Joust 2 "LED message"

Superully

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turned on my joust 2 after finishing the restoration, all i get is a grey screen and an 8 on the LED display (see attached pic). since i don't have a manual, i have no idea what the game is trying to tell me ;)

anyone?
 

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It is telling you it is DEAD! The LED should clear and if any of the POST tests ran and failed there would be a flashing error message. No clear = POS test not started.

Could be bad ROM. Could be dead CPU. Could be dead clock circuit. Or about a dozen other things that would stop the POST from starting.

ken
 
ok, let me back up a little bit to do some explaining:

this game was advertised more than a year ago in italy as WORKING, but when the seller plugged it in, it wasn't working anymore - who would have guessed. he had had it in storage for quite a while and that storage wasn't the best i've seen: a lot of humidity, mold on the wood, all the screw rusted.

brought the game home nevertheless and gave it the full restoration treatment:
(http://www.dragonslairfans.com/smfor/index.php?topic=917.0)

when i finally plugged it in two weeks ago, LED 1 was out -> power supply shot, no +5V. since i'm not very good with electronic repairs (to say the least), i ordered a williams power supply conversion kit (switcher) from bob roberts which arrived yesterday.

installed it as described (wiring from the switcher connected with the old PS, spliced to wires into the AV monitor line), turned the game on: grey screen, the 8 on the LED display, nothing else.

some things i've noticed:
- the monitor produces a loud hum when the switcher is installed, there is NO loud hum once the old power supply is used and the switcher is removed
- sometimes after turning on the game, there is a sound which sounds like a start up sound, but since i don't know which sounds joust 2 produces at the start of the game, i can't tell for sure (and i don't have the j2 rom set in mame)

that's as far as i am, should i better have tried to rebuild the original power supply? what would you guys do next?
 
i would say rebuild the original power supply - that way you wont have the monitor hum issue to contend with at the same time.

yellowdog & dokert offer repairs to these at reasonable rates.

if it has been in a damp environment then it may also be prudent to
CONNECTORS
- clean all header pins with a scotchbrite pad followed by some electronic cleaning solvent spray
- clean all mating sockets with some electronic cleaning solvent spray
this includes the wiring headers and the big interboard connector(s)
CHIPS
- carefully remove any socketed chips and carefully clean the legs with scotchbrite pad (do a search here for some good desciptions for how to go about it)
- inspect the socket closely to see if any of the pins are corroded inside, if so give them a scratching with a very small jewellers screwdriver
- then re-insert them. buy yourself a chip insertion tool if you dont have one (theyre usually cheap).
- during re-insertion be very careful that all legs go into their sockets and dont fold up underneath
- be careful to ensure they go back in the right way - mark them first with something if you are not sure how to determine the correct orientation

NOTE if you are not really sure or comfortable with doing any of these tasks, send the boards to a technician for repair.
 
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yellowdog & dokert offer repairs to these at reasonable rates.

are they offering their repair service across the atlantic as well? ;)

i would say rebuild the original power supply - that way you wont have the monitor hum issue to contend with at the same time.

are there any write-ups on original williams power supply repairs and repair kits available for them?
 
i am in australia and purchased items from both yellowdog and dokert so no problems there. just send them a pm to ask - they are both very helpful and knowledgable on williams games repairs!

Post a pic of the power supply - i have a vague recollection that joust2 uses the same type of power supply as the earlier games, if that is the case for sure then bob roberts has a rebuild kit for the williams power supplies

on write-ups, do a search in the repair section for williams, joust etc and you will see many threads on repairs to these boards.
 
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Post a pic of the power supply - i have a vague recollection that joust2 uses the same type of power supply as the earlier games, if that is the case for sure then bob roberts has a rebuild kit for the williams power supplies

will do so tomorrow (1 hour past midnite in germany right now), so watch this space ...
 
Joust 2 uses the standard type 2 power supply (heat sink with 2 transistors separate). Bob Roberts has a rebuild kit that covers the caps and a couple of the common failure components (LM724 voltage regulators, 2N3055 transistor) and a deluxe kit that also includes replacement connectors (crimp on not IDC). Either of these kits will cover about 80% of the issues with most Williams PS boards. The other 20% can be a lot of fun to diagnose. That ranges from bad resistors (my latest couple of issues), blown zener diodes to corrosion on the fuse holders.

Given the cost, if you cannot get the components locally, the kit from Bob R. or individual components from Ed over at Great Plains Electronics (link) would at least only require one way shipping.

If you are not up to a little soldering and would rather have it done for you, PM me and I can give you more details.

ken
 
are they offering their repair service across the atlantic as well? ;)

yes

are there any write-ups on original williams power supply repairs and repair kits available for them?

yes

YellowDog and I do lots of repairs on these power supplies. I can put together a kit for you if you want to attempt it.

Sounds like you do not have the switcher hooked up correctly. Solid gray screen is usually bad or missing +5vdc to the cpu. Test the +5vdc at 1J1 on the cpu.
 
Sounds like you do not have the switcher hooked up correctly. Solid gray screen is usually bad or missing +5vdc to the cpu. Test the +5vdc at 1J1 on the cpu.

have a look at the last page of my restoration thread (scroll down) where i've shown how i hooked up the switcher.

http://www.dragonslairfans.com/smfor/index.php?topic=917.60

unfortunately, i cannot measure anything atm since my multimeter broke :(. a new one is on its way already, but perhaps i should get a cheap one for a home depot in the meantime as an interim solution.
 
After reading through the postings, I think the switcher may have been installed incorrectly. From the description you tapped the switcher into the power lines for the monitor. In the US, that won't matter, but in Europe, it should be tapped into the transformer power input lines.

If you have a standard Williams setup, the monitor is normally run on 110V isolated power that was supplied by the transformer. The transfomer is normally jumpered to take 220V input and step it down to the correct voltages. If this is the case, you can either switch the switcher over over to 110V operation or move the power taps to the input wires for the big transformer (white/red wires going to lugs 1 & 3 of the transformer).

See if you can borrow a multimeter and test the voltage at the power input of the switcher. My guess is that it is 110V, but it is always best to meter it.

ken
 
hey ken, great thinking. i'm pretty sure it's only running on 110 volts while the switcher is set to 220 volts. i'll definitely try to get a meter tomorrow to measure the input at the switcher and the output it produces. should it even produce ANY output at all because it isn't being fed with the correct voltages?

if i reset the switcher to 110 volts, would that mean that the pcb board gets the +5V it needs?

somehow i'd still like to rebuild the original power supply though (or have it rebuilt), but let's try this route first ...

thx for helping me out!
 
I don't know enough to comment on what happens if you feed a switcher set to 220V with 110V. Logically, it should provide 1/2 the output voltages, but logic doesn't always seem to work with complex circuits.

If you reset the switcher to 110V, it should behave correctly if the monitor voltage is nominally 110V. But it is always a good idea to meter the voltages. It is virtually impossible to debug a board if the input voltages are not right.

ken
 
Ully, mein Freund, you are flying around but don't have a landing gear......

You shouldn't have started to install this without have a working DVM......

I hope (and expect) the switcher will have survived getting only 110V where it expected 220.
 
You shouldn't have started to install this without have a working DVM......

i agree, andré, but i didn't think of the 110V monitor issue - thought since i'm feeding 220 into the machine, that'S what the monitor gets as well, but i should have been alerted by the fact that you can also hook the switcher up to the speaker / marquee wiring and those are set to run on 110, too. well, if it's blown, it's blown, it's just a switcher which cost me 10 bucks and i still have a couple of spare ones ;)

i'll find out tomorrow! can't get a multimeter at 10pm over here ...
 
On the monitor, does it have rating information? I know over here, the monitors had to have a sticker or a plate on them that gave power requirements. That might give a clue if it is 110V or 220V. Just a passing thought......

If it is like most of my monitors, half or more of the stickers dried up and fell off long ago, but sometimes you can get lucky...:)

ken
 
I can almost guarantee that it's 110V.

ALL (yes ALL) the arcade machines I've seen here so far run 110V monitors (unless they hacked in a European SCART TV-set).

There was no reason for the manufacturers to switch to a different kind of power supply for the monitors. They only had to use a transformer that had primary windings for all world-wide available voltages, like Atari did.
I know many games for the US market only had 110V primary connections, but any stuff that was originally exported to Europe did have a set-up like this. This way the manufacturers didn't have to switch monitor type for the Euro (or other parts of the world) markets.

Even the machines that were built here work like this, Even the Euro-Joust that I have that use a Hantarex monitor still runs on 110V. Centi, SW, Galaxian, Puckman, Asterock, all of them...
 
I can almost guarantee that it's 110V.

ALL (yes ALL) the arcade machines I've seen here so far run 110V monitors (unless they hacked in a European SCART TV-set).

There was no reason for the manufacturers to switch to a different kind of power supply for the monitors. They only had to use a transformer that had primary windings for all world-wide available voltages, like Atari did.
I know many games for the US market only had 110V primary connections, but any stuff that was originally exported to Europe did have a set-up like this. This way the manufacturers didn't have to switch monitor type for the Euro (or other parts of the world) markets.

Even the machines that were built here work like this, Even the Euro-Joust that I have that use a Hantarex monitor still runs on 110V. Centi, SW, Galaxian, Puckman, Asterock, all of them...

Thanks. That is useful to know. I have suspected that was the case when I helped a couple of people rewire their transformers for 220V. But I've never had a solid answer.

ken
 
ok, here's an update: went to the home depot to get a cheap multimeter (which i did for €6.59), set the switcher to 120 volts and took the measurements:

AC is at 122 volts, +5V was at 5.10, turned it down a little to 5.01!

with those results in, i plugged in the connectors, turned on the game and got the following:

- instead of the EIGHT, there's now a ZERO on the LED display
- instead of the plain grey picture, i now get one displaying the joust 2 roms

since i don't have a joust 2 manual, what does the ZERO mean? can i find those code numbers somewhere myself? does the screen display tell me there's something wrong with the roms? should i remove, clean and reseat them? after all, the cab was stored in an unisolted garden shed, perhaps there's some corrosion on the legs.

one thing i noticed: some of the roms are REV1 while others are REV2 - could that be of importance?
 

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