Need Help: Tron Spinner "Flutter"

scamp

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I just picked up my Tron today (I'm so happy!!) and it seems the spinner is having an issue where it kinda works but then it sort of "flutters"..What I mean by that is say you are spinning Tron's arm to shoot spiders, the arm will turn but then it will sort of do its own thing for a moment.

I was told that another control panel was put in place and it showed the same behavior, which tells me its not the spinner itself.

Has anyone seen this sort of thing? Any suggestions on what to test (and how!)?

I'm kind of a newbie at debugging arcade game issues, so I could use some guidance...

Thanks!
 
I'm gonna say it's the wiring. Possibly between the linear power supply board and the spinner. Probably just not making good contact. Possibly effecting the voltage.
 
How can I test the voltage to the spinner?

I tried disconnecting the wire to the spinner, but my leads do not fit in the slots...Am I going about this wrong? Is there a better way?

thanks!!
 
easy thing to try also is clean the optic sensor for the spinner. just take one of the 2 screws out, pivot the optic board out, and run a q-tip through the sensor. my tron was getting jittery so the arm wouldn't move smooth, and cleaning the sensor fixed it.
 
I've cleaned the optics and it didn't change...or maybe got a little better I thought...

Today I noticed when I started the machine the image was garbled....I restarted the machine and the game came on but the spinner didn't work...I restarted again and it powered up properly and the spinner worked but still not perfectly...

So I guess this means its either power related or board related...The self tests do not show errors....so if they are correct, then odds are its a power problem right? I can put in the switching power supply I guess...The first thing I'll try is to change the big blue capacitors...

Additionally they removed the battery completely...I assume this only affects the high score memory and would not account for the weirdness...I'll try putting in the lithium battery conversion and see if that helps..

I'm going to replace the board cables as well since that seems to cause headaches....

Since I was told this occurred with 2 different control panels, I'm going to assume the spinner/optical board is okay....That the problem lies somewhere else...

Any other ideas?
 
Additionally they removed the battery completely...I assume this only affects the high score memory and would not account for the weirdness...I'll try putting in the lithium battery conversion and see if that helps..

Not having this battery would have no effect other than not saving high scores.
 
you may want to test your +5 volts. mcr games are quite notorius for voltage drops between the boardset and power supply. i would test it at the board stack.

to do it - looking at your board stack (the 3 board sandwich), the first board that you can see the whole thing of is the ssio/sound board. on that, you should have 3 (i think) rom chips at the top of the board under the retainer piece that holds it to the side of the cabinet.

each rom will have a sticker on the center top of it to cover the window in the center. if you look at this picture the roms are the 3 chips with stickers under the upside down pass sticker at the top.

3188_3_fs_pb.jpg


anyways, if you look at the chips, each one has a u shaped cutout at the bottom. they are upside down looking at the pic. assuming the chip is right side up and using your multimeter on the DC setting, with the chip pointing up so the notch is on the top side, attach your positive probe to the right side's top most pin (+5), and your negative probe to the left side's bottom most pin (ground). you should have 5.0-5.1 volts measuring it there.

if you don't, adjust the +5 using this guide. page 18 will tell you where to adjust the voltage on your power supply board.

http://arcarc.xmission.com/PDF_Arca..._Midways_MCR_II_&_III_Systems_(July_1983).pdf
 
Thank you for the details on checking this...I'll try that...

Do I do this on each board and each chip? Or is one sufficient since we are adjusting the voltage at the powersupply?
 
no. just check at one of the roms. that is enough. if one is there, they're all there. --unless your interconnect cables between the boards are seriously futzed.
 
I checked the voltage as you described on one of the chips and it was in fact low. I upped the voltage using the potentiometer and tried it but it still wasn't working smoothly.

I noticed while looking around that the ribbon cables did not look in the best shape, in fact one looked as though it was peeling apart (if that makes sense)...

I have an ordered out to Bob Roberts for the new cables as well as new big blue caps...so maybe this will make it work properly...The game works fine, its just the spinner which is having the issue....

**Did this test prove that my power supply is functioning properly? I'm trying to decide if I should spend the money for a switching power supply and the necessary board..

If you have any more suggestions or tests, let me know!!

Thanks for the help!
 
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I replaced my ribbon cables and it doesn't seem to have helped....

In fact at first I thought it did, but then it progressively got worse as I played..I'm not sure if that means anything or helps....

I still plan to replace my big blue caps but won't be able to for a few days....I assume I need to remove the whole board at the bottom of the case to do that...

In any event, if anyone has anymore ideas, please let me know!!

Thanks!

-S
 
Spinner voltages

I tested the voltages at the spinner and the 5v was actually 5.25 (but is 5 at chip on sound io board)

My 12v on spinner was 11.33 ...so it's low...

I'm not sure if this info helps at all...
 
Now my spinner is pretty much not working at all..not in the game or in test mode....I still get power to it, it just doesn't want to do anything....uggg!!!
 
Fixed!

I repaired my spinner this weekend...I replaced both chips and some of the caps on the optic board...

The real culprit seems to have been the optics themselves. Once I replaced them it started to work properly....

So if your having issues, try the optics first...I had read these go bad, but figured I'd try other things first....In the end it was them all along..

-S
 
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