets. Earlier ones have the 40 watt tubular incandescent target head light bulbs. Later production cabinets eliminated those incandescents and replaced them with F15T8 fluorescent lights.

If you're lucky, the only damage will be to the switching regulator power supply and the monitor. The power supply would have likely shut down before any damage could have happened to the game board. Originally the dedicated Dartstar 2000 was supplied with the Tekbilt screw terminal power supply. When we operated about a 100 of these machines on our route, I swapped out the original Tekbilt power supplies for Peter Chou ones as the Tekbilts died.

http://arcarc.xmission.com/PDF_Darts/Dartstar_2000_Dip_Switchs.pdf

http://arcarc.xmission.com/PDF_Darts/Dartstar_2000_Software.pdf

Manufacturer's website:

http://www.medalistgames.com/
 
Thanks for fast response and for the information!! This is a earlier model as it has the 40W bulbs.... I do like the idea of the Florescent tubes maybe if i get this thing to work That might be an upgrade! I have a couple of those F15T8 fixtures in the shop as well!

Hopefully the new PS will be here any day and I will be able to check things out! after nosing around the garage I did find me an older tube tv that should work perfect for me... Fingers crossed. I might be back for more help :)

thanks again
Michael
 
Good News! Got the new PS today! I wired it all in and set it to 5.15v per the instructions and everything is working great. Even located the jumpers to set it up for color. One thing, I can't get into the setup mode. If I set DIP 8 to on... I think it was on I don't recall for sure now. Then the machine starts up to Matrix Test. Every thing seems to work with that test. But from reading the the manuals it seem like there should be other menus and I cant seem to access them. The instructions say to press the PC button and all that did was show PC on the matrix test screen. If it helps to identify the type of board I not only had to flip the DIP to the Color setting I also had to move a jumper in the board from one set of post to another

The chips are dated 1993. so Im thinking this unit predates the manuals in the archives and maybe there is really nothing more to it other then the matrix test.... I would still think there should be a credit per play setting that I am missing tho...

thanks
 
Later versions of the game board had a daughter board plugged into it. There were additional manuals for these later boards. Unfortunately, my boss threw away all the Dartstar manuals when he went out of business. I don't know if Medalist will still have any of these manuals.
 
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yeah Medalist was no help. I emailed them to see about getting a PS from them being I am only 5 miles away. But they had nothing in the way of parts for this game. I suppose I will just have to live with it and hope i never need to access those other menus if they even exist
 
These are the only ones I have handy. The bottom board has a jumper that I figures out controlled the bulls eye points. I can get a pic of the whole board if it would help tomorrow

It looks like some one did some rewiring in the unit, There is a bunch of butt connectors with two wire going in to one side and then crimped with the other side left open uncrimped. Maybe that's how medalist put them out but I wouldn't thinks so. From what I have thought to test every thing seems to be working as it should...

One question. when you open up the Coin door there is a small sliding momentary switch. For the life of me I can figure out what it does or should do. I was thinking it should be like a credit override to give free credits but it does not do anything. Do you have any ideas?
 

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You have a plain Dartstar machine, NOT a Dartstar 2000.

Yours is a conversion kit done to an old Arachnid English Mark Darts cabinet, probably an old 5000 series English Mark Dart cabinet. I did probably about 20 to 25 of those kits back in the day. That slide switch inside the door was the original TEST switch of the English Mark Dart machine and is NOT connected in Dartstar kits.

Dip switch #8 on your board just does a test of the target head switch matrix and pushbuttons. There is no other test functions. In the Dartstar 2000 machines, there is a daughter board plugged into the main gameboard and it adds additional test functions, diagnostics, and game adjustments.
 
I just bought a Dart Star 2000. When I hook up a LCD display to the machine with an RCA cable, the display is a little wonky (hard to head, looks like the display is messed up but the LCD display I'm using is perfectly fine.

Are there any adjustments I can do, or does it sound more like the motherboard is going bad?

Also, I read somewhere there was an upgrade you could add to make this a Spectrum Jr. I would be interested in this but I cannot find any other info on how to do it.

Thanks for any help.
 

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The gameboard hardware was never designed for use with LCD monitors. It was designed for conventional picture tube monitors. The timing is different between picture tube monitors and LCD monitors. The RCA connector on the gameboard outputs conventional NTSC composite video. Jumpers on the game board AND dip switches on the board select color or black and white (monochrome) video output at both the RCA jack and the computer video output connector.
 
That's good info on the monitor.

Is it possible to upgrade the Rom chips or motherboard for better gameplay?

Thanks again
 
The LCD display looks normal. That artifacting you see is commonplace on color TV and LCD displays when using composite video.
 
These are the only ones I have handy. The bottom board has a jumper that I figures out controlled the bulls eye points. I can get a pic of the whole board if it would help tomorrow

It looks like some one did some rewiring in the unit, There is a bunch of butt connectors with two wire going in to one side and then crimped with the other side left open uncrimped. Maybe that's how medalist put them out but I wouldn't thinks so. From what I have thought to test every thing seems to be working as it should...

One question. when you open up the Coin door there is a small sliding momentary switch. For the life of me I can figure out what it does or should do. I was thinking it should be like a credit override to give free credits but it does not do anything. Do you have any ideas?

Im in search of a schematic diagram for this Dart Motherboard from 1989. The system runs great, but need to find out how to change games, and insert coins.

The DIP switches are close to the Dartstar 2000, so that was helpful.

Motherboard: Medalist Marketing Corporation 1989 - GAME ROM 1.9
 

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