Space Ace Leland 91 Help Needed

BlaineLocklair

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Donor 2011
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Hello everyone,

I bought a Space Ace '91 a few weeks ago. It works, and I've played it to the end successfully.

However, the longer the game is on, the LD (Sony LD-1450) seems to get "lazy". What I mean is that instead of hitting the mark every time, it starts to have difficulty loading scenes. The beginnings of the scenes are black and white, and sometimes are distorted. After about 30 minutes or so, the game will just black out since the LD cannot seem to hit the mark on the scenes anymore. If I hit the reset button on the PCB, it'll fire right back up, but will die again shortly.

Here's a video that demonstrates the problem:



So far, the only things I've done are to clean the laser with rubbing alcohol and to vacuum out and wipe the cabinet. I also wiped a very small amount of oil on the track rods that guide/support the laser mechanism.

Any ideas? Seems like it could be something small I'm overlooking.

Thanks!
 
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spa ce

you probably need a professional tune clean of the laser player
a laser tech, (if any are left) will take it all apart, adjust several pots to exact specs via a scope, clean a bunch of mini mirrors, and tune some mech devices , belts, pullys, ect inside the unit, in the old days this service was avail at some pioneer service centers for about 110 per player
in larger cities there may be some independant laser techs at tv vcr repair places, not sure if pioneer still supports them
 
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Space Ace Leland '91 Tech Update

Bump with new info.

I took the laserdisc player to a repair shop, and picked it up yesterday. They replaced the belts, fixed the common tray opening issue, cleaned the lens, and got it into good working order.

I took it home, plugged it into the Space Ace cab, and then...

... the same problem surfaced.

It's worth nothing that I had also Novus polished the disc before taking the player in for service. It had no impact on the problem.

Any suggestions as to where to proceed from here? It's driving me nuts, and I really want to keep this game and enjoy it for years to come.

Thanks for looking and for any help you can provide.
 
If you can find a spare working board, you could switch it out and at least determine if you have a board or LD problem. It's always good to have a working spare board anyway.

Have you checked with the Dragon's lair project? Lot's of smart folks over there.


Wish I could help more.
 
The board seems to be fine. It hits the right mark every time, but the video deteriorates as the game continues to operate.

I think the disc must be good too. If it shows the video perfect some times and not others, it is capable of good video, meaning it's not bit rotted.

It's driving me nuts, and I'm sure there is something small here that will tidy things up. Maybe it's "just a fuse." :)

Anyone with an idea for this?

Thanks!
 
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