Gauntlet Legends neckboard issues

Ryan_O

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Over a year ago now a friend of mine obtained a Gauntlet Legends for $300, including a new power supply that the tech selling the machine said would probably be needed. Needed it was, the PSU was swapped, and all was well for some time. After a fashion though, the game would lose blue and display everything only with red and green. Sometimes the blue would come back, other times it wouldn't. This all happened after said friend moved to Texas, so I wasn't able to look at it and inspect it myself until i came out a little over a year later. I took some pictures which I will link shortly, but I am near 100% certain that just as happened in this thread: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=121916 the color transistors overheated badly and have caused the contacts to not be made. While I was working on the machine, green started to have problems as well. The design of the neckboard does not seem to lend itself to simple replacement, as the plastic piece that connects to the pins of the tube neck is soldered to the PCB. The transistors have overheated so badly that the PCB in that area is nicely browned, and the traces are lifted. Seems like a really crappy design choice to me, cheap clip on heatsinks and nothing to move air around in that area to keep things cool. In any case, I will now link the pictures I have, and hopefully you folks will have answers that I couldn't find anywhere else on the internet. My apologies, they were taken with my cell phone, and despite it being a 3MP job, it is still a cell phone camera.

The identifying part of the board:


A shot of the neck connector that (afaik) makes swapping this board impossible:


The toasty side of the PCB (from right to left, blue, green, and red):


Shot of the buggers that did the toasting:


Now I have looked up parts and referenced the transistors in case they needed replacing, but as far as I could tell from working on the machine, they do function, they've just wrecked those traces and their contacts. If it is deemed feasible, what I'd like to do is maybe mount the transistors on the toasty side of the PCB, connected at points where the traces are not lifted yet, and then maybe attach better heatsinks and/or set up an 80mm fan to blow on them constantly to help clear heat from the area and stop any further damage from occurring. This is my friends favorite game, and she'd rather have it in her condo instead of sitting in storage if possible, I'd like to be able to make that happen for her if I can.

Thanks in advance. :)
 
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Well, the "toasty side of the pcb" pic isn't showing properly in Imageshack for me...... so no suggestions there.
Burnt and lifted traces can easily be repaired, no need to rearrange parts.

And yes, that neckboard pcb IS swappable. ;)

The P719 neckboard was used on a couple different model monitors, would you happen to have the "Pxxx" number from the MAIN chassis ?
 
The last 2 images should be fixed now. I don't know why they weren't working, they were there in my uploaded images. In any case, I don't have the Pxxx code from the chassis, only the PCB, which is labeled P719-I. I could go look at the chassis but it might be a bit before I could get out to the storage unit. I don't suppose the type of cabinet it is housed in would mark exactly what type it was would it? if so, this is he exact cabinet type right here (obviously the marquee is that of the original Gauntlet Legends, not that one): http://www.joystixamusements.com/photos/GAUNTLETDARKLEGENDS.JPG
If not, then I'll have to make a trip out to storage in the near future.

As for the board being swappable, how would I do it, short of de-soldering every connection that huge white neck connector has?
 
Are you sure that somebody did not swap them out before and damage the board with a soldering iron? I can't really tell from the bad pic. I had to replace the green xtsr on mine and I do not have that heat damage. Mine look good.

Tracy
 
It looks like someone has previously resoldered the transistors. They may have lifted traces in the process, some certainly do look lifted to me.

Those transistors do get hot, that is the reason for the large heat sinks attached to them. I would pull the solder on those questionable areas, make sure the pads are good underneath, and only apply jumpers where needed. It would be less work than swapping neck boards.
 
As for the board being swappable, how would I do it, short of de-soldering every connection that huge white neck connector has?

All the connections I circled "unplug".
So no de-soldering required.....plug and play. ;)

And don't forget to check stuff like the video input cable itself, or the solder joints on that set of header pins where it plugs into, etc, etc.
Gently wiggle the video input cable and see if your colors flicker on-off.
 

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All the connections I circled "unplug".
So no de-soldering required.....plug and play. ;)

And don't forget to check stuff like the video input cable itself, or the solder joints on that set of header pins where it plugs into, etc, etc.
Gently wiggle the video input cable and see if your colors flicker on-off.

Okay, so the main flyback cable is removable. I already knew the rest came off, I just didn't know about that one.

As far as cable wiggling, I did all of that before I checked the neckboard. The only thing I didn't do was try to mess with the transistors while the machine was on. Didn't feel like risking a shock.
 
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