musicman282
Active member
Well I've decided to attempt to repair the board in my Omega Race and am going to document the process in this thread. Any help or suggestions are appreciated greatly.
First a little history. I purchased this Omega Race last year in non working condition off of Ebay. I got a really good deal on it and was planning on attempting the repair the board in it. Well I purchased some test equipment and went to town trying to repair the board. I spent hours and hours trying to repair it and was unsuccessful. I finally decided to send it to ElektronForge for repair. They took forever repairing the board but did fix it and for a reasonable price. The game worked for about 3 or 4 months and then one day I turned it on and it didn't work :sad:
So I've decided to attempt to repair it again. I figure since it worked a few months ago I just have to located 1 faulty component to get it working again. I've already gone ahead and rebuilt the power supply using the kit from Bob Roberts to ensure that I have proper voltages. I was having an issue where the power supply was maxing out at 4.9 volts and I suspected that it was causing my issue.
Picture of the game:
I do not have a test bench for vector games so I just took some of the wiring brackets off of the harness in the game so I could set the board in a position to make it easier to test components while it is running.
PCB in position for testing:
I do not own some of the fancy test equipment that others have, but I'm hoping what I have is adequate.
I plan on using a logic probe, oscilloscope, logic comparator, multimeter, and eeprom programmer. I also have a logic analyzer, but it's such a pain in the butt to set up I hope I don't have to use it. I'm thinking for this board repair it shouldn't be necessary.
Tech arsenal:
I've read through Omegaman's posts on his repair threads and I've decided to take a similar approach.
I've read the atari asteroids schematic on the DVG and have marked up the Omega Race schematics so i have a basic understanding of how it works.
Another note is that this board has zero acid damage which is a rarity.
Symptoms:
Game does nothing - the monitor powers up and the spot killer is on. I have good voltages from the rebuilt power supply. I've probed the Z80 and there is life in the circuit. When coined up the coin meter clicks, but there are no error codes flashing on the start buttons and I do not get any error tones out of the speakers.
Plan of attack:
Remove all 2114 rams and see if I get any error codes
Swap out Z80 with Z80 on daughterboard to see if that does anything.
That's all I have so far, after I do those two things I'll update the thread with the results and my next step.
First a little history. I purchased this Omega Race last year in non working condition off of Ebay. I got a really good deal on it and was planning on attempting the repair the board in it. Well I purchased some test equipment and went to town trying to repair the board. I spent hours and hours trying to repair it and was unsuccessful. I finally decided to send it to ElektronForge for repair. They took forever repairing the board but did fix it and for a reasonable price. The game worked for about 3 or 4 months and then one day I turned it on and it didn't work :sad:
So I've decided to attempt to repair it again. I figure since it worked a few months ago I just have to located 1 faulty component to get it working again. I've already gone ahead and rebuilt the power supply using the kit from Bob Roberts to ensure that I have proper voltages. I was having an issue where the power supply was maxing out at 4.9 volts and I suspected that it was causing my issue.
Picture of the game:
I do not have a test bench for vector games so I just took some of the wiring brackets off of the harness in the game so I could set the board in a position to make it easier to test components while it is running.
PCB in position for testing:
I do not own some of the fancy test equipment that others have, but I'm hoping what I have is adequate.
I plan on using a logic probe, oscilloscope, logic comparator, multimeter, and eeprom programmer. I also have a logic analyzer, but it's such a pain in the butt to set up I hope I don't have to use it. I'm thinking for this board repair it shouldn't be necessary.
Tech arsenal:
I've read through Omegaman's posts on his repair threads and I've decided to take a similar approach.
I've read the atari asteroids schematic on the DVG and have marked up the Omega Race schematics so i have a basic understanding of how it works.
Another note is that this board has zero acid damage which is a rarity.
Symptoms:
Game does nothing - the monitor powers up and the spot killer is on. I have good voltages from the rebuilt power supply. I've probed the Z80 and there is life in the circuit. When coined up the coin meter clicks, but there are no error codes flashing on the start buttons and I do not get any error tones out of the speakers.
Plan of attack:
Remove all 2114 rams and see if I get any error codes
Swap out Z80 with Z80 on daughterboard to see if that does anything.
That's all I have so far, after I do those two things I'll update the thread with the results and my next step.

