Space Duel Help

jm2u

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Hello,

Today I started working on a Space Duel cocktail project. The cocktail came with only the AR2 and Audio board, I purchased a PCB that was said to the working from a KLOV member.

Before plugging in the PCB I tested the AR2 output voltages and they were all within spec. Both DC and AC, and after replacing the AC cable's broken ground tab, I plugged in the PCB. PCB measured 5.01v at the 5v Test point on the board. This did not waver and held steady.

Now, I don't have a monitor, but if this PCB is good, it should probably be playing blind. Right?

Instead I get a solid light on the board, 2 lights on the start buttons. Normally it will make a few beeps and then lock on to a beep or even an Explosion noise. BUT, just ONCE after about 20 beeps it entered a mode where any button pressed would play a sound.

Would you say I bought a bad board? It does some some evidence of acid damage, but nothing is a dead giveaway with my continuity tests.
 
Did you swap out the big blue?

Sounds like the time button presses did stuff it was in test mode. Maybe try twiddling the test switch and checking the dip switches?

I'm 99% sure it will play blind without a monitor. My Tempest and my Asteroids Deluxe both do.
 
Nope, no blue cap swap yet. I believe that is just the 5v filter, and I'm getting dead on 5v to the PCB with no movement. I measured it for 30 seconds and only once saw it fall to 4.85 which is probably well within tolerance.

I'm starting to think I got scammed on this board. The traces look pretty bad near the Pokey chip, can't imagine it ever worked.

Nightbringer, you let me know if you want to take this off my hands. I'm not buying another board. :) What a let down.
 
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I wouldn't assume it's the board if you haven't first replaced the big blue and did an AR rebuild. There are SOO many stories of people who have measured the voltage and it looks good, but their game doesn't work. There's two posts in this same group just from yesterday alone.

I repair atari boards and I always tell people to check there boards and have them at least measure the +5, and I still get boards that work perfect when hooked up to a known good power supply.

you probably won't see AC ripple with just a normal multimeter and that will crush your board.

you wouldn't believe how many boards I've bought off ebay that were "bad" that worked just fine... I can only imagine that people didn't rebuild their AR and replace the big blue before they determined they were bad and sold them.

first rule of video game repair... ENSURE your power works before ANYTHING else.
 
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FYI power supply issues are so common and under appreciated when I sell or fix a board I always send a video or picture of it working before shipping just so people don't think I sold them a non-working board.

This is specifically because I'd bet odds on that people have a bad power supply/big blue before I'd bet they have a good one. especially on these older games.

sure there's a chance that someone sold you a non-working baord, but I'd say there's more a chance that you have bad power, especially if your game was missing the game board... people usually don't take out "bad parts" and leave the rest.. they canibalize the good parts.
 
Agree with everything brzezicki said. You cannot put a known working part in with untested parts and assume the result will work.

However, it sounds like the board is booting into test mode. I would flip your test switch and see if that makes a difference.
 
Nope, no blue cap swap yet. I believe that is just the 5v filter, and I'm getting dead on 5v to the PCB with no movement. I measured it for 30 seconds and only once saw it fall to 4.85 which is probably well within tolerance.

I'm starting to think I got scammed on this board. The traces look pretty bad near the Pokey chip, can't imagine it ever worked.

Nightbringer, you let me know if you want to take this off my hands. I'm not buying another board. :) What a let down.

That's Zud's cocktail, right? I've turned that one down twice - just don't have the floor space for another cocktail. Even a cool one!

I may have an extra big blue from Bob Roberts around here though. PM me if you're interested.
 
FYI power supply issues are so common and under appreciated when I sell or fix a board I always send a video or picture of it working before shipping just so people don't think I sold them a non-working board.

This is specifically because I'd bet odds on that people have a bad power supply/big blue before I'd bet they have a good one. especially on these older games.

sure there's a chance that someone sold you a non-working baord, but I'd say there's more a chance that you have bad power, especially if your game was missing the game board... people usually don't take out "bad parts" and leave the rest.. they canibalize the good parts.

Hm good point. I'll at least swap the Big Blue, I may one that's comparable lying around.
Flipping the test switch to game mode produces for less results, most of the time it doesn't boot or crashes after a couple beeps.

I don't have a scope, and I want to wait until I have a game that play blind before I spend any more cash on a monitors. Assuming I can find one...
 
Got her working! First off, tell me, does this board NEED the ER-2055 chip to boot? I found it was so rusted it had 2 snapped legs. Meantime, I ground off the chip side rust and soldered on resistor legs plugged into the socket to make a temporary connection.

I rebuilt the AR2 (no change), Replaced the big blue with a modern cap (no change), and finally found that er2055 and re-soldered the edge connectors (joy!). I'm guessing the edge connectors were the problem...d'oh.

Check out my 5 dollar Big Blue replacement. Haha.
 

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If I am not mistaken, if that chip is bad the board might stop during the self-test at that chip. To finish the test there may be a two button combination that needs to be pushed to re-set the chip and finish the test.

I am just going on memory when I had a game (BattleZone or Red Baron I think) that would report that chip bad and the fire and start button at the same time had to be pressed at the same time to finish the self-test.

This was quite a while ago and I may be confusing some of the details... and it was a different Atari game although I suspect it is the same procedure...
 
Hm, that's interesting. I'd be curious to see if my resistor leg hack got it working, or if it's just not needed. I'll see (well, listen without a monitor) what it does it test mode.
 
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