Tempest monitor/ display issues....

S4Patrick

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Can anyone perhaps diagnose/ shed some light on this conundrum?


Video of Tempest game play:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRQPnGIf6R4

*ArcadeCup work done to all 3 monitor boards (with LV2000 installed)
*New "big Cap" on power supply (Bob Roberts)
*Main PCB, Aux PCB, and power regulator PCB boards sent for repair work to two reputable repair facilities. (Electron Forge & (also tested on another Tempest game and the boards all work 100%)
*Replaced full wire harness
*Monitor transistors replaced (all 6)
*Reseated all wire harness and wires within the connectors several times.

Any ideas?
 
Are there any errors specified in the OP menu? I know the other companies claim PCBS are good but I'd verify it for myself. Wiggling video cable change anything? Those K6100's are notorious for bad/loose pins.
 
The sound & game play is 100% working.
The screen is only displaying graphics in purple. There are several extra lines/ graphics within the display while in game play. When going from "one level to the next" there's a sprial-line graphic that is all purple as well the rest of "whst's supposed to be there"

Any ideas?
 
What does adjusting the brightness do? The lines are either brightness turned up to high on the monitor, or z-blanking on the game pcb but it looks more like brightness. Have you adjusted the color pots? From your post I don't know if you just got all the parts back, plugged it together and just turned it on without doing anything else and expected it to all work right away...
 
Yeah, sounds like you need to adjust the bias/cuttoff pots on the neckboard and/or the screen voltage at the flyback. The monitor needs to be adjusted to match your picture tube, which may be weaker or stronger than the one on Chad's test setup.

-Ian
 
Great suggestions....keep them coming.

Admittingly, I did just plug all the boards back into the Tempest and just turned it on without doing anything else....I'm not the well-experienced with monitor apparatus at all. So I assumed if it worked for Chad, it will work for me.

I've not put the game into a test mode, due to them working in someone else's Tempest game. Perhaps I should check there. But I assume that the monitor boards don't communicate errors to the PCB.

I've made adjustments on the two monitor flyback dials, to no avail.

As far as the monitor neck board pots, I have not touched those. If I recall correctly, there are a total of 4 color pots. Any tips on tuning the pots? Would the post being out of tune create the extra lines?

Thanks everyone, this is so much appreciated!

~Patrick
 
Made some adjustments with the neck board pots...

Hello...

Last night I turned down the brightness on the Tempest monitor. Seems to have made a significant difference in the picture quality.

As for the pots on the neck board, I adjusted them as best as I could and achieved some significant improvements.

I discovered that one of the pots on the neck board is broken.

Here's a picture of a damaged color pot I found on the neck board PCB:




http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/7807/tempestneckboarddamaged.jpg




Is it broken to the point where it will not work or is it still OK?




Here's what's going on now:

There are still several extra lines within the graphics. Almost like a "connect-the-dots" look to the vector lines that are supposed to be there as part of the game. (That is, all the vector line graphics that should be there as part of the game board are there with dots in between them.)

There's still a bright dot in the center of the screen.

The high score, and player scores are fairly garbled, as if there are extra lines over the numbers/ letters and are rather dim.

There's barely any green showing.

The overall game display seems to be too large for the screen.


Any suggestions?


Thanks a ton everyone!


~Patrick
 
I figured from the purple that you had an issue with green, and the broken pot is probably one of the green ones. You could check to see if Chad has one he could send you, or you could order one from Bob Roberts.

What I've always found weird about the 6100 color pots is that you have to adjust the pair of pots for each color in opposite directions to get a nice bright color. Normal monitors would have both pots turn the same way to get increased color, but if you do that on a 6100, you'll get nothing....
 
I've had some neckboard transistors with the collector metal tabs touching that caused two of the colors to track together.

Make sure nothing is touching that isn't supposed to touch..
 
Anyone got a working replacement neck board they would like to sell?

If so, let me know..

~Patrick
 
Anyone got a working replacement neck board they would like to sell?

If so, let me know..

~Patrick

Your asking for someone to sell a neckboard off of a high dollar monitor when all you need to do is buy a 1.00 pot and put it in?

Why don't you fix yours? It would be faster and cheaper, cause I don't think anyone will have one and if they do it will cost you more than a dollar.
 
I recommend that you take a pencil eraser and clean the edge connectors on the main PCB. I had some extra lines show up and doing that solved my problem. At the very least it can't hurt.
 
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