Easing Into Things With a Centipede

jm1943

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Donor 2017
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This is the fist game I've collected. Brought it home about 3 weeks ago after seeing it on craigslist for a few weeks.

The good; overall it's in pretty good shape. The bezel glass and marquee glass look brand new. Coin door is missing one bezel around the left coin return slot, but otherwise looks good. Control panel has no dents.

Game turns on, lights light up. Monitor has very minor burn in. Just enough to see it was from a JOUST, but very faint.

The bad; some minor swelling on the left side near control panel. Side art has minor dings and scuffs here and there. Side art completely gone from swollen area. T-molding has seen better days.

No sound. Completely missing static game objects, and monitor does not display green.

As a bonus it also came with 2 other AR II boards.
 

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My plan is to remove the t-molding, clean up all the rough edges and see where it's at. I'm planning to use the wood hardner+clamp approach to see if I can squeeze the swollen area back to 3/4".

I'd like to keep the original side art, so I'll attempt to touch up the white around the edges and then install new black molding.

I've ordered new RAM and a bunch of other parts to attempt to fix the PCB. I'm assuming since it more or less works it might just be an issue with the ROM/circuits that contain the static playfield objects?

Pretty sure the lack of audio is either the ARII or the speaker. I haven't opened up the top yet to see what's happening at the speaker.

Wanting to start off simple I opened up the control panel and pulled the trackball and buttons. I can't believe how much the trackball has eaten into the rollers!

Took some simple green to the whole mess and it cleaned up very nice. I have some new rollers on the way as well as a new overlay.

That's all for this weekend!
 
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Some little details I found inside. Can't see to find a serial number though.
 

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Regarding the board issues, chances are you have a bad Pokey chip. They are custom IC's that handle several different functions (which differ from game to game), including sound generation, player input control, and they also contain a random number generator, which for Centipede is used to populate the mushroom locations. So, not having any sound, and the randomized objects missing suggests a bad Pokey. It's the large 40-pin chip to the right of the 6502 CPU.

If you flip the test switch, the self test (if it runs) may give you a fail code for a bad Pokey (see the manual for details). You can also try powering the game up with the test switch already on, if it won't go into test mode by flipping the switch with the game already powered up.

You might also just have a bad or dirty socket, but it's also likely that the chip is just bad. So you can try reseating it first, but chances are you'll need to replace it. They're about $25-30 each these days, if you can find them.
 
Thanks for the encouragement guys, and the info on the Pokey andrewb. I do have one on the way to me now, so hopefully that's all it is. It did go into test mode, and when in test mode everything seemed to be drawn about 10 times, up and to the left. All the text and objects looked smeared if that makes sense.

After removing the pcb, and then taking out the original ARII to have a closer look I hit a bit of a snag. Upon reinstalling the ARII and powering the game (wanting to test voltages) there was a brief sizzle noise and then nothing. I'm hoping it was just a fuse (haven't had a chance to check yet).

What would cause something to blow on a previously running ARII when all I did was take it out, look at it, and put it back?
 
If you look at the AR, you'll most likely see either R29 or R30 fried. This happens when either the +5V or ground connections from the AR to the game board get broken for various reasons.

This typically happens if you don't have the game board's edge connector pushed on all the way, or sometimes because the pins inside the edge connector have weakened, and aren't making good contact with the fingers on the game board.

Look to see if there is any evidence of heat damage on the edge connector. You will need to clean the pins and edge connector, to restore a good connection. See post #9 in this thread for more info:

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=407183
 
Haven't had much time over the last several weeks, but did make some progress on the weekend. No burned resistors to speak of!

I had been debating if I should keep the original side art. Overall it was in pretty good condition, but the edges were chewed up and there were holed here and there.

After visiting cossackwarrior's place and seeing his better than new restorations, the decision was an easy one.

So, I decided to go for it. I started on the worst side. It peeled off easily enough, but the piece would flake or snap every few inches. Took about 10 mins and it was all off. I didn't get a picture but the side was a milky white lacquer under the artwork.

The other side was completely different. It came off entirely in one piece!?
The particle board on this side is also coated, but in a clear lacquer.

What's up with that? Are the two sides different, or was it just sun exposure on the one side that made all the difference?

On to patching the holes and fixing the corners, nothing too serious.
 

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