Lady Bug No Sprites

Hooty Hoo

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I recently picked up my first arcade game. A Lady Bug. The game wasn't working when I bought it and the guy had another board he bought off of Ebay and hadn't gotten around to installing which he gave me as part of the sale. I brought it home and found a bad power supply.

I Replaced the power supply and now the game fires right up. It will coin up and start playing. The problem is there are no sprites on screen. The game functions. If I move the stick, the dots start disappearing. The enemies aren't generating on screen either but they are also moving about the maze because they will eventually kill the Lady Bug.

I have taken a cursory look at the board and don't know where to start. I was following some other non-Lady Bug threads chasing down sprite problems and found a link to a site with the mame drivers for various games. I looked at the Lady Bug one and it seems that Eprom 1 and 2 deal with the character and sprites. The chips don't look visibly damaged. I don't see any corrosion on the pins.

I'm thinking about buying an Eprom writer, but the models that support the brand of 2732s on this board are in the $100+ range. Before I drop that kind of money, I would like to be sure the Eproms are my issue.

Does anyone have any ideas what might be causing the sprites not to appear on screen?
 
Before dropping any money on buying eproms. Make sure data lines and address lines are present.

If your using a logic probe, You looking at pulsing led lights.
If your using a scope, your looking at wave forms on the screen.

There are people who will burn you a set of eproms. http://www.hobbyroms.com/ for an example.

good luck on your repairs..
 
almost certainly not a video EPROM issue.

usually when video eproms or sockets go bad you will see something (often blocks).
But complete lack of anything indicates the video hardware that draws the sprite on the background is not working. could be a few things. haven't looked at ladybug, but in general most games have hardware that compares the sprite location to the areas currently being drawn, and draws the sprite over the background. certainly you can remove the chip and make sure it's clean and the socket is OK (I actually wouldn't do that unless your comfortable removing chips as it's much more likely you'll damage it when you try to re-insert it than probability that it's actually bad) but you can certainly try that to, just be careful when re-inserting.

-brian

I recently picked up my first arcade game. A Lady Bug. The game wasn't working when I bought it and the guy had another board he bought off of Ebay and hadn't gotten around to installing which he gave me as part of the sale. I brought it home and found a bad power supply.

I Replaced the power supply and now the game fires right up. It will coin up and start playing. The problem is there are no sprites on screen. The game functions. If I move the stick, the dots start disappearing. The enemies aren't generating on screen either but they are also moving about the maze because they will eventually kill the Lady Bug.

I have taken a cursory look at the board and don't know where to start. I was following some other non-Lady Bug threads chasing down sprite problems and found a link to a site with the mame drivers for various games. I looked at the Lady Bug one and it seems that Eprom 1 and 2 deal with the character and sprites. The chips don't look visibly damaged. I don't see any corrosion on the pins.

I'm thinking about buying an Eprom writer, but the models that support the brand of 2732s on this board are in the $100+ range. Before I drop that kind of money, I would like to be sure the Eproms are my issue.

Does anyone have any ideas what might be causing the sprites not to appear on screen?
 
Thanks for the advice guys. I just ordered a Logic Probe and I found a guy at work who has an eprom reader, but not sure if it supports the ones on my board (most of the cheaper ones on ebay and amazon do not) so he's bringing it in sometime this week and we will see.

I'm also working on tracking down an Operator's manual.

If I make any progress I will update.
 
Well Dangit, he says it's an eeprom reader that will not read eproms. I'll ask around some more.

You would think working in IT there would be more people with this kind of thing, but everyone seems to focus solely on new tech.
 
None of them have Hitachi HN462732 listed in the device list.

The datasheet for the HN462732 on Jrock says it's compatible with Intel 2732. Does that mean that if the device list has INTEL 2732 it will be able to read/write a HN462732?

http://www.jrok.com/datasheet/HN2732.pdf

(If you couldn't tell, I'm new to Eproms. My electronics hobby background is mostly in B.E.A.M. Robotics. My only IC experience has been with PICAXE which probably doesn't count)
 
None of them have Hitachi HN462732 listed in the device list.

The datasheet for the HN462732 on Jrock says it's compatible with Intel 2732. Does that mean that if the device list has INTEL 2732 it will be able to read/write a HN462732?

http://www.jrok.com/datasheet/HN2732.pdf

(If you couldn't tell, I'm new to Eproms. My electronics hobby background is mostly in B.E.A.M. Robotics. My only IC experience has been with PICAXE which probably doesn't count)

Off the top of my head. Yes on the read. Don't know on the write.

In order to program or write to the eprom you need a higher voltage. The program voltage various from different manufactures.

HN462732 according to the spec sheet needs 25V
Intel 2732 according to the spec sheet needs 22V

If your eprom burner does not do 25V, you could still read it and program / Burn another eprom that is the same size that is support by your eprom programmer/burner.
 
None of them have Hitachi HN462732 listed in the device list.



The datasheet for the HN462732 on Jrock says it's compatible with Intel 2732. Does that mean that if the device list has INTEL 2732 it will be able to read/write a HN462732?



http://www.jrok.com/datasheet/HN2732.pdf



(If you couldn't tell, I'm new to Eproms. My electronics hobby background is mostly in B.E.A.M. Robotics. My only IC experience has been with PICAXE which probably doesn't count)



Yes anything that can read any 2732 can read your chip. 100 to 1 odds you don't have an eprom problem though
 
Thanks for clearing that up.

If you don't think it is the eproms, where should I be looking instead? I started with the eproms because the stickers that cover the windows on the sprite and character eproms were torn and I thought they might have gotten exposed to UV. It seemed like a good place to start and I thought reading the eproms would be easy if I had a reader. I'm not sure where I should be starting if not the eproms.
 
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Thanks for clearing that up.

If you don't think it is the eproms, where should I be looking instead? I started with the eproms because the stickers that cover the windows on the sprite and character eproms were torn and I thought they might have gotten exposed to UV. It seemed like a good place to start and I thought reading the eproms would be easy if I had a reader. I'm not sure where I should be starting if not the eproms.



See my post #3 above,
Basically the video hardware that draws the sprites onto the background. I am not familiar with ladybug hardware but it's got to be in the section that handles that. It's fairly common issue on video games of this era and can be caused by many things. You'd have to get the schematics and looks to see how that circuit is handled
 
So far nobody seems to have the original manual. I've seen a few historical sales on here and on eBay, but everyone I've contacted either doesn't have it anymore or has it in storage and I don't think it would be right to ask someone I don't know to go digging for an hour+ to find it.

I think I may need to switch my focus to restoring the cabinet for now and be patient on the search for the manual. I love this game so I wanted to get it playable as soon as possible, but the cabinet is made from OSB so it has deteriorated badly and needs a lot of work.

The men in my family (including me) are all amateur woodworkers so the cabinet issues are something I already have the tools and experience for.

For the board repair, I think I'm going to need the full manual and a lot of studying.
 
Well Dangit, he says it's an eeprom reader that will not read eproms. I'll ask around some more.

You would think working in IT there would be more people with this kind of thing, but everyone seems to focus solely on new tech.

Almost anything will READ those eproms... finding something that'll do 21V VPP for older eproms is what's tough.

IT hasn't cared about eproms since BIOS started using flash.
 
I also have a Lady Bug with no sprites, it's on my todo list ;)
If your board is the single board version then the 2 sprite roms are at 2R & 2T, all the schematics available relate to the twin board version.
I did do some initial checking and found no rom activity which I traced back to a 74ls273 with no clock input. It was either the one at 3N or 3P. I got sidetracked repairing a Pacmania and adding high score saving to it along with Galaga'88 & Splatter House.
I will get back to this board soon though. Is yours the twin board or the single board?
 
I've been looking but don't really see anyone offering repair work on Universal boards. Does anyone know who does?
 
I probably can look at it I have to see if I can find schematics and a jamma adapter though I don't think I have a ladybug adapter give me a couple days to see if I have one unless you find someone else
 
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