Ms. Pac-Man

BillLange1968

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Donor 2012, 2016
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Toms River, New Jersey
I picked up my first classic arcade game at auction last week. It is a Ms. Pac-Man machine serial number 87598.

First problem is that with the game NOT set on free play, as soon as you press down the coin switch on the coin door, the game starts playing a single player game.

I disconnected the control panel and same thing happens.

I think there might be a short in the wiring harness or an issue with the edge connect or something on the mother board.

Any ideas.

Regards
Bill
 

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coin up issue

THe player 1 and 2 start buttons appear to be missing from the panel. Are the wires "tied" in the machine. What I mean is if the wires are just tied somewhere from the board to the harness for the panel. It would always be grounding player one and the instant it registers a credit it fires. I would start by tracing the player one start wire all the way to the board and make sure it is not grounded somehow.
 
My wife and I are moving into a new house with a 2000 sqft arcade ready walkout basement in about six weeks when the house is completed. The game is at another location, so I can't check it right now.

I tried the "service credit button" and I don't believe it did anything at all.

I'll trace the grounding and one player button when I have a chance in about two weeks.

Here are some more pictures ...
 

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And a few more ...
 

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Both the one player and two player buttons are there, I just dropped them inside while I was testing.

The coin door seems to be missing some pieces.

My plan of attack is ...

1. Repair marquee light
2. Fix control panel issues: one player / two player buttons
3. Fix the coin door
4. Repair or replace the bottom of the cabinet and levelers
5. Fix the color on the monitor as it seems a bit off
 
I had one doing something similar to this....it would randomly coin up, multiple times, for no reason, if I unplugged the counter of all things it would stop doing it and work normal. Also when the coin door was unplugged, it would stop (of course you could not coin it up at this point at all)When the counter WAS plugged in, the coin switches worked fine and incrimented the counter, the service button would give credits and NOT incriment the counter, as it should. When it would randomly coin up, it would NOT incriment the counter.....so I snipped a wire to the service button, no change, ripped all the wires apart on the door to find a skinned wire, or some reason it was shorting, FOUND NOTHING! So I resoldered my service button, and dropped an ENTIRELY new coin door in it, SAME THING! So the issue WAS NOT in the coin door. So I closely examined the edge of the PCB, and guess what, part of the edge was missing were the trace that touches harness....I believe the 3rd pin over which I believe is a ground, I repaired that, and the machine has been fine ever since.....
Moral of this long story....make sure your harness/pcb are making a good connection.
Examine that pcb edge closely to ensure all the traces look good....
 
I've been playing the Ms Pacman machine the last couple of weekends. I will not be able to really work on it for a few more weeks until we move into our new house.

While playing the game, in addition to the game starting as soon as a credit is applied, I've seen that the "Junior" intermission plays plays over and over again after it appears the first time and each additional screen is cleared.

I'll have to track down that bug in the pcb as well.

-Bill
 
From what I've seen, they also used that type of transformer/power supply assembly on the later run cabs.


The late run cabs used a super pac power brick and a modified super pac harness. If its still there you should see the super pac tag still on the harness. The pcb on them were also mounted in a metal cage. Also the cabinets had vinyl artwork as most know. The cabinets were made of white laminated plywood and if you look at the top it will be all white. They used plastic marquee brackets instead of metal.

Your coin up/game start issue could be on the pcb. It may be a bad buffer or shorted .1uf cap. I have seen the cap short and pull the line low which makes it think the button is pushed.
 
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