Star Castle - Various

flynn54321

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Look what I got working today - well sort of...
I got this cabinet about 2 years ago - it was converted to something else. It sat in storage for quite a while (as I collected parts)
Wiring harness had been hacked - and bezel / marquee and CP were all missing.
Monitor was pulled and replaced with a vertical color monitor.

Well after working on this one for a while - I finally got it up and running - sort of.
Game plays but graphics are screwed up.... let me explain.
I can play a full game start to finish = can control ship and fire etc - sounds are all there - but the display is screwed up. I DO KNOW that the monitor is good and the Power Supply is good. Here are two things I noticed.
1. the light on the main pcb was not lit... is it supposed to be?
2. the grey cable from the main pcb to the monitor was touchy - when I would touch it in the middle the screen would go blank. (bad cable I would assume)
3. The graphics problems changed... sometimes I could see my ship very clearly and then when I would wiggle that grey cable it would be bad in the same place (meaning you couldnt really identify the shape of the ship)

My thoughts were - and correct me if I am wrong - replace that grey cable first and see if that clears up the problem (anyone have one?)
Or is that light supposed to be lit and its telling me that there is a board problem?

I have already re-seated the chips - and that didnt do anything.
 

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I had a very similar issue with my game, and the tube was bad. See the attached. Looks similar, right? Mine would also come and go per the intensity of the lines connecting the points. Dimmer, Brighter, Dimmer, Brighter, same underlying problem.

The PCB light should not be lit. It only lights up when you have a bad PCB and, trust me, you don't want that.
To rule out your monitor cable, I found an extra long floppy cable worked if I hacked it a little. Standard stuff applies, the solder is 30 years old now, you might want to get a good iron out and reflow the joints.
 

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That cable going to the monitor carries a lot of the information the monitor needs to display a picture correctly, and they are notorious for going bad. It does a lot more than the rgb/s connector in a raster monitor.

Try redoing the ends of it, by pulling the ribbon off the connector and re-pressing it in after you cut the end 1/2" off. Make sure you get it pressed in perfectly.
 
sounds like I should just try and find a replacement cable - because I did reseat it on the board and on the monitor and that just changed the look of the graphics but did not fix it... Also I found a spot in the cable that seemed to be bad...

Where do I go about finding one of these???
 
First off, check to make sure that the little jumper on the top of the main pcb is set to "nor" and not set on "var" Second, I have some cables at home, shoot me your address and I'll send you one, But I don't think that is your issue. There is probably something gone wrong in the intensity section of the monitor, It could be the 7406 hex invertor, or one of the transistors in that circuit, a missing ground, cut trace... If you are going to the auction on Sat, you can bring it with and get it to one of the guys down near here in Illinois (Troy Akey, Jeff Warden, Hans, Wu or someone else) who can get to me, I'll take a look at it for you.

or, Shoot me a pic of the monitor chassis so I can see which one you have, and I'll send you another one to help you troubleshoot your issue.

take care

lmk


Mark Horcher
847 481-0511
 
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