Power Supply Took Out My PCB :(

zenomorp

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Dammit. Turned on my Wrestlemania today and I got nothing. Marquee lit up and the monitor powered up, so I turned the cab off and back on again. Nothing. Ok, "power supply must have died," I thought. I proceeded to install a new one, verified voltage levels, and hooked the Jamma wires to it. Turned the cab on again. Bingo! Board booted up and began the rom check. That's where the story takes a turn.

After the board finished it's checks (all roms/rams/components pass/green), it immediately resets and just keeps repeating the process. Luckily, I had a spare Wolf Unit board and swapped the roms into it. Slaved it in the cab and presto! No more resetting and game plays fine now. I now have no more spare Wolf Units and I'm stuck with a board that keeps resetting.

Damn power supply must have sent some errant voltages and took out an unknown component on the board. I haven't really troubleshot anything. It's on the bench in the garage. I'll get to it later. The story ends somewhat happily, but now I have ANOTHER Wolf Unit board to troubleshoot. One more example of a power supply taking out a board.

Just felt like sharing. Thanks for reading!
 
Look closely at the board and you'll see some tiny tiny grey surface mount coils marked as "L1", "L33", etc... Check those for continuity with your digital multimeter. You'll have to look closely to find 'em all as there are MANY on the board.

They can sometimes act as little fuses and go open. It'll drive you nuts trying to find the problem of why some chips are missing power. ;)
 
What kind of power supply was it that died? I thought dying switchers were not supposed to do that.
 
I don't know about switchers but linear supplies can do that. I had a Time Soldiers in a Make Trax cabinet with the original PS in it. The PS fried and sent 12V to the 5V output and fried the PCB.
 
Look closely at the board and you'll see some tiny tiny grey surface mount coils marked as "L1", "L33", etc... Check those for continuity with your digital multimeter. You'll have to look closely to find 'em all as there are MANY on the board.

They can sometimes act as little fuses and go open. It'll drive you nuts trying to find the problem of why some chips are missing power. ;)

Thanks! I'll give 'em a look-see.
 
With Brood's help, the problem is now fixed!!...



Thanks man and I'm 'glad' your problem arose to lead us to your fix being my fix as well.

:)
 
With Brood's help, the problem is now fixed!!...

Thanks man and I'm 'glad' your problem arose to lead us to your fix being my fix as well.

:)

heh, awesome! I was pretty pissed when it happened but to know that the problem was found and other boards are being brought back to life makes it sting a hell of a lot less.

Hope you can get some of your others up and running again just like this and other people as well, thanks for making a vid.
 
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