Pole Position II will not turn on

john2654

Well-known member

Donor 3 years: 2011, 2020, 2024
Joined
Mar 30, 2010
Messages
6,426
Reaction score
1,272
Location
Rhinelander, Wisconsin
I have a Pole Position II arcade that will not power on correctly. The monitor is an obvious replacement. The Wells Gardner was made in 2003. It does a constant ticking noise. It has 125V AC going to it. Also the PCB board is malfunctioning. The LEDs light up and you can hear the game kick on, then off then on....There is a lot of corrosion near the battery on the board.
 
Welcome to the forum. Your post made me laugh, cause that's about what every Pole Position is like.

I'm working on one right now. Its pretty much dead. Although mine came with the original
monitor.

My boards are being worked on right now, by Dick Millikan. He is a member here and repairs Pole Position PCBs. [email protected]

Good luck, and keep us informed of your progress.
 
Pole Position won't turn on. Gee, I thought that was their natural state...

Welcome to the forums. And sorry that your first project is Pole Position.

The monitor is probably the easier fix. If it's making a constant ticking noise, then my bet would be that the horizontal output transistor is shorted. Since it's a newer monitor, it has a switchmode supply (rather than rectified line voltage), so the power supply tries to start, is overloaded by the short, and shuts down. This as opposed to blowing fuses like an older monitor. Find and remove the horizontal output transistor. Check it for shorts with your meter.

As for the game itself... May the arcade gods have mercy on your boards. If you've never done board repair before, Pole Position is *not* the place to start. They barely worked when they were new. But, start by checking voltages at the test points. Pole Position is notorious for poor power supplies and poor power distribution. Last Pole Position I worked on had a voltage drop of .8 volts from one end of the board to the other!

Also, check the edge connectors on the boards. They're well known for burning up. If they look dirty, clean them with alcohol. If they're burnt, then... you have more repairing to do, as the connector on the harness is probably melted. Check that too.

-Ian
 
I'll just try to save the monitor and try to hack it into my monitorless Bump 'N Jump. I don't have time to be messing with the game boards. Someone on fleebay is offering a service to repair the PPII boards for $175 + S&H. I don't think it is worth it??? Is the PPII cabinet worth parting out? It is a shame because it is in good condition.
 
If you can, I'd fix it. Pole Position II is a good game, and a lot of fun to play. And, since so many have already been parted out, there are a lot of parts out there. So, if you cabinet is in good shape, I'd definitely go for fixing it. First, I'd fix the monitor, then see what you get on the screen from the game boards. Check the voltages at the boards. If you need board work, I'd send the out, I know I've heard good things about Dick Millikan here on the forums.

-Ian
 
Welcome in the club of dead PP_II. I'm working on a non working PP_board for 3 month. Now I fixed a few things and get a RAM 6 error, still waiting for 2x2148 RAMs. Then I will see. Dick is a very helpful man, without him I wouldn't have get the board in this stadium. Special greets to him. Sometimes when I have got some time and my wife won't kill me while working in the cellar on a pcb, I made for every EPROM and Custom Chip a new drilled socket. Don't know if anyone of the members was so crazy before. My hint up to know: make good GND and +5V line strips at the beginning.
Good luck
 
I guess I will try to save the Pole Position II. I'll be shipping my PPII boards out to Dick. Can't beat his price.
 
i would make sure you ar2's are rebuilt and on the power brick replace the fuser holder and rectifier and also replace both big blues before sending the board out. making sure you are getting the proper voltages is an important first step.
 
"typical repair is $70 + shipping if the boards are complete and reasonably repairable" per Dick
 
Started a little back on the Pole Position II. Instead of sending them out, I decided to give it a go. Swapped out monitor, so that's not a problem anymore. The game starts, shows the test pattern checker board type screen, then does it's garble screen tests. As soon as it gets to the RAM OK, ROM OK, ACCEL 00, STEERING FF...screen it restarts. I removed the battery for obvious reasons. I tested the 5V test points on both sides. The left board is about dead on 5V and the right board is a little less then 5V. I heard that these boards like a tad bit more than 5V on both boards. Can I just remove the old crap power supply in there and add a newer switcher? Then I could adjust the 5V power. Or just disconnect the current 5V leads to the boards and run the switcher's 5V to them?
 
you need the ar boards for sound, disconnect the 5v's to board boards and install a swticher using the test points. i installed a switcher as a test trial this week with only 15amp on the 5v line and so far is running good, we'll see if it lasts. like andy said 25amp is preferred but you'd have to get a computer power supply for that.
 
Yes. You can definitely run a Pole Position off a switcher. As others have said, you just need a hefty switcher :)

You need to maintain the AR-II board for the sound, but you can modify them to run off the 12v from the switcher by disabling the regulator section. There was a Star Tech journal article about that, pretty simple.

I re-did a friend's Pole Position cockpit like this, and it's now running flawlessly off a computer power supply. I used an older AT style supply, 200w.

-Ian
 
Back
Top Bottom