Pole Position Road and Line Issues

thebarkley

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I have a Pole Position upright that I just acquired that is having some screen issues. It has the original Matsushida TM-202g that was in vertical collapse when I brought it home. I reflowed and added solder to the chassis, pushed on all the chips and edge connectors, and made some adjustments to get rid of the collapse (for now), but now there seem to be some other screen issues.

Here is a video of what I see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2_0-s8JKug

I plan on doing the bulletproof mod later today, but I am currently getting a pretty steady 5v on both boards. Any ideas?

Also, when doing to bypass mod is it recommended to run new wire from the AR2s or tap into the harness?

Any ideas? Thanks so much.
 
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that's definitely a PCB error. I know that's not much. but that's were you need to start looking

-brian
 
According to the manual, issues with the raceway itself can be traced to PROMs at 2L, 2M, 2N, and 4L on the video board, and the custom IC at 3N. I would start with those.

Regarding the power mod, I think most people just tap into the 5v and ground wires on the harness right as it meets the edge connectors.
 
According to the manual, issues with the raceway itself can be traced to PROMs at 2L, 2M, 2N, and 4L on the video board, and the custom IC at 3N. I would start with those.

Regarding the power mod, I think most people just tap into the 5v and ground wires on the harness right as it meets the edge connectors.

ahh, thanks so much. will do. now that you mentioned it, i am not sure how i missed that table in the manual.
 
update:

so i reflowed/resoldered almost every video related chip according to "Table 2.1" in the manual, pulled/cleaned/deoxited/reseated all socketed chips, did the "bulletproof" mod, did the "sense" mod, and i am still getting the weird shapes on the road and the vertical dotted lines. i also bought an "untested" video pcb off ebay to swap chips with, but turns out that was in worse shape than what i am working with. i am stumped as what to try next. any ideas?
 
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Did you try swapping out any of the ICs listed earlier with ones from the new board? You mentioned reflow and reseating, but that only helps if the problem was the connection... if the IC itself has failed it's still going to be bad no matter how well-seated it is.

If the chips are socketed, just swap them one at a time with the ones from the other board to see if anything changes. Replacing the sockets themselves might help too. If any of them are soldered to the board, remove them and put new sockets in their place so it's easy to swap the chips around.
 
Did you try swapping out any of the ICs listed earlier with ones from the new board? You mentioned reflow and reseating, but that only helps if the problem was the connection... if the IC itself has failed it's still going to be bad no matter how well-seated it is.

If the chips are socketed, just swap them one at a time with the ones from the other board to see if anything changes. Replacing the sockets themselves might help too. If any of them are soldered to the board, remove them and put new sockets in their place so it's easy to swap the chips around.

thanks for the reply!

yup, sorry, i forgot to mention that. i also swapped any socketed chips with their counterparts on my extra board. i actually discovered that there were more faulty chips on the secondary board from ebay. i am getting no RAM or ROM errors on the test screen and other than the graphical issues the game plays flawlessly.
 
thanks for the reply!

yup, sorry, i forgot to mention that. i also swapped any socketed chips with their counterparts on my extra board. i actually discovered that there were more faulty chips on the secondary board from ebay. i am getting no RAM or ROM errors on the test screen and other than the graphical issues the game plays flawlessly.

Did you try the game with the new video board, rather than just swapping some of the ICs around? You said it's in rough shape so it may not even work, but swapping the entire board out and seeing how the game works might tell you something anyway. Keep in mind that the PP error check doesn't identify problems with every chip on the boards, just some of them.

The other thing to try is replacing the sockets for the ICs in question. A bad socket is not uncommon, and it will cause the same problems as a bad IC. They aren't terribly expensive, but you need to be handy with the soldering iron because removing the old ones without a desoldering tool can be difficult.

Once you're sure the sockets and chips in question are all good but you still have an issue, then it gets tricky. Because if those ICs are all good, then that means you have an issue with something that's connected to those ICs, and that can turn into a pretty complex problem to track down. That's a higher-level repair and at that point, many send their boards off to somebody with experience. Many also roll up their sleeves and learn to do it themselves, but PP isn't a particularly easy one to learn on!
 
Did you try the game with the new video board, rather than just swapping some of the ICs around? You said it's in rough shape so it may not even work, but swapping the entire board out and seeing how the game works might tell you something anyway. Keep in mind that the PP error check doesn't identify problems with every chip on the boards, just some of them.

The other thing to try is replacing the sockets for the ICs in question. A bad socket is not uncommon, and it will cause the same problems as a bad IC. They aren't terribly expensive, but you need to be handy with the soldering iron because removing the old ones without a desoldering tool can be difficult.

Once you're sure the sockets and chips in question are all good but you still have an issue, then it gets tricky. Because if those ICs are all good, then that means you have an issue with something that's connected to those ICs, and that can turn into a pretty complex problem to track down. That's a higher-level repair and at that point, many send their boards off to somebody with experience. Many also roll up their sleeves and learn to do it themselves, but PP isn't a particularly easy one to learn on!

yup, tried swapping the boards first...no worky. i still feel pretty fortunate that it plays and pretty proud of where i have gotten it so far, since it wasnt working at all when i picked it up. i'd be comfortable replacing a socket or two, but not without narrowing it down first since the board is working. would hate to do more damage.

i may just bite the bullet and send it off to someone to repair or just play as is until the FPGA multi comes out.

thanks for the help!
 
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