spy hunter project please help me get it going

Buffett

Well-known member

Donor 2012-2013
Joined
Mar 12, 2010
Messages
10,991
Reaction score
263
Location
Manassas va, Virginia
hi

i have a spy hunter project in unknown condition very dusty like it had'ent been on or touched in 20 years and need some advice.

what i have done to the game before powering it on.

rebuilt the monitor g07cbo verified it working with a different game.

looked over the power supply changed some caps. re-flowed the entire solder side.

changed all the caps on the other little boards sound/cheap squeak/steering censer,ect and re-flowed all the header pins on all the little boards.

adjusted the +5/+12 voltage before plugging in the 3 board stack but had all the other boards hooked up and it was making a loud humming noise in the speakers that never quit it this normal with no board stack hooked up?

then hooked up the main PCB.
turned it on i had vertical scrolling lines on the monitor witch i think was just out of adjustment. the same loud hummmm as before. then before i could do any adjustments i saw smoke coming from the super sound PCB on the top of the 3 board stack and it had fried the black resistor/filter looking thing # cp204. i quickly unplugged it to not do any further damage to any thing else hopefully.

so what could be wrong or did i mess something else up during the re-flow of the headers or is something already wrong and needs to be fixed.

i have 3-4 other spy hunter pcb stacks all in unknown condition but don't want to plug them in and have them get fried as well.

so what should i do now what should i look for or should i try a different PCB stack or just change out the super sound board and try again.


Peace
Buffett
 
You can double check your reflow job....make sure you didn't splash or blob any solder pads together. If they look okay...then check out the SSIO PCB....it may have a shorted cap on it. I've had one with this issue. Also check and make sure that the ribbons cables are installed correctly, and you don't have them misaligned. If you believe the SSIO is the root of your problem, you can remove it from the main PCB stack. The screen will likely be upside down, and you will not have any inputs or sound. But it will allow you to power up the PCB and kinda check the video of the CPU and Video PCB's. (sometimes you will see minor graphics and other issues when the SSIO is removed from the stack)
-Mark
 
cool ill try that give another look over for bridged solder.

and ill take the sound board off and try it again.

the PCB i am using currently came with it and it does not appear have been touched but i will look at the cables again. i never took them off. but that doesn't mean they're not messed up.

Peace
Buffett
 
completely rebuild your linear PS and of course check for issues with solder as mentioned. Resistor burning up might be solder/short related or too much voltage ie. bad PS.
Replace the big capacitors on the power brick in the cab. This should be done in all spy hunters with original PS. May be from something else but I've seen all the symptoms you describe minus the burned resistor come from those two caps being bad. In fact SH is the only game I have ever known of where those two big caps have exploded. And for what it's worth SH's always have some degree of hum even when working well although it should not be overpowering the other sounds.
 
well upon further inspection it looks like i will have to re-pin the power connectors as they look pretty corroded. so i will see if i have enough pins here to do it.

all the reflow looks good no brigdes or blobs on any thing on any board.

the power supply i have for it is a later model -doo witch looks almost brand new yes i took the battery off it. it appears to almost have never been used. no corousin any where on it in any way and all the traces are still firmly secured to the board.

i have a rebuild ready if needed but i metered all the transistors diodes and big resistors ant they are all fine. the only cap i did not replace is the 4700mf 25v it tested well with in tolerance. but i will rebuild it if necessary. and the pots meeter out fine full smooth range of operation.


till i get the power cables repined i wont test it any further

thanks for all the tips so far.

Peace
Buffett
 
Last edited:
making some progress

ok so i finally got a set of boards that work was able to play YEA. the shifter and gas pedal work great. kinda squeaky but ill lube that stuff later.

so far 1 problem down, 1 two go. as far as i know.

i still have the same sound problem really loud humming that doesn't stop unless i un-plug the duel power amp. it over powers the game and a normal talking voice. you have to yell to talk over the humming

i can hear the cheap squeak working in the back ground so it seem to be working ok.

volume pot seems to work for the cheap squeak but doesn't do any thing for the humming.

i noticed that the amplifier chips on the dual power amp get so hot they burn your fingers. that is not normal i know they get warm but not burning hot.

i metered the power +12 is good that comes to the duel power amp board.

but noticed that on duel power amp.

pins 2 and 9 i get +5 volts and
pins 3 and 8 i get -5 volts.

if you reverse the meeter leads they read opposite polarity +/-

pins 2 and 3 are black wires and
pins 8 and 9 are red wires

is that the way they are supposed to be.

this is even after i have unplugged the molex at the power supply so it doesn't apply power to the amp and cheap squeak boards.
so i guess its the sound signal coming off the board???

i kinda traced the black and red wires out and one set seems to go to the volume pot and the other goes to the cheap squeek board.


i cant find the schematic in the manual any where for the duel power amp A084-91648-A304. if any body have a schematic posted for it so i can verify that it is ok. i am using a pdf from on line maby they omitted that page or something. or if its in another manual link me to it please.

it seems that something may be crossed but with out a schematic i cant trace it out hardly at all.

all the wiring in the cab is original and except the board stack and power supply. every thing in the cab is as i got the cab nothing has been changed out. except the power supply and board stack.

i have 3 other amp boards and they all do the same thing make a loud humming and get really hot.

so i almost have another game i suck at working:D so help me figure the sound out and i can start getting better at it:)

Peace
Buffett
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom