Operation Wolf -Reboots when I pull the trigger

morphis72

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I picked up an operation wolf recently. I was told that it had been working and was playable the day before so I was hoping it was just a fuse but no such luck.

The +5 looks good and I have pulled socketed chips, cleaned legs and re-seated them and cleaned the edge connectors in the PCB.

After messing with it I got the game to work and play for a few minuets but now it boots, coins up, starts, and at the first trigger pull it reboots every time.

I haven't pulled the gun apart yet, I know there is a motor in it but wasn't sure if that would cause the game to reset.
 
Check in the bottom drawer,there are two small PCB's that need to be recapped.
 
On the front of the base of the cabinet is a built-in drawer where the game PCB sits.

Skip to the 1:49 mark:
 
the game has a filter board that I think all the power runs through. so it's easy to lose juice there. I went through the Op Wolf at GGA for resets, if you follow my PSU guide on how to measure voltage at chips you'll totally understand what I'm saying. :)

there's a few fuses too that I think the voltage lines run through too. make sure they're not corroded and junky. apply Pac-Man fuse logic there as necessary.

or drop me a text.
 
Ah ha- this is the source of my confusion... my cab has no drawer. The boards are screwed to the floor and in the case of the game PCB is just laying loose in there. The drawer front has been nailed to the font and I can see where a drawer once was...

On the front of the base of the cabinet is a built-in drawer where the game PCB sits.

Skip to the 1:49 mark:
 
Thanks - I will go through your guide and report back. I measured at the corner leg of some of the chips and was getting 4.6 volts -- not sure if that was supposed to be 5 or if that was normal for where I was measuring - the power coming off the switcher is dead on 5v. I tried to adjust the power supply up a bit but the voltage on the leg didn't change. The volume went up though which was interesting...

the game has a filter board that I think all the power runs through. so it's easy to lose juice there. I went through the Op Wolf at GGA for resets, if you follow my PSU guide on how to measure voltage at chips you'll totally understand what I'm saying. :)

there's a few fuses too that I think the voltage lines run through too. make sure they're not corroded and junky. apply Pac-Man fuse logic there as necessary.

or drop me a text.
 
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yeah, it's pretty normal for that kind of a drop in voltage. if it were up to me I would do away with the filter board for the power, run the juice straight from the power supply to the boards. I don't remember where it gets +12 from, I think there's a separate board for that, the one with the fuses. switchers back then only output +5 and had no protection, so the companies had to get +12 off a transformer or a separate board, and of course they had fuses in line. so there's several points of failure there. :)

you might also need a new power supply. I have zero tolerance for old or off brand models.
 
May wasn't recap the main Pcb. If your chip voltage stays at 4.6 when you adjust main power then board may be power starved.
I'd try a different power supply. Gun kicks - volts drop under 5 - CPU does what it's supposed to reset.


Located Quakertown PA 18951.
 
May wasn't recap the main Pcb. If your chip voltage stays at 4.6 when you adjust main power then board may be power starved.
I'd try a different power supply. Gun kicks - volts drop under 5 - CPU does what it's supposed to reset.


Located Quakertown PA 18951.

This game board is very power hungry. There is an auxiliary board for 12 v that does the sound and gun motor but your problem is the 5 volt line. Boards for this game should be mounted on a side as drinks spilled always kills them. Make sure none of the inductors touch at the input sides, the little black wire looking thing on main and sound board. Do away with the filter board.
 
Sorry but you reply is a bit unclear. Are you suggesting to recap the game PCB first or swap the power supply first?

May wasn't recap the main Pcb. If your chip voltage stays at 4.6 when you adjust main power then board may be power starved.
I'd try a different power supply. Gun kicks - volts drop under 5 - CPU does what it's supposed to reset.


Located Quakertown PA 18951.
 
You have a good point. My wife keeps spilling her wine in my tempest and this game has a flat surface ho sit a drink on. So it might be worse... I need to rework how this is layed out.

This game board is very power hungry. There is an auxiliary board for 12 v that does the sound and gun motor but your problem is the 5 volt line. Boards for this game should be mounted on a side as drinks spilled always kills them. Make sure none of the inductors touch at the input sides, the little black wire looking thing on main and sound board. Do away with the filter board.
 
This game board is very power hungry. There is an auxiliary board for 12 v that does the sound and gun motor but your problem is the 5 volt line. Boards for this game should be mounted on a side as drinks spilled always kills them. Make sure none of the inductors touch at the input sides, the little black wire looking thing on main and sound board. Do away with the filter board.



I'd recap Pcb regardless but a new power supply is easy to try. Just suggesting the easy stuff. Also if these don't change your current issues it points you toward wiring or Pcb.


Located Quakertown PA 18951.
 
I'd recap Pcb regardless but a new power supply is easy to try. Just suggesting the easy stuff. Also if these don't change your current issues it points you toward wiring or Pcb.


Located Quakertown PA 18951.

I recapped the main game PCB and now the adjustment on the power supply seems to be working... for this game at the chip should I be running 5.0 or is it better at 5.1?
 
I recapped the main game PCB and now the adjustment on the power supply seems to be working... for this game at the chip should I be running 5.0 or is it better at 5.1?

I have seen them work as low as 4.8.

You want it just above 5 volts on the chips. 5.1 is fine at the chips. If you are measuring the supply , set for 5.2 then measure and re adjust at chips.
 
Operation Wolf trigger reset

This is quite a coincidence. I love this game. Back in the day This was my game of choice at arcades. I have owned this game since 2004. I have had issues from time to time and always managed to get it back up and running, mostly thanks to this forum and a donor machine. I moved about 2.5 years ago. At that time I put my operation wolf game in storage, it was working fine when I stored it.
Last Saturday I brought it to my new home. Turned on the switch and was disappointed that noting happened. The only indication that I had power to it was the marquee lit up. So as I have learned I checked the power supply. I had power to it but no voltage out on any of the terminals. I went to my donor machine and was surprised to find that I had not already robbed the power supply out of it. I hooked it up and checked the voltages. It worked. So I put it in my operation wolf. The machine came right back up. I played it just for a minute to make sure it was fully functional. It was. One problem was the monitor was a little out of focus. I couldn't remember which pot on the crt board would fix it. So I thought before I tried to make any adjustments, I would check this forum for information on how to adjust the focus on the monitor. I came across this post and found it interesting and read the whole post. I never even looked for the monitor adjustment. I went back to the monitor and by process of elimination picked the correct pot and adjusted the focus to my liking. I then went back to play the machine to put it through its paces. I hit the coin up and after starting the game, on the first trigger pull, it reset and immediately rebooted. I thought to myself "You have got to be shitting me!"
So from what I had previously read I adjusted the 5.0V up to 5.3V. THAT FIXED IT!
This has got to be the hardest machine to keep operating. They should have named this game "NON-OPERATIONAL WOLF!"

Thanks again to this forum. Otherwise I would have give up on this machine about 13 years ago and used it for a bon fire.
 
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not a JAMMA game, but much like Double Dragon that followed soon after which was, all the Taito games then had those silly junction blocks for power. it's in my estimation that now being 30 years old, they're pretty corroded. you'll experience a drop in voltage between the power supply and boards. I also want to say the +5 and +12 lines had their own separate fuses as well, so like Pac-Man or the Konami games like TMNT, those will corrode and you'll lose even more power.

while it's true you can boost the output voltage to get the game to run, all these little roadblocks I've mentioned increase resistance. I think Op Wolf boards are prone to burning their edge connectors in this event, just like a Pac-Man.

I would encourage undoing the voltage lines off the junction block and maybe molex them together instead. and if you use a modern Happ PowerPro, you can also do away with the line fuses as the power supplies now have overcurrent protection built in.
 
*** I'VE UPLOADED THE SCHEMATICS HERE ***

I've read through this thread a few times but some things don't make sense as I'm looking at my cabinet.

1) Per schematics, the wiring assumes a switching power supply that produces the standard 5v, -5v, 12v.

2) The auxiliary power board supplies -12v and 13v (what is it for?) -- so I'm assuming this is required. It gets the 10v and 11v from a large transformer brick.

3) Folks are mentioning a "junction box", but it looks like this is just for AC power, so we don't need to fuss with that, do we?

4) Unless by "junction box" you are referring to "FCC Board Assy" -- are folks suggesting doing away with this board?
 
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*** I'VE UPLOADED THE SCHEMATICS HERE ***

I've read through this thread a few times but some things don't make sense as I'm looking at my cabinet.

1) Per schematics, the wiring assumes a switching power supply that produces the standard 5v, -5v, 12v.

2) The auxiliary power board supplies -12v and 13v (what is it for?) -- so I'm assuming this is required. It gets the 10v and 11v from a large transformer brick.

3) Folks are mentioning a "junction box", but it looks like this is just for AC power, so we don't need to fuss with that, do we?

4) Unless by "junction box" you are referring to "FCC Board Assy" -- are folks suggesting doing away with this board?

I tend to put a lot of stock in what mecha has to say about power issues. In my game the reboots went away as soon as I replaced all the caps on the game board. I stopped there but probably should go back and replace those interconnect blocks.
 
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