How many volts is too many.

isucamper

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How many volts is too many (Wild Western troubleshooting).

I got a dead Wild Western this past christmas and since finishing up some other projects I've been trying to ressurrect it.

1st problem was a dead 5 volts on the original Taito power supply. I ordered a new power supply from Arcadeshop, but still haven't had any luck. When I turn the game on, I get a speaker pop, but absolutly nothing on the monitor. Fearing the monitor was dead also, I tested it with an araknoid I had sitting next to it, and the monitor came up fine.

So I'm fairly cofident the game is not booting at all. Setting the power supply to 5 volts, I get about 4.6 on the board, which seems to low. It made me nervous but I had to turn the power supply up to about 5.4 to get 5.0 at the board. Is this uncommon?

I've got a Zookeeper as well (converted Qix) and it is still working with the original Taito power supply. I measured the power at the board on this game and it was at 5.26. Doesn't this seem like it is too high? Is it safe for me to turn the power up on my Wild Western to this level and see if I get anything?
 
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where you ultimately want to measure the +5 at is at one of the roms if possible. but realistically, there's not gonna be a big drop between the pcb connection and the rom.

as far as it being common or uncommon to have the drop between the p/s and the pcb, it's not uncommon, however i don't know if it's normal for taito's as i've never owned one. mcr games like tron have a big (.4-.5v) drop in the harness between the power supply and the pcb, and it's pretty normal for them.

voltage wise, i would probably turn the zookeeper down to closer to 5.1 or so. some games won't run under 5.2 or whatever, but to avoid potentially damaging any chips or components, it's safer to keep the +5 closer to +5.

i would get the +5 at 5.1 on the board and see if that does anything for you.
 
Setting the power supply to 5 volts, I get about 4.6 on the board, which seems to low

had a game with a lot of oxidation all over the PCB traces. had to turn the power supply up to +7 volts or something, just to get +5.1 on the game PCB, for it to work

thats resistance for ya. can also be the pins inside the connectors getting weak and not gripping the header pin tight enough to pass enough electrons through to operate the game proper like
could be a wire has broken strands with one or two still connected, enough to tell a multimeter there is continuity but not enough to operate properly

the IC chips can become damaged if they receive more than +5.35 v
heck, they can become damaged just from static electricity discharges from your socks on the rug

5.26 is getting up there. no telling how long the game will last with that operating voltage. could last 10 years
 
So I got my Zookeeper voltage adjusted down to about 4.9 volts across the chips and it is playing fine. Thanks for the input.

There are two nearly identical connectors that go into the Taito power supply labeled J3 and J4. Is anyone familiar with these? While fiddling with my Zookeeper, I realized that on my Wild Western these connectors were plugged into the wrong slots. That is, on my Wild Western, the J3 connector was plugged into the J4 slot and vice versa. It was like this when I bought it (I made sure not to get them mixed up when switching to the new power supply). Did my board get damaged from this? The connectors are almost identical, but there are a few more pins populated on J3 labeled 12vB, 12vC and a few others).

I switched the connectors on my Wild Western and still no luck, although now I get a bright flash on the monitor when powering it up which I wasn't getting before. After the flash there is nothing on the screen. I adjusted power up until I got 5.08 across the chips.
 
you would need to look at a wiring diagram for the pcb and whatnot to see, but if you sent voltage across paths where it shouldn't have been, the board could well be damaged.

check the pinout for j3 and compare it for j4. if pins with voltage were in places where the other connector would not have voltage, or vice versa, that would be a problem.
 
I think I'm ok. According to the schematic in the manual, the J3 and J4 on the power supply are actually completely identical, so the fact that the J3 connector going to the pcb has a few more wires on it doesn't matter. If I'm looking at it right, it doesn't matter which connector you plug into which slot, which makes more sense than somebody accidentally having them plugged in backwards.

So I'm back at step 1 again. I haven't actually inspected the board yet for problems, so that's what I'll be doing today.
 
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