Qbert Issues

Robotron Jon

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Sound works when you start a game but goes out after a while. I have a rebuilt power supply and rebuilt sound board. This includes loss of all sound and speech.

If you turn the game on and off again the sound comes back. I was thinking maybe it's the sound pot.

Otherwise, no clue on this one.
 
Sound works when you start a game but goes out after a while. I have a rebuilt power supply and rebuilt sound board. This includes loss of all sound and speech.

If you turn the game on and off again the sound comes back. I was thinking maybe it's the sound pot.

Otherwise, no clue on this one.

Mine's been doing the same thing for years. I reseated my 7 in 1 kit a few months ago and now it seems to be working with all sounds again. I have done more 'mods' and shit to this machine than any other and it still has issues crop up from time to time, all sound-related.
 
Mine's been doing the same thing for years. I reseated my 7 in 1 kit a few months ago and now it seems to be working with all sounds again. I have done more 'mods' and shit to this machine than any other and it still has issues crop up from time to time, all sound-related.

That's a good point. I also have the multi-kit in mine. I should try to re-seat it and see if that fixes it. Thanks for the help.

This is one of those games that never seems to be 100% for very long.
 
Tried re-seating everything but the game eventually died. +5 went out. Power supply needs repair - and I just had it repaired last year. Always something with this game.

Thanks for the reply.
 
No it was the arcade gods. Man I have a lot of games not working right now.

Indy 500 has been out for 2 years. If it wasn't so big it would have been kicked out of the arcade by now.

Centipede has "E" all over the screen and beeps non stop - looking for a replacement board.

Stargate, intermittent resetting but otherwise works.

Qbert - totally dead now. Hopefully it's just the +5 and the other boards and the knocker are not fried.

Robotron - power supply missing +5.

Space Duel - monitor crapped out. putting in a bob roberts kit. been down more than 2 months. I have two of these games and the other one has issues with vectors.

Battlezone - monitor is blooming.

Joust- RAM 12 error but I can get it to boot and play.

Ms Pac - hum bar that just won't go away.

STTNG pin - optos need cleaning or replacing. one cannon loom should probably be replaced.

T2 Pin - header pin for backbox lights needs to be replaced. one playfield light is intermittent.
 
No it was the arcade gods. Man I have a lot of games not working right now.

Indy 500 has been out for 2 years. If it wasn't so big it would have been kicked out of the arcade by now.

Centipede has "E" all over the screen and beeps non stop - looking for a replacement board.

Stargate, intermittent resetting but otherwise works.

Qbert - totally dead now. Hopefully it's just the +5 and the other boards and the knocker are not fried.

Robotron - power supply missing +5.

Space Duel - monitor crapped out. putting in a bob roberts kit. been down more than 2 months. I have two of these games and the other one has issues with vectors.

Battlezone - monitor is blooming.

Joust- RAM 12 error but I can get it to boot and play.

Ms Pac - hum bar that just won't go away.

STTNG pin - optos need cleaning or replacing. one cannon loom should probably be replaced.

T2 Pin - header pin for backbox lights needs to be replaced. one playfield light is intermittent.


Damn, the big one can't come soon enough.
 
We have a generator to keep the arcade working when the big one hits, provided the arcade does not fall off the cliff. I guess that's why i have spare games in the garage.
 
My qbert is my most reliable machine. Its only went out once and that was because I was testing a board in it that caused the power supply to pop. I now have a rule to never test boards in my own machines.
Send the power supply in to me and I will get it fixed up for you. Check your bridge rectifiers on your power brick, I have seen plenty of them bad on qberts. To test the one for the +5 you will need to remove one wire from the large filter cap to get correct readings.
 
I now have a rule to never test boards in my own machines.

+1 and ++1 for vectors pcbs. My poor BZ has been through hell but has been working flawlessly since I stopped using it for a test station. Especially after my monitor was rebuilt by MarkH with a NOS tube.

Bill
 
Okay, I had some time tonight and took a look at Qbert. Haven't sent in the power supply yet because I am pretty sure there is more to this problem and it might not be the board at all. I took a look at the power brick and pulled out F1 and the fuse broke apart. Had a hard time getting out the bottom piece but managed to pull it out and replace it with a 5 amp 250v (the one in there was a 4 amp 250v).

When the problem first happened, the marquee light and monitor stayed on but now I get nothing when I turn it on. Maybe the cap of the fuse holder is bad? Does anyone sell these?

Nothing works except the LEDS on the power supply (except +5 which is out). Monitor out - no neck glow - no marquee light - knocker does not kick when game is turned on and boards do nothing.

Anyone have any ideas?
 
So I think I will work on the power brick...it is really crusty.

I have come up with the following list of parts:

1 55kuf25volt CG cap 2 1/2" D x 3"
2 3502 bridge rectifiers
3 fuse holders
2 AC Panel Mount Fuse Holder
1 pk 10A AGC fuses
1 pk 1ASB
1 pk 2ASB
1 pk 3ASB
1 pk 4ASB
1 200 ohm 5W resistor

Bob does not have the 200 ohm 5W resistor. Anyone know where to get that? Am I missing any parts? Since I will have the brick out of the cab I might as well do the whole thing once...
 
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Bob does not have the 200 ohm 5W resistor. Anyone know where to get that? Am I missing any parts? Since I will have the brick out of the cab I might as well do the whole thing once...

Is this the resistor that is across the filter cap? If so im pretty sure thats a 1w resistor but it wouldnt hurt to bump it up to 5w since alot of them are burned.
 
Is this the resistor that is across the filter cap? If so im pretty sure thats a 1w resistor but it wouldnt hurt to bump it up to 5w since alot of them are burned.

Yes it is the one across the filter cap.
 
So I worked on replacing all the stuff on the power brick. It needed a good cleaning too.

The only issue I had is with the 200 ohm 5 watt resistor. I could not find one so I used a 220 ohm 5 watt resistor instead. It's an NTE 5W122. After looking around at previous repair threads this is an acceptable replacement. It's used to discharge the monitor apparently.

Too late tonight to put the brick back in the machine, will do it tomorrow. We'll see if it works. Got three games fixed this week, and this MIGHT make four if all goes well.
 
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Put the block in this morning and it's now working. Thanks for the help.

Now I am back to the original problem I was having with this game before the other issues occurred. There are horizontal lines across the game characters and some of the text in the game. Looking thorugh the documentation available on this issue it looks like this is K10 and L7-8. Anyone else ever have this issue with their Qbert?
 
I replaced L7-8 and the horizontal lines are gone. Yea!

I found another issue though. I get to a level where I can see the yellow blocks but the other color does not appear. It's black and if I jump on all the yellow blocks the entire screen is black. Obviously there is a color missing because I cannot pass the level. I checked the strategy guide and this kind of level does not appear to actually exist in the game so I must be missing a color.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks.
 
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Took a look at this again today. The test switch is kind of iffy, seems like there is a short in it. Not sure if this has any correlation to the missing pieces in the pyramid..I'd guess not but who knows.

I did put the game in test mode and could not see any issues. Not really sure what to look for in test mode....
 
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