Robotron Randomly Resetting itself.

Madaracs

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It had been running pretty stable recently but now it seems I've got a new issue and I thought I would ask other Robotron experts where to start.

This is a cocktail Robotron.

The harness was built from scratch by rhombus. It runs a little short to the coin door and there was an exposed wire that was shorting on the coin box. I think it caused one of the slow blow fuses to burn out twice. I taped that up and carefully moved it aside when closing the coin door... It worked great for about a month after that.

I'm thinking it's a ground or power supply issue but I was wondering if anyone else had a similar experience or advice they could share.

[Edit]

Found this:

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showpost.php?p=1057545&postcount=6

I'll give some of that a try too.
 
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Check the voltages at the RAM chips. If you have the original 4116 RAM chips, the voltages should be -5V, +12V, +5V and ground at the 4 corner pins starting at 1 (1, 8, 9, 16=gnd).

That will let you know if you have power supply issues. If you do, you can rebuild the power supply pretty easily or there are several of us that rebuild them.

ken
 
I had a coin lockout coil giving me fits with blowing fuses. Check and see if that thing looks burned up if it's in there.

And I'm sure you know about the 4164 RAM conversion for these Williams games. I highly recommend it.
 
Turned the game on last night... it behaved the whole dang night.

Actually, I had not heard of the RAM conversion until you mentioned it. I'll check that out.

I will also check for the coin lockout coil issue.

Thanks guys for the suggestions.

I'll be tinkering tomorrow after work when I've got some time to blow on it.

:D
 
Turned the game on and she fizzled to a halt.

I'm not sure what's happening but ultimately the fuses at:

F4 250V 2A
F5 250V 7A

both keep burning out.
 
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Turned the game on and she fizzled to a halt.

I'm not sure what's happening but ultimately the fuses at:

F4 250V 2A
F5 250V 7A

both keep burning out.

F4 & F5 should both be 7A slow blow fuses:

picture.php


ken

PS: I don't recommend switching power supplies for Williams games. You run a significant chance of losing setting and high scores. This topic has been beaten to death on the forums and like all good zombies it rises again.
 
Weird. So when I got it--it must have had a 2A in it. I guess I should have RTFM.

I'll double check to make sure I don't have a 2A in that position tonight. That might be the ticket right there.
 
I had this problem when I was running my Robotron on a switching ps. Got Dokert to rebuild me the original ps and have had zero issues since. Also scored a working back-up ps since then just in case.
 
I've also had this problem on my cabaret Robotron. I found that one of the headers on the power supply board that connects to the power block had cold solder joints. As well, the male connector had oxidized pins. Replacing both the headers and the male connector with new ones fixed my random resets.

I never had fuses blow though.
 
Man I feel for you....My Robotron caused me no end of frustration....After it sitting dead for 5 years, I finally go on the net, read about JROK's board. I then found a seller to sell me a used one and soon my Robotron will be back up and running (been playing on a neo geo using JROk and its pretty nice on 25")

The next step is to rewire the cab using arcadeshop's wiring harness and life and my robotron will be complete.......
 
ditto- i sold mine because it was non-stop something or other. while the friend who wanted to buy it has daily problems, i've been playing it on a cab hooked to mame.

sure as heck wish the JROK boards were accessible again as another run.. you were lucky to find one available for sale.
 
Man I feel for you....My Robotron caused me no end of frustration....After it sitting dead for 5 years, I finally go on the net, read about JROK's board. I then found a seller to sell me a used one and soon my Robotron will be back up and running (been playing on a neo geo using JROk and its pretty nice on 25")

The next step is to rewire the cab using arcadeshop's wiring harness and life and my robotron will be complete.......

Arcadeshop does not have a wiring harness for a Robotron. They do have a Jamma harness however.
 
Man I feel for you....My Robotron caused me no end of frustration....After it sitting dead for 5 years, I finally go on the net, read about JROK's board. I then found a seller to sell me a used one and soon my Robotron will be back up and running (been playing on a neo geo using JROk and its pretty nice on 25")

The next step is to rewire the cab using arcadeshop's wiring harness and life and my robotron will be complete.......

Arcadeshop does not have a wiring harness for a Robotron. They do have a Jamma harness however.

He is going to wire it for JAMMA to run the JROK board.

I'd gladly trade him a completely working Robotron boardset for that JROK board :D

ken
 
He is going to wire it for JAMMA to run the JROK board.

You sir are correct. I just bought a hole saw as I am considering adding a bunch of holes to my control panel....The control panel has a torn overlay and happ microswitch joysticks so hopefully no one will fault me for carving up an original panel....

I'd gladly trade him a completely working Robotron boardset for that JROK board :D


I am sure you would!! One major advantage of JROK's board which bears frequent repeating is that the shot in the corner reset bug has been patched....There should never be any random resets playing JROK's board....I have had many resets with my original boards (when they worked) and in fact, I was on my way to breaking the magic 10 million mark when the game reset (I was at around 6 million and was rocking the game.....)

Now that I have started playing again in the last week or so, I am struggling to break a million....damn these slow reflexes.....

Regards,

C.
 
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