Joust Power Supply Question

The 2n3055 is for 12 v operation on williams supply, it directly feeds br2. It supplies +5 on an atari arII, but is stepped down on voltage. The +5 is handled by the 6057

You can increase +5 by removing r10 and staying in tolerance range, but I like to replace r26 with a pot to make it adjustable.

tally ho. I think the 6057 is on the large heatsink on a Defender power supply -- I had a couple of those bottomed out at 2V, wound up reseating that transistor and brought those back. I had a remote feeling you were right considering how much of a detriment a 12V transistor failure can be particularly on the Defender power supplies (shoots like 24V through the 12V line I think?)
 
Just an update on my Joust.

I replaced all header pins on the Power supply, fully capped the monitor (K4900), fully capped the sound board, new ribbon cable on my sound PCB.

I screwed up my interface board trying to replace the ribbon cable. Stupid @$$ ham handed it and pulled up 3 or 4 traces for where the pin legs go...

Anyway, my LED 3 is no longer lit on the power supply....not really sure where that problem came from, as it was working prior to putting new header pins on....
 
Did you also do the connecting pins and new molex? The square headers really need trifurcon pins to work best, they connect at 3 sides of each pin instead of just one. You could also get new idc type connectors (like what's on there now) and that wouldn't require crimping, just an idc pusher (or screwdriver if you're really good...) at least that would make a better connection because the pins would be new. The connectors get just as burnt and oxidized as the headers and really should be replaced all as a set. Also check the traces at the headers, I believe (it's been a while, so I may be wrong on this) some of them connect on both the top and bottom of the board and you may not have used enough solder to make the top connection directly under the headers.
 
Gotcha, I can order up some new molex connections, I mean at this point I'm willing to replace just about every damn part :p lol.

I'll give the traces at the header pins a look, and make sure I didn't short any solder on them. I usually get lots on there, but mistakes have been made before, so I'll check :)

Thanks again. One day this Joust WILL WORK!

Did you also do the connecting pins and new molex? The square headers really need trifurcon pins to work best, they connect at 3 sides of each pin instead of just one. You could also get new idc type connectors (like what's on there now) and that wouldn't require crimping, just an idc pusher (or screwdriver if you're really good...) at least that would make a better connection because the pins would be new. The connectors get just as burnt and oxidized as the headers and really should be replaced all as a set. Also check the traces at the headers, I believe (it's been a while, so I may be wrong on this) some of them connect on both the top and bottom of the board and you may not have used enough solder to make the top connection directly under the headers.
 
I did the rom and input boards on my Defender last year with a shack bulb. long and aggravating process. if you have 30 gauge wire or are clever with cutting individual strands out of stranded wire you'll be able to open and solder to traces on top and run the wire through the hole to solder to the ribbon cable pins.

that was a 2 hour process if I recall. about 3 weeks ago I did a Sinistar rom ribbon and Robotron input ribbon in approximately 13 minutes with a Hakko FR300. the plugs basically fell out when I desoldered all the pins. sometimes you'll come across boards where you have to kind of fight them.
 
Some of the header pins on the PS have traces on both sides of the pcb. You really need to put good heat and give it a bit extra time to properly heat through. Some of the pins are a single rail and there is a lot of surface area to heat.
 
Hang in there and you'll get it sorted out. I've never had so much trouble as with a Joust... Power board, sound board, main board, interface board... But now it is one of the most played and pretty reliable too.
 
Yea I think I need to revisit those header pins, get them really hot, and soak 'em in solder.
Some of the header pins on the PS have traces on both sides of the pcb. You really need to put good heat and give it a bit extra time to properly heat through. Some of the pins are a single rail and there is a lot of surface area to heat.

Thanks man! I anticipate that once I finally break through and get it running that it won't be crashing for a long time :)
Hang in there and you'll get it sorted out. I've never had so much trouble as with a Joust... Power board, sound board, main board, interface board... But now it is one of the most played and pretty reliable too.

I might give this a shot, I was trying to think of ways to do something similar, but was just to aggravated with myself to try and fix it at the moment.
I did the rom and input boards on my Defender last year with a shack bulb. long and aggravating process. if you have 30 gauge wire or are clever with cutting individual strands out of stranded wire you'll be able to open and solder to traces on top and run the wire through the hole to solder to the ribbon cable pins.

that was a 2 hour process if I recall. about 3 weeks ago I did a Sinistar rom ribbon and Robotron input ribbon in approximately 13 minutes with a Hakko FR300. the plugs basically fell out when I desoldered all the pins. sometimes you'll come across boards where you have to kind of fight them.
 
Just a small update. I reflowed the header pins and that took care of LED 3. It is now lit.

I still getting nothing but a solid color on the screen, and nothing is showing up on the LED display that gives the ROM code or whatever.

I'm in the process of replacing all of the 24 ROM sockets with dual wipes, just to help bulletproof. I'm going to hook another game up to the monitor tonight to see if I'm having monitor problems or if it's still somewhere on my PCB.
 
try booting it without the sound card installed, i was ripping out my hair with my sinistar as i sent my sound card out to a reputable place for a full rebuild and test and it wouldn't boot just red screen or blue screen unless i disconnected the sound card. the clock crystal was installed backwards , i didn't think those had polarity but after i removed and rotated it , it would boot. ( i was probing/comparing it with a known working card on my bench with a atx ps, speaker and volume control ground the input pins to test the pia,6802,and the ROM) anyway my point is LOL if you have a sound card issue it may prevent the boot up of the cpu , and if your +12 is low the sound card may be drawing it to low to boot. my PS needs a full build as my V are all really low , i think the regulator and the bridge rectifier is on the way out as my +12 is only 10 and +5 is 3.8 but i did the 4164 conversion and it has enough to run it but it does get an occasional reboot during play. i did this one where you cut and solder a couple new traces , im not crazy about the adapter version, that to me is just another place for future failures to happen.

http://www.thedefenderproject.com/upgrading-replacing-the-4116-memory-with-4164-memory/
 
I'll try that tonight for sure. I tested the monitor and it is for sure working. So that's one thing of the many that I can confirm working. Slowly getting to where the problem is.

UPDATE: Unplugged the sound board and had the same results...continuing to replace all ROM sockets. I still need to purchase new molex connections so I can make sure all of my pins are getting the voltage they need.

UPDATE update: one row of ROM sockets replaced. Noticed that when I power the game on the LED number display lights up very quickly then nothing. Not sure if that's normal or not. Does the LED stay on even if there are no problems? Or is it only used for errors?

try booting it without the sound card installed, i was ripping out my hair with my sinistar as i sent my sound card out to a reputable place for a full rebuild and test and it wouldn't boot just red screen or blue screen unless i disconnected the sound card. the clock crystal was installed backwards , i didn't think those had polarity but after i removed and rotated it , it would boot.[/url]
 
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Just a quick update. I went and tested my Joust pcbs this weekend (thanks a ton Scott) and while we were testing we noticed that D9 and D10 were completely missing on the CPU board. My ROM was tested with a separate Joust CPU and was working. Ordered the new diodes in hopes of fixing the problem...
 

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Just a quick update. I went and tested my Joust pcbs this weekend (thanks a ton Scott) and while we were testing we noticed that D9 and D10 were completely missing on the CPU board. My ROM was tested with a separate Joust CPU and was working. Ordered the new diodes in hopes of fixing the problem...

Sorry to say, but it won't help. Yes, you need them to keep the CMOS powered, but without them it's the same as just not having batteries in (or dead ones). Board should boot fine without them, just with a msg about cmos...
 
Dangggggg. Killing my hopes and dreams :p

Well that's good information to have. That means the problem is somewhere else on the board.

At least I am taking care of another small problem. I'll keep updating this as I fix every small problem until this damn thing is working lol.

Sorry to say, but it won't help. Yes, you need them to keep the CMOS powered, but without them it's the same as just not having batteries in (or dead ones). Board should boot fine without them, just with a msg about cmos...
 
Here's a question for you.

Is there any difference between a 6809E and 6809S??? Are they interchangeable on my Joust PCB.?.?.?

Reason being, the 6809 MPU on my PCB is the only chip getting really hot when I turn on the game...within 15-20 seconds. I would guess that this needs replaced and might be a solution to my problems.
 
the CPU and decoder roms actually are the hottest running chips on the board.

entirely normal. 4116 rams being the next hottest. 4164 rams are epic because they don't get hot.
 
the CPU and decoder roms actually are the hottest running chips on the board.

entirely normal. 4116 rams being the next hottest. 4164 rams are epic because they don't get hot.

ranchdrsn actually sent me a video of a guy that had the same issues with his Joust and repairing it. So I've been watching that and testing some other items.

For instance, I tested all of the resistors in the area that is known to reset the game and so far they are all good. There's several more to test, and a few ICs that I'm checking voltages at, and seeing if they are inputting and outputting correctly.
 
Maybe try overriding the watchdog and see if you can get anything to boot... worth a shot as it's really easy to do. Especially since you said the number readout lights for a second then goes out.
 
I just bought a logic probe last night, should show up tomorrow in the mail and I can start going through all of the ICs to see what's going on there.

I've replaced just about everything else on the PCB, so once I find this one small problem, I expect it to work like a champ!

do you have a logic probe to test the 7474s, 74153s and 74166s? that same sinistar had acrapped out 7474 that was keeping it from booting.
 
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