The capacitor is not hard to replace. But it depends on how comfortable/familiar you are with electronics in general. You need to remove the monitor from the game, discharge the picture tube, disconnect and remove the chassis, desolder and replace the part(s), and reassemble it. Now, if you're only changing the one cap, it's actually possible to detach the chassis from the mounting pan, flip it up a little, replace the cap, and put it back. Similarly, it's possible to remove the chassis from the monitor without removing the monitor from the game. But both of these imply a lot of familiarity with this monitor, and I wouldn't recommend trying that if you've never repaired a monitor before.
If you're new to monitor repair, this is actually a very simple repair, and probably a good way to get started.
Before working on the monitor, you should do some reading. There is a "Basic Monitor Repair" sticky thread near the top, it covers a lot of the basics. A word of warning, the monitor contains high voltage. Do not work on it until you do some reading. The picture tube can retain a charge of around 19kv even when the game is unplugged. It's very low current, but it will hurt. A lot.
The capacitor is a standard, common electronic part. Any good electronics supplier will have it. Any online supplier like Mouser, Jameco or DigiKey carry capacitors. If you want a complete cap kit, Bob Roberts (
www.therealbobroberts.net) sells them. A complete cap kit costs about ten bucks, the capacitor alone should be about a dollar.
For tools, you need a wrench (to remove the monitor), a #2 phillips head screwdriver, a soldering iron and solder, a solder sucker (to remove the old solder), wire cutters (to trim the leads of the new capacitor after you install it). Flat blade screwdriver and an alligator clip lead (for discharging the monitor) You should know how to solder, or at least have an idea - soldering in a monitor is very easy, since the traces are very large and the board is single sided, but I'd still suggest practicing on some junk first.
The step-by-step:
- Unplug the game.
- Remove the back door
- Remove the bezel. To do this, pull out on the bezel retaining rod from the back (it's at the top), and this will allow you to slide the bezel up and out from the front.
- Unplug the monitor's video cable
- Unplug the speaker from the monitor, and unplug the audio input cable. The sound amplifier in this game is in the monitor.
- Unplug the monitor's power cable from the bottom of the game. It looks like a standard wall plug, but DO NOT PLUG IT IN TO THE WALL! This can only be plugged into the isolated 100v socket in the bottom of the game. Plugging it into the wall will destroy a lot of parts in the monitor.
- Remove the four bolts that hold the monitor to it's brackets. These are *not* the bolts that hold the picture tube in - they're the bolts that hold the monitor's frame to the brackets that go to the side of the game.
- Lift the monitor out of the front of the game. Be careful the power cable doesn't get caught on anything, and that none of the other wires are going to get in the way.
- Put the monitor on the work bench/kitchen table/whatever.
- Discharge the monitor
- Remove the tin shield that goes over the back of the neckboard. (philips head screws) You can remove one of the support bars too, makes removing the chassis easier.
- Unplug the neck board from the picture tube. It just pulls straight back - be careful not to rock it side to side too much, the neck of the tube is fragile.
- Disconnect the deflection yoke from the chassis
- Disconnect the anode connection from the picture tube. This is the suction cup with the scary red wire. You have already discharged it, but discharge it again, just to be safe. Now peel up the suction cup a bit and you can see the metal clip in the center. It attaches into a hole in the tube just like the top of a Christmas ornament. You'll want to use a little flat blade screwdriver to push in one of the tabs a bit to help get it out.
- Disconnect the wiring from the sound board. Be careful of plugs JC and JB - DO NOT reverse them when reassembling. They're physically the same, but if you swap them, you'll destroy the audio section of the game board.
- Remove the screws that hold the adjustment board and chassis to the frame. There are also some little plastic clips that the chassis is held in with. Undo those too.
- Lift the chassis out of the monitor, and unroute the wiring. The adjustment board has to come with the chassis, but the sound board can be disconnected and left on the frame.
Now you should be able to clearly see the monitor chassis - the capacitor you are after is right near the flyback, and should be labeled on the board as C407. Note the polarity of the capacitor. It has a negative sign pointing to one of the pins. The new one will have the same sort of markings.
Desolder and remove the old capacitor, clear out the holes with the solder sucker, then insert the new one, taking care to match the polarity. Push the cap down flush with the board, and solder it in to place. Once it's installed, clip the long leads off so the new cap's pins don't stick out any farther than all the rest of the pins on the board.
If you want to do a whole cap kit, do the others while you're in here.
Reassemble the monitor, and put it back in the game (do what you did before, only backwards

)
I know it seems like a lot of work, and it's a bit daunting if you've never done anything like this before. Expect it to take a couple hours the first time. Take your time, pay attention, make notes where things go if you have to. It's not hard, but it takes patience and paying attention. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I've done this so many times I can recite the procedure from memory. It takes me about 20 minutes.
-Ian