Help on testing an Atari a/r II for tempest

tron guy

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I just bought a "rebuilt/tested working" arII for my tempest.

Now I am not implying or making any claims that it is anything other than fully working. It certainly has been rebuilt.

I just don't want to do damage to my tempest board if I can take precautions first.

It's been so long since I've messed with any Atari games (said I know), that I can't remember the process for testing the board without the pcb attached.

I do it almost daily lately with my mcr power boards as I repair several of them. Is it similar? Can I plug in the AC power to the arII without it going to the pcb and test the voltages that way with these?

thank you
 
You can and should test the voltages on the AR without the game board plugged in first. It will be fine to power it up without the game board.

Dial in the +5V without the game board. Check the +/-22V on the other side of the AR, which should be around 24V. If it's an -04 for Tempest, you won't have the +12V and -5V, so you don't need to worry about those.

Power off, plug in the game board, power on, and re-check the voltages on the Tempest board, relative to ground on the Tempest board. Check and adjust the main +5V as needed, then also check the +15V and -15V for the video section, which should both be within +/-0.25V of what they should be (else replace the respective regulator).
 
You can and should test the voltages on the AR without the game board plugged in first. It will be fine to power it up without the game board.

Dial in the +5V without the game board. Check the +/-22V on the other side of the AR, which should be around 24V. If it's an -04 for Tempest, you won't have the +12V and -5V, so you don't need to worry about those.

Power off, plug in the game board, power on, and re-check the voltages on the Tempest board, relative to ground on the Tempest board. Check and adjust the main +5V as needed, then also check the +15V and -15V for the video section, which should both be within +/-0.25V of what they should be (else replace the respective regulator).

I think it's a -02 (which I believe will work for tempest).

thanks for the insight, I will try to check it out tonight.

edit: to clarify
Should I plug in all of the connectors to the a/rII and unplug the edge connectors from the pcb?
 
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Yep. An -02 can be used in a Tempest. The only difference between a -02 and -04 is that the -02 also generates +12V and -5V on the right side of the AR. However the Tempest game board doesn't use these voltages (and there aren't even any wires in the harness for them), so they never leave the AR.

Strangely, the Tempest schematics show a -02, so people think that's what it needs, and oddly that's what I've found in multiple original machines, with matching serial numbers. However there's clearly no purpose for the extra voltages for Tempest, or any of the other similar vectors (Space Duel, Gravitar, MH, Quantum, etc). So why Atari used -02's in Tempests remains somewhat of a mystery.

My only theory has been that maybe there were plans for a conversion kit for another future game that would need it. But for any collector cabs today, a -04 is all that is needed for all of the color vectors except Star Wars.
 
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