Installing New Monitor in old Tron Cabinet

Ironmike20

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Hey, I was working on restoring this cabinet a few years ago, and now I'm finally going to finish it. I had replaced the original working monitor due to severe burn in the screen. Everything was working fine when I removed the monitor and ordered/ installed the new monitor.....but never hooked it up. I hooked 2 of the connectors from the jamma to the monitor board. There was one more molex input port on there but my cables of mine would fit it. I turned the cabinet on. I got sound from the game but no picture. I'm assuming the monitor is not receiving power. I'm just not sure how to hook it up properly and I don't wanna break it. I'm thinking i might need a molex adapter or something. IF anyone is familiar with doing this in an old cab, please point me in the right direction. Thanks!
 

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Looks like that's power. Since I don't know how the billabs monitors hook up, I'm going to guess since it's 3 prong, it's like a standard power plug. A lot of arcade monitors just use the power/neutral line. Maybe someone else can chime in with more knowledge than I. What does the manual say?
 
Thanks, I don't believe the billabs monitor came with a manual.....I would hope I would have saved it if it did. So the molex connector on the monitor board with the 3 ports is most likely the power. It's weird that I have a loose power cable with 3 ports that should fit it, but it doesn't lock in at all when I try and connect them. I wish I was more familiar with all this, I took a long break from working on it and can't remember some of the things I was starting to learn regarding hookups.
 
Here are some better pics of the connections
 

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Yeah...that looks like the power then. I'm sure someone here knows which each one is. Not sure if the billabs units need an isolation transformer or not. Based on that plug I would say no but I would call billabs.
 
Thanks guys, I may end up giving billabs a call tomorrow and see what they say. I'm not sure if they would even offer tech support since i bought it a few years ago. I checked out that other thread and that monitor came with cables for different connections. Mine didnt come with any cables. I was just using the existing ones in the cabinet. I'm thinking it's just a matter of finding a connector that's compatible withe the molex port on the monitor board. I mean thats what I would do if I was hooking something up to a computer power supply and the connectors didnt match. It seems like the same idea. I just don't wanna blow up the monitor or anything. It's just strange that the power wire in the cabinet seems to fit in that port, yet doesnt fit in all the way to lock into place. There must be a slight difference.
 
Thanks guys, I may end up giving billabs a call tomorrow and see what they say. I'm not sure if they would even offer tech support since i bought it a few years ago. I checked out that other thread and that monitor came with cables for different connections. Mine didnt come with any cables. I was just using the existing ones in the cabinet. I'm thinking it's just a matter of finding a connector that's compatible withe the molex port on the monitor board. I mean thats what I would do if I was hooking something up to a computer power supply and the connectors didnt match. It seems like the same idea. I just don't wanna blow up the monitor or anything. It's just strange that the power wire in the cabinet seems to fit in that port, yet doesnt fit in all the way to lock into place. There must be a slight difference.

Take good, close up pictures of the power connector and the place it's supposed to plug into so we can see.

It's likely that your monitor simply has a different connector there than what your cab is supplying. You may end up having to cut off the power connector on your cabinet wiring and crimp on a new one that matches your new monitor.
 
Take good, close up pictures of the power connector and the place it's supposed to plug into so we can see.

It's likely that your monitor simply has a different connector there than what your cab is supplying. You may end up having to cut off the power connector on your cabinet wiring and crimp on a new one that matches your new monitor.

Yes, your cab has an iso transformer that supplies AC lines, that's a hot chassis which expects line/ground and can be plugged directly into the wall.

Don't wreck your wiring, build an adapter.
 
These are the only connections I have that arent being used. I believe the 2-molex cable is the one that was in the old monitor. The other one i ran over from the front of the cab because it looked like it would fit the one on the monitor. So do you think it would be better to just get an adapter to plug it into an AC Jack instead of running it through the cab power supply? I'm sure all of you are better at this sorta thing than i am, so I'll go with whatever you think is best and within my ability to do. Thank you for all your help so far.
 
These are the cables
 

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The connector on the monitor looks like a Molex .093 3 pin connector.

The other 2 connectors look like Amp .084 3 pin and 2 pin connectors. I'm not sure what the 3 pin Amp is wired for but the 2 pin looks like it's wired for power. That makes sense that you thought it went to the old monitor.

If you plug that 3 pin Amp connector into the 3 pin Molex connector it'll slide in but not mate correctly which sounds like what is happening.

I *think* you can use an ISO transformer output to power your new monitor, and I *think* what Ieure is telling you to do is to create a little power adapter which is Amp .084 on one side and connected to a Molex .093 plug on the other. That way you don't have to hack the wiring in your cabinet.

My understanding is that if your monitor requires an ISO to work correctly you must have it or you'll fry the monitor but you can feed an ISO output to a monitor that doesn't require it and it'll work.

I would wait for one of the monitor gurus here to confirm this however.
 
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Ironmike, I'm a bit worried for your safety here. It seems as if you are not aware of how basic A/C wiring works, as you're not able to identify the difference between hot, neutral, and ground wires in an simple A/C circuit. Do you have a friend that may be an electrician that can assist you?

Better pictures (more clearly showing the PCB's markings) would help.

From what I can tell by model number, you have a tri-sync monitor; meaning that it can display 3 types of resolution. But I cannot find any true documentation so I cannot confirm if an isolation transformer is required; if it is you run the risk of damaging the monitor. DO NOT just plug the thing into the wall without understanding the requirements of the device.

For the most part, basically you need to match connectors to provide current to the monitor; you have the choice of cutting the end of the monitor cable, cutting the end of the tron cab's cable, or creating an intermediary cable that has the mating end of each side; but again you need to understand what wire does what before you can successfully and more importantly SAFELY do this. You're messing with mains voltage here. That wire going up to the glass tube, it carries HUNDREDS of times what is coming out of the wall.

Please be careful.
 
Demogo, you followed my (probably poor) explanation perfectly. That is exactly what's happening and thanks for narrowing down the right connector I need.

Yes Darkness, the monitor is definitely a try-sync because I was originally going to use it for a NARC game I had and that required medium resolution. I def don't wanna blow myself or anything else up. I'm pretty sure green is ground, and I could probably look up the rest, but it might be a good idea to see if someone can give me a hand with it. I know an electrician that can at least advise me on it.

I will get you better pictures of the board. I've researched the billabs monitors a little and i've seen an adapter that someone made online that looked like what I might need to connect it.

Something like this?
 

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but it might be a good idea to see if someone can give me a hand with it. I know an electrician that can at least advise me on it.

Good deal!

yea man, that is pretty much the idea of what adapter you'd need.
 
ironmike, I'd like to make you the adapter you need, free of charge.
unless of course you would like to do it yourself.

I'm just thinking back when I didn't know anything about tracking down connectors; let alone crimping pins for said connectors....
 
You are awesome! Thank you! I have crimpers n stuff but I would feel a lot better if someone that actually knew what they were doing made it. I will gladly pay you for your time, materials and shipping costs.
 
That monitor has a switchmode power supply so it doesn't need an ISO, but once you wire it up it'll use the one in the cabinet anyways, so it won't hurt anything.

The 3 pin connector you were trying to power it with probably powers the blacklight on the front of the control panel!
 
ironmike, I'd like to make you the adapter you need, free of charge.
unless of course you would like to do it yourself.

I'm just thinking back when I didn't know anything about tracking down connectors; let alone crimping pins for said connectors....

That's mighty nice of you.

Where would the green wire go on the 3 pin connector in the picture posted above? I would think there's nowhere for it to attach to...
 
Yes you're right it probably was for the blacklight in the front. The cabinet was a conversion. I found out it was tron once I drilled out the lock and we found the manual covered in dust inside. The owner had it set on free play since he obtained it and they were never given he keys. Some of the original stuff was removed or left disconnected when the converted it to "thundercade".
 
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