DK wiring

coleco1981

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Picked up a DK upright yesterday from RayWest. I'm happy with it but it has an interesting custom wiring job which is likely related to the fact that the power supply has been replaced.

I was a bit concerned that the PCB was not original, but upon further inspection it looks like a legit 2 board DK with an HSK. Few questions, that maybe someone can help answer.

- Why did they relocate the PCB from the side to the middle? Is this common?

- The joystick is wired direct into the PCB with no disconnect connector which kind of annoys me because when you pull the CP there is no slack, any reason why I can't replace it with the original joystick wire harness - that is if I can find one..

- Any advantage to restoring the psu with an original?

- I didn't take a picture of it yet but the sideart has been replaced (repro) - they pulled the bolts out so that they didn't have to be put through the decal art - does anyone have a picture of how the vertical monitor is supposed to be mounted? Currently appears to be held on by just the base cross member (where the monitor chassis boards sit).

-I'm assuming the boot up screen (see pics) is because of the HSK kit. Does the HSK kit muck with the gameplay/sound in anyway?

See pics:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/116679961579757269177/posts/ATUTkaaVKeo


Thanks,

Coleco
 
My guess, in regards to the location of the PCB, is that the wiring harness for the control panel was too short and relocating the PCB made it so the harness would barely fit. The previous owner probably felt it was easier than adding to the harness. I would suggest replacing the harness.

The vertical monitor has a support bar that's supposed to go to the top of the monitor...it would be held in place by the bolts. There should be two holes close to each other on each side...that is for the vertical mounting bar.

The boot up screen is the diagnostic and settings menu from the HSS. The HSS allows you to change settings without messing with the dip switches. It also allows for free play with attract sound which is cool.

Nice acquisition.
 
That makes sense. I just bought a DK Jr control panel wiring harness - which I'm assuming is the same as a DK - do you know what socket I will need to link that back into the main harness? That should give me enough slack to move the pcb back to its side where its supposed to be...of course finding the original mounting hardware maybe the next difficult thing.
 
Donkey Kong has two styles of harnesses - the "lots of little connector" harness, and the single edge connector type. Clearly this game has been rewired with a homemade edge connector type harness. You should actually just be able to plug the control panel into the board directly (there is a plug for it), assuming you have the entire control panel harness from DK Jr.

I wouldn't bother rewiring the game, looks fine to me. The wiring may not be original, but it's clean and neat and it works.

-Ian
 
Download a manual. That will help orient you with where things are supposed to go.

Part of me says, if it's working, don't mess with it.

The other part of me says, restore the insides to how they're supposed to be.

The control panel harness is going to have black clips on it and if the home-made harness has it's colors right, then it should be a matter of matching those up. If that fails, you should be able to check the manual to try to match up the wires with where they meet the edge connector. Either way you're going to have to figure out a method to marry up the home-made harness and the original CP harness.

Remember, the original Donkey Kong wiring harness does not use the edge connector like your home-made one does. The original harness plugs into the board in something like 7 different places (two connections for the power supply, one for the control panel, one for the video cable, one for the audio cable, one for the coin counter, one for the coin mechs, one for the service switch). Since your power supply is a switcher, it may be difficult for you to obtain harness parts that will work for you without doing some hacking.

The main advantage to reverting to an original power supply is that it will make your harness situtaion a little easier (plug & play as opposed to cutting and splicing). If your picture looks fine and is stable that's good. Sometimes a non-nintendo power supply will cause issued with Donkey Kong. If you're video starts acting up it might be that the board isn't getting the right power. Installing PP7B (Nintendo power supply) might fix that.

It looks like the brackets to mount the PCP may still be there but your PCB shelf is missing the wooden strips that hold the PCB in place on the shelf (this is probably an idicator that the cab was converted to a Mario Bros or Vs. Unisystem at one point.)

So yeah, if you want to fully restore the innards you'll need (at least)
PP7B Power supply
Complete wiring harness
wood strips for the PCB shelf
Veritcal mounting bar and hardware

You're probably looking at $100 - $150 in parts.
 
Donkey Kong has two styles of harnesses - the "lots of little connector" harness, and the single edge connector type. Clearly this game has been rewired with a homemade edge connector type harness. You should actually just be able to plug the control panel into the board directly (there is a plug for it), assuming you have the entire control panel harness from DK Jr.

I wouldn't bother rewiring the game, looks fine to me. The wiring may not be original, but it's clean and neat and it works.

-Ian

This would be a good inbetween solutuion. You'll need both the CP harness, and the connector harness that goes from the CP harness to the board. I think it's called the "main harness".
 
Yes you just need both pieces of the cp harness to plug it into the board and the cp.
I would cut the other ones off the edge connector and move the board.
No need for wires that aren't used.
You could also get the 2 power cables,9p & 10p,and hook those up to an original power supply if you want to put on in there.
Then just cut those wires off the edge connector and remove the other power supply.
If it was me I would get an original harness and get rid of that wiring.
 
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