Need some general repair help... (spy hunter + T+F)

[monsterbaldy]

Need some general repair help... (spy hunter + T+F)

I have a Spy Hunter and a Track and Field and I'd like to give them some love, but I really don't know where to start. In general I'd like to learn more about repairing arcade games as I want to get a bunch more (as wife allows). Anyways here are my questions:

1) Track and Field and Spy Hunter both save hi scores. My Spy Hunter is currently saving ok but track and field does not. I believe there is a mod you can do to remove the need for a battery save (I assume it replaces it with a flash memory save or something like that), and I read it was a good idea since most board damage happens from the batteries leaking. Is there a guide anywhere I can follow to do these mods?

2) Track and Field's buttons and switches are DESTROYED. I'd like to keep the authentic look and feel by using the same kind of buttons with leaf switches, any advice a good seller for parts like these? I have previously used happcontrols but they only sell the newer microswitch buttons it seems.

3) Some of the spy hunter sound effects are just white noise, is this the type of thing I'd have to replace the sound board for usually or is there possibly a simpler solution?

Any help with these items would totally be appreciated!

-ben

 

[Adamdiz]

I know that twistedquarter has leaf buttons

 

[RetroHacker]

Your best source of parts is Bob Roberts. Great guy. Can't say enough good things about him. He's got leaf buttons and pretty much anything else you could want.

www.therealbobroberts.net

-Ian

 

[tron guy]

Your best source of parts is Bob Roberts. Great guy. Can't say enough good things about him. He's got leaf buttons and pretty much anything else you could want.

www.therealbobroberts.net

-Ian

buy from him. great prices, great service

 

[monsterbaldy]

So I took the T+F PCB out last night, and desoldered the battery from the board. It went well, I don't think I broke anything. Today I will go to radioshack and buy a 2032 holder and solder that to the board and try it out.

I noticed a big square lump at the bottom of the cabinet when taking the PCB's out, attached to the floor of the cab. It is connected to the monitor and the power supply, honestly it looks like a pile of C4. What the heck is that thing?

Also, Bob Roberts replied (very quickly) and gave me a ton of good information. He indicated I might have some bad preamps on my sound IO board in spy hunter, I'll check that out eventually.

-ben

 

[RetroHacker]

I noticed a big square lump at the bottom of the cabinet when taking the PCB's out, attached to the floor of the cab. It is connected to the monitor and the power supply, honestly it looks like a pile of C4. What the heck is that thing?

It's just what it looks like. Whatever you do, don't play the game and score zero points...




Actually, it's a transformer. It provides line isolation for the monitor. All games have them. Depending on your power supply setup, it might also provide the intial voltages for the power regulator in a linear supply - newer games use switchmode power supplies that take wall current directly.

-Ian

 

[monsterbaldy]

So just an update, I successfully soldered a 2032 battery holder onto the PCB and it is working great. I'd say the solder job was an overall grade of D-, the battery holder from radio shack didn't fit the pin holes so I had to extend one leg with a piece of copper, and no piece of metal on the battery holder would really hold solder so I had to hook/braid the two pieces together and then put some solder on that. But anyways, yeah it works!

I'd still be curious about how to do the mod some people talked about where you wouldn't need a battery anymore, if anyone has information.

I checked my spy hunter and it looks like someone already rebuilt or replaced the power supply because it looks so shiny as to be out of place, and there is a pro job of a NiCad rechargeable where the leaky battery should be. I think I am going to make a separate thread for the spy hunter sound problem once I get more information.

-ben

 

[cdjump]

put the spy hunter in test mode, then select channel test. Which channels are static?

 

[monsterbaldy]

It is the explosion sound effect and a few others. I'll retest and get an accurate list.

-ben

 

[monsterbaldy]

Ok here are the sounds in spy hunter that play with a tremendous amount of static. It makes the sound effect sound like white noise, but if you listen closely you can still hear the original sound effect under there.

Coin
Tilt
Car Crash
Helicopter Crash
Explosion - this one is much less static than the others

When I do the CHANNEL TEST the channels that have static are 1, 2, and "half" of 3. It goes fast so hard to tell if 3 is just bleed from prev channel or not.

There is also a bit of a hum when the game is not playing sound, and you can hear an audible click when the van button flashes, but I think that is normal for this game.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[Zinfer]

Makes me wish I'd continued on where I left off before putting it in storage. I'll have to dig Spy Hunter back out when I finish up a few of these projects.
May not be of much help right now, but www.zinfer.com/spyhunter.com
With the recent influx of Spyhunter projects I think that I'm going to dig that out after Pacman. I really need to get pac underway.

 

[cdjump]

Ok here are the sounds in spy hunter that play with a tremendous amount of static. It makes the sound effect sound like white noise, but if you listen closely you can still hear the original sound effect under there.

Coin
Tilt
Car Crash
Helicopter Crash
Explosion - this one is much less static than the others

When I do the CHANNEL TEST the channels that have static are 1, 2, and "half" of 3. It goes fast so hard to tell if 3 is just bleed from prev channel or not.

There is also a bit of a hum when the game is not playing sound, and you can hear an audible click when the van button flashes, but I think that is normal for this game.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Ok, now, look on the ssio, and swap the 2 ay-3-8910s and put it back in channel test. If 1 2 and 3 still have static, you can move on, if it changes to 4 5 and 6, then its a bad 8910. If the 8910's are good, i'd suspect the lm3900 first. After that the 3403 at e10 and after that 2 of the 4016's (or 4066's) on the ssio (i forget the locations- right in the middle of the board, on row d i think). Its also possible that any of the caps or resistors in the audio output portion could be bad as well, or the 7406 or 7407. Without a scope, its hard to pinpoint, but, all the parts are relatively inexpensive, after i tested the resistors, and bypassed the caps with another cap to make sure they're not the culprit, you could jut go ahead and shotgun the amp chips listed above - socket the chips when you do it makes it much easier down the road (if your comfortable soldering).

 

[monsterbaldy]

Awesome! Will report back soon.