Pac-Man cabaret with a Happ switcher (Blowing fuses)

Yoeddy

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Hey guys,

So I've had my Pac-Man cabaret for several years now and it's working fine. When I bought it, the previous owner had lights in the coin door which I know isn't OEM. It was running stock. When I restored it, I also changed the fuse blocks.

I decided to install a Happ switcher with the included adapter. Fired it up, dialed in the +5 to the board, and the game has worked perfectly ever since. What I did notice was that my coin door lights were no longer working. I immediately thought of the fuses. Sure enough, both 1A fast blow, and both 5A fast blow fuses are toast. Tried new fuses and they get nuked as well.

Like I said, the game works just fine, I can coin up, marquee light works fine…just can't figure out what the Happ conversion does to blow those 4 fuses. Maybe they're just no longer needed? I would like the coin door lights back, but I don't want to risk dropping larger fuses in, without understanding the issue.

Any help would be appreciate guys and gals!

Jason
 
I believe you're supposed to take the fuses out. the Happ power supply is replacing the game board transformer. you have some cross talk battles going between power supplies there. lol
 
I believe you're supposed to take the fuses out. the Happ power supply is replacing the game board transformer. you have some cross talk battles going between power supplies there. lol
I figured it had to be along those lines. They really should include information like this in the manual.

Thanks,
Jason
 
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I figured it had to be along those lines. They really should include information like this in the manual.

Thanks,
Jason
I remember that being a problem with those. I don't use those DC adapters with those, just the old fashioned transformer.
 
I'm not sure how your switcher adapter is made, but I have in my Mini from Mike's Arcade. If I remember right, though, the 12V and 7V from the original supply is not connected to the board in any way at all. The traces on that end of the fingerboard don't run all the way though to the edge connector on the other side, so no way for the AC voltage from the transformer to get mixed up with the DC voltage from the switcher. It's a literal dead end. The pin header on the adapter PCB gets the voltage directly from the switcher and sends it to the board, totally isolated from the AC supply coming from the harness.
I would be really surprised if the arcadeshop adapter is any different.
 
I'm not sure how your switcher adapter is made, but I have in my Mini from Mike's Arcade. If I remember right, though, the 12V and 7V from the original supply is not connected to the board in any way at all. The traces on that end of the fingerboard don't run all the way though to the edge connector on the other side, so no way for the AC voltage from the transformer to get mixed up with the DC voltage from the switcher. It's a literal dead end. The pin header on the adapter PCB gets the voltage directly from the switcher and sends it to the board, totally isolated from the AC supply coming from the harness.
I would be really surprised if the arcadeshop adapter is any different.
well I can tell you, because I have both, that the Mike's Arcade Pac/Galaxian JAMMA adapter is vastly superior to the Arcadeshop one lol but there is a possibility they dummied those pins out from where the edge connector plugs in. I've never seen the DC adapter, so I don't know for certain.
 
It's just a REALLY shitty design.
There's no reason for the AC on the harness side of the adatper to go anywhere on that board.
so it's true, you have to pull the fuses? cause I remember that being a thing years ago and that Arcadeshop didn't document it in the instructions. lol
 
All these mods for reliability are making the game less reliable and way more complicated. I think it's really stupid the way midway designed the ac power to go right into the pacman pcb but damn it, it works and usually never throws up serious issues besides burnt fingers on pcb.
It's just a REALLY shitty design.
There's no reason for the AC on the harness side of the adatper to go anywhere on that board.
A lot of these mods have no business being sold to the public.
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All these mods for reliability are making the game less reliable and way more complicated. I think it's really stupid the way midway designed the ac power to go right into the pacman pcb but damn it, it works and usually never throws up serious issues besides burnt fingers on pcb.

A lot of these mods have no business being sold to the public.
View attachment 859055
it's nothing some new fuse holders and copper tape can't fix.

also apparently the AC design was a Namco aesthetic with Galaxian, and same with Puckman.

Galaxian%20pcbs%20004.jpg

53537363956_730ef85500_c-jpg.723329


Puckman apparently even uses the TTL custom boards. I never really had any interest in looking into this before. lol
 
it's nothing some new fuse holders and copper tape can't fix.

also apparently the AC design was a Namco aesthetic with Galaxian, and same with Puckman.
Thank you for sharing about the original namco pcbs I had no idea, so I'm disappointed with Namco then! Oh I 100% agree on the new fuse holders and copper tape, I'd never do a switcher mod. My pac cabaret is running mr madrits 4-1 with everything pretty much stock except the fuses holders, edge connector I redid, and I built a 13" k7000 with a 19" chassis to replace the dying 4700 I had. I'm the first person on this forum who ever put a 19" k7000 chassis on a 13" tube probably like 7-8 years ago now, everyone said it'll blow up or kill me and now I've seen people doing what I did to build smaller monitors :50: I think you might've been one of the people who said it wouldn't work o_O
 
Thank you for sharing about the original namco pcbs I had no idea, so I'm disappointed with Namco then! Oh I 100% agree on the new fuse holders and copper tape, I'd never do a switcher mod. My pac cabaret is running mr madrits 4-1 with everything pretty much stock except the fuses holders, edge connector I redid, and I built a 13" k7000 with a 19" chassis to replace the dying 4700 I had. I'm the first person on this forum who ever put a 19" k7000 chassis on a 13" tube probably like 7-8 years ago now, everyone said it'll blow up or kill me and now I've seen people doing what I did to build smaller monitors :50: I think you might've been one of the people who said it wouldn't work o_O
I've never had the luxury of seeing a 13" K7000. as it pertains to the K7203 though, which I have one and have worked on many others, the width caps are different between 13" and 19" though I don't remember the exact values of them off hand.

the width wasn't too big?
 
I've never had the luxury of seeing a 13" K7000. as it pertains to the K7203 though, which I have one and have worked on many others, the width caps are different between 13" and 19" though I don't remember the exact values of them off hand.

the width wasn't too big?
Not too big surprisingly, I read the schematics for both the k7000 19" and 13" chassis and besides a few resistor values and width cap values it's entirely the same. I managed to just adjust it in, geometry is perfect, it looks outstanding because the tube I used was brand new. My neighbor gave me a little cheap 13" tv they never used ever and it had the perfect tube for a 13" k700. If I had to I would've modified the width cap values but it just worked! Only issue I had was the monitor was missing green, ended up being the preamp transistor near the video input. It already had a bob roberts cap kit on it which is still on it to this day although I have a higher quality cap kit I can throw in there and I just put a new flyback on it. If I remember correctly the yoke had slightly higher impedence than a normal k7000 and I wonder if that has anything to do with the image size. I also only paid 45$ for the chassis because nobody cared about k7000's back then.
 
Not too big surprisingly, I read the schematics for both the k7000 19" and 13" chassis and besides a few resistor values and width cap values it's entirely the same. I managed to just adjust it in, geometry is perfect, it looks outstanding because the tube I used was brand new. My neighbor gave me a little cheap 13" tv they never used ever and it had the perfect tube for a 13" k700. If I had to I would've modified the width cap values but it just worked! Only issue I had was the monitor was missing green, ended up being the preamp transistor near the video input. It already had a bob roberts cap kit on it which is still on it to this day although I have a higher quality cap kit I can throw in there and I just put a new flyback on it. If I remember correctly the yoke had slightly higher impedence than a normal k7000 and I wonder if that has anything to do with the image size. I also only paid 45$ for the chassis because nobody cared about k7000's back then.
I gained access to some Bob cap kits and ran them through my component tester. they're not even close. :ROFLMAO:

I capped the Z2AW monitors in my PC-10 over 15 years ago with Bob caps. one day...
 
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