Odd Tempest Issue:

dbpbandit

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So my Tempest quite working last week after years of problem free service. The first sign of an issue started a few weeks back when I turned it on and I had no video and no blind game play. I opened it up and reseated the edge connectors and that fixed the problem. It ran fine for a few more weeks and then had the same issue, this time however, re-seating the side connectors did not do the trick. I checked my voltage (at the AR and the main PCB) and all voltages are fine. All fuses are fine, actually, everything looks fine.... A few things to note, when I flip the test switch up it will eventually shoe me the switch test screen but it's not showing any ROM failures or the settings screen. When I flip off the test switch I get one horizontal line that flashes in the middle of the screen and nothing else. After cycling power it goes away and back to a blank screen and no game play. Also, the player 1 and 2 lights are not blinking normally, they are blinking in a faster cycle and that cycle changes, it doesn't stay consistent. I swapped out my main PCB with another one I had (that I thought worked) and had the same exact problem. So I swapped out my AR board with another one and still have the same problem. I do have another Tempest cab that has a bad monitor, I can get the game to play blind in that one but not in my good cab. I guess I'm just wondering what am I missing? I work on these a lot and this is the first time I've had this issue. Anything is appreciated, thanks...

-Dave
 
Re-flow the solder joints on the interconnect header pins on the main, and aux board. Clean the pins and replace your connector.
 
40+ power bricks I've worked on only 1 needed a new cap. You can measure across the cap for AC voltage, if it's more than .1 VAC you might think about it. If more than around .5 VAC gets past the filter you will start seeing problems.
 
Yea, the spot killer is on come to think of it.... But the game does not play blind ether. Also, I just recently (within this past year) rebuilt the power brick with a new Big Blue and fuse set. I'll try re-flowing/cleaning the interconnect header pins and see if that makes a difference. Thanks.

-Dave
 
Yea, the spot killer is on come to think of it.... But the game does not play blind ether. Also, I just recently (within this past year) rebuilt the power brick with a new Big Blue and fuse set. I'll try re-flowing/cleaning the interconnect header pins and see if that makes a difference. Thanks.

-Dave

As long as that spot killer's on, the monitor's not getting full video output from the board(s). I'm sure the guys here will be able to tell you more on the 'why', I just know that until that light goes off, you're not going to be playing any Tempest. :(
 
Yea, I didn't even think to look at the monitor since I knew that with the test patter showing that the monitor wasn't the issue. Plus I installed an LV2000 a while back and since then I've never had an issue with it. I have a feeling this will come down to a connection or board issue, just not sure which yet. Just seems to be something simple and I can't seem to wrap my head around it. I love these stupid things but sometimes I hate them as well...

-Dave
 
Yea, I didn't even think to look at the monitor since I knew that with the test patter showing that the monitor wasn't the issue. Plus I installed an LV2000 a while back and since then I've never had an issue with it. I have a feeling this will come down to a connection or board issue, just not sure which yet. Just seems to be something simple and I can't seem to wrap my head around it. I love these stupid things but sometimes I hate them as well...

-Dave

It's most likely a board issue as you have mentioned (and others)- if the board's not generating the video output for some reason, or the signal is poor then, voila. That's one of the oddities of Tempest: it can make you full-out think your monitor's got issues, when it's really not the monitor at all.

My God I'm actually starting to understand all this stuff!
 
my Tempest quite working last week after years of problem free service
...
Also, I just recently (within this past year) rebuilt the power brick with a new Big Blue and fuse set.

I usually have enough broken crap to keep from fixing things that have years of problem free service...
 
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