Pole Position II Splash Screen??

Phetishboy

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I have a Pole Position II board that I got repaired by Dick Millikan about 2 years ago. Has worked flawlessly up to this point. Now I am running my 5V from a newer switcher, and the edge connector has been bypassed and the 5V and grounds are going directly to the test point tabs. They measure 5.03VDC at those points closest to the edge connector.

When I start up the game, I get an explosion sound, but it seems to come to quickly and it is higher pitched than normal. When I go to the front of the machine, I get a brown 'splash' screen that says Pole Position II, Namco, etc. The screen is a large field of brown, with a small picture window in the lower center that looks like a crumpled Japanese flag. The game goes into test mode fine, but at the bottom shows 'manual start'. It should say 'auto start'. Now while the game was on I walked around to the back, pulled out the board a little ways and rapped lightly on the 2 socketed chips between the 5V TP and the edge connector. The game coined up. Then I played thru one race and it went into attract mode. Left it on for 2 hours no issues.

Turned it on the next day, same splash screen. Rapped on those 2 chips, the game coined up again, but froze at the track selection. restarted, went thru the process, the game coined up and played again. Anyone know what causes the splash screen and what I need to do to get the game into Auto Start mode?
 
I have a Pole Position II board that I got repaired by Dick Millikan about 2 years ago. Has worked flawlessly up to this point. Now I am running my 5V from a newer switcher, and the edge connector has been bypassed and the 5V and grounds are going directly to the test point tabs. They measure 5.03VDC at those points closest to the edge connector.

When I start up the game, I get an explosion sound, but it seems to come to quickly and it is higher pitched than normal. When I go to the front of the machine, I get a brown 'splash' screen that says Pole Position II, Namco, etc. The screen is a large field of brown, with a small picture window in the lower center that looks like a crumpled Japanese flag. The game goes into test mode fine, but at the bottom shows 'manual start'. It should say 'auto start'. Now while the game was on I walked around to the back, pulled out the board a little ways and rapped lightly on the 2 socketed chips between the 5V TP and the edge connector. The game coined up. Then I played thru one race and it went into attract mode. Left it on for 2 hours no issues.

Turned it on the next day, same splash screen. Rapped on those 2 chips, the game coined up again, but froze at the track selection. restarted, went thru the process, the game coined up and played again. Anyone know what causes the splash screen and what I need to do to get the game into Auto Start mode?

It would make sense to try reseating the socketed chips seeing as that makes it coin up..
 
As I recall, there is a edge-connector jumper that controls manual and auto start mode. Its been a while since I played with that stuff-- let me check the schematics.
 
Pins 7 & M on the PCB edge connector must be shorted for auto-mode. There should be a jumper on the harness for this. Looks like custom chip 3M handles part of it. Can you give me the chip locations you pressed on?
 
Pins 7 & M on the PCB edge connector must be shorted for auto-mode. There should be a jumper on the harness for this. Looks like custom chip 3M handles part of it. Can you give me the chip locations you pressed on?

I will when I get home. Thanks for the jumper info.
 
iirc theres a battery on one of those boards tha tleaks.. make sure its not leaking anc if any of those chips and sockets are in that area i think i would replace them and see what ya get...
 
Sounds like you have a poor connection at the edge connector, try pulling the edge connctors and cleaning the board side and the connector side, I use fine brass brush for mine.

The screen your talking about should look something like the one I posted below, that happens when it doesn't boot correctly, I took this picture when mine was doing what your talking about and I fixed it with a simple edge connector cleaning.
 

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I would also like to know about the auto start thing. I had to take mine off free play because the "prepare to qualify" every 5 minutes drove me nuts!
 
I would also like to know about the auto start thing. I had to take mine off free play because the "prepare to qualify" every 5 minutes drove me nuts!
Don't confuse auto-start and free play. Because of how PP/PP2 work, there is no usable free-play. As you note, trying to setup free play just cycles the game. If you setup for manual start then you need to install another button to trigger it (connected to the ST0 pin) at which point you might as well stick with auto-play and add an external credit button.

I built a free-play controller for my PP and it required a separate microcontroller to try and guess the game state and only credit up when you press the gas pedal while in attract mode. Its not perfect, but it works reasonably well and I have not seen any better alternatives.
 
The chips I was tapping were 12E and 12F. Now I tried tapping them this morning and it makes no difference. I cleaned the edge connecter, no change. I am gonna try the board in my cockpit next.
 
The chips I was tapping were 12E and 12F.
Very weird. Those are the EPROMsfor the engine noise sound generator. Am guessing that it was not those directly, but the vibration did something else. I can pop my PP2 set in the cab this evening and experiment a bit. Its been a while since I messed with the start stuff (once its working, you don't worry about it).
 
Here's the splash screen shot:

polesplashscreen.jpg


What pads/pins do I have to jump for the manual start to occur?
 
Oh, and when I did get it to coin up, I kept losing acceleration randomly. I would be cruising, then it would slow down, then I could 'pump' the gas and it would accelerate again. Then slow down. I pulled the pedal molex and reseated it, but I haven't checked the condition of the pins. There are no graphic glitches or missing sounds yet, so there is that.
 
So I installed my PP2 board set and of course it started out by showing solidarity with your set and misbehaving (showing garbage with certain banners). Pushing on chips fixed it for now, but may have my own problem to fix soon. Went through the boot sequence and think I know what you are seeing. When the game is working properly, part of the start up sequence show the road with red & white lines in it (the first image). It then goes to the normal PP2 startup screen (the second image). However, if you reset the game at just the right moment, it will replace the "II" logo with the red & white road which looks very much like a flag (the third image). Apologies for the poor picture, but taking it at just the right moment while resetting the game was a bit of a challenge. Suffice it to say that I duplicated the "flag icon" you see perfectly, but never with the brown background.

The same chip that generates the pulse that is used by the auto-start circuit also generates the reset signals for the video processors and the gas-pedal enable signal. That would be the LS259 @ 8E on the CPU board. Its enabled by the LS138 @ 8D. The decoder which enables them is the PAL @ 7C (which should be socketed so you might want to reseat it). Take a look at 8E/8D and see if they have previously been socketed or show any physical signs of corrosion or such. Its purely a guess, but given that multiple sub-systems are showing problems and are controlled the same group of chips, it seems like the right starting point.

pp2-start1.JPG

pp2-start2.JPG

pp2-start3.JPG
 
Wow, thanks man, looks like someone has a handle on these Pole PCBs. I will be messing with this tomorrow and will report back after messing with those chips. Amazing.
 
try bumping your voltage up to 5.15 and see what happens, and if you haven't already, clean the interconnect edges and reseat the interconnect.
 
I had similar problems with my PP2 when I first got it. I rebuilt the power brick, cleaned the board edge connector contacts, replaced most of the edge connector pins and ran an extra +5v and gnd rail from each AR2 to it's respective board. Never had a problem since. :)

Mitch
 
try bumping your voltage up to 5.15 and see what happens, and if you haven't already, clean the interconnect edges and re-seat the interconnect.

What's funny is I have been running my cockpit at 5.27VDC at the test points and it has run fine for a year. Last night, I heard it reset twice. Time to bump it down a bit methinks. Maybe if I put them both at 5.15 they'll both be perfect.
 
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