Cleaned up the cabinet base with a magic eraser, like I said, the cabinet was in remarkable shape based on the conditions it sat in. There were no chips, no gouges, just lots of dirt and minor scuffs in the vinyl that rubbed out with the eraser. Cleaned and re-painted the grills, added the new t-molding.
Aesthetic components complete!
Onto the electrical portion!
Like I said, the internals were still intact. When it was originally powered up, there was a high pitched noise coming from the speakers, no lights were on except for the PCB LED and some neck glow in the monitor (the monitor itself doesn't have much burn-in). I'm told having neck glow is a good sign of being able to save it.
I re-capped the AC PS, AR board, and PCB (kits from bob roberts) I also replaced a burnt diode on the AR (CR2 I believe)
Using dokert's trusty
PS testing tips here...
Dokert said:
Power Brick
Remove the big 15 pin connector P5
***V***V***
*1***2***3*
*4***5***6*
*7***8***9*
*10**11**12*
*13**14**15*
***********
Meter set to 20vdc
Red lead to pins 1, 2, 3
Black lead to pins 4, 5
Reading should be 10.3 vdc (could read high 13vdc as it is unregulated)
I got
14.31 vdc without load. Might be a bit high...I tested the diodes on the Rectifier Board, (since I have an older version it doesn't have the bridge rectifier like many atari blocks have). They checked out fine. Other than big-blue and the fuse block and fuses (which were replaced with new ones), there really isn't much to this block other than the isolation transformer which apparently never dies!
So I'm not quite sure why the voltage out of these pins are so high. I'll do a bit more reading and researching, it might be a bad connection somewhere?
Dokert said:
Meter set to 200vac
Red lead to pin 6
Black lead to pin 7
Reading should be 36 vac
36 vac for me, perfect.
Dokert said:
Meter set to 20vac
Red lead to pin 8
Black lead to pin 9
Reading should be 6.3vac
6.5 vac, slightly high, but might be ok.
Dokert said:
Meter set to 200vac
Red lead to pin 10
Black lead to Pin 14
Reading should be 80vac
I have no pins for 10 and 14. I think his guide is for the stand-up, which may be the reason I don't see these pins on my brick. Those pins may be for powering the Marquee light and extra coin lamp?
Dokert said:
Meter set to 200vac
Red lead to pin 11
Black lead to pin 13
Reading should be 65vac
I got
61.1 vac, this might be too low.
Dokert said:
A/R I
Remove the 9 pin connector P7 (P5 on the power brick must be plugged back in)
__^__^__
*1**2**3*
*4**5**6*
*7**8**9*
*********
Set meter to 20vdc
Red lead to pins 5, 6
Black lead to pins 1, 4
Reading should be +5vdc (could be as high as 7 or 8 vdc because there is no load)
With my voltage selector turned all the way down, without load the reading was
5.46 vdc.
I plugged in the game PCB and got it to fire up. P1 and P2 were blinking, and the PCB LED was lit:
At least we have juice running through!
I checked voltages at the 5v and 10v PCB test points. Was able to adjust the AR board to get a good 5v running through, but the 10v line was sitting around 12.4. That's pretty high.
That pretty much brings us up to date, and figured I could get some of you guys to chime in.
I'm going to see if I can clean up the edge connect more thoroughly, and check all header pins. I read that it could help lower the voltages I'm getting.
Checking through the
Asteroids Troubleshooting Encyclopedia, blinking P1 and P2 start buttons could mean one of three possibilities listed that I can look into:
a. Fix: Check the power supply, the large capacitor sometimes comes loose, you'll have to remove it from the cabinet to check it from the bottom.
b. Fix: When my board had that problem, it turned out to be loose caps on the board. Specifically, the largish ones on the right upper side. They mostly have to do with the sound FX circuits. But, if they come loose and make/break contact, they send surges that reset the board. The other suggestions I've seen are valid too. Those caps however, since they stick up off the board, may tend to get loose first, but you should probably check all solder joints.
c. Fix: Resocket all EPROMs.
Anyone have any other tips to try to lower that voltage?
In the meantime, I'll be taking apart the monitor and applying the repair-kit.