Terminator 2 Problems

ScottEK

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I picked up a Terminator 2 cabinet last night for a great price. It has been 15 years since I bought my last arcade machine.

The arcade powers up, guns both calibrate fine, but I found a few issues. Any help would be greatly appreciated:

- Monitor is dark. It's pretty hard to see the bad guys vs the good guys. I tried adjusting both brightness and contrast but they seemed to only help a little. I noticed that it looks like the monitor was switched and there is an extra yellow wire (photo) from the repair. The monitor that was put in is a Philips W22X, but it appears to be using the same adjustment knob panel as the original monitor.

- Sound stops working. Some times the sound works, some times it doesn't. When it does work you can only get so far in the game and then the sound stops and plays a tone forever. I did the sound test when it was working and heard two tones followed by a single tone. I'm thinking this is three tones meaning that the U3 ROM is bad. When I play the sounds in the test mode the first few play fine then when I hit a certain one and the sound goes wack. Can I extract the ROM image from a Mame file? I have a nice chip burner and the mame file that appears to match my revision.

- Player 1 gun missile button doesn't work.

- Player 2 trigger is flakey. The gun doesn't move very smoothly.

Again thanks!
 

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I used my chip burner to check the contents of the U3 sound rom chip. It compares and verifies the same as the matching file in a MAME download.

Maybe the first two tones indicated my U2 ram chip was bad. I guess you just replace these chips?
 
Turns out the monitor is actually a Neotec. The bulb is a Philips.

I fixed the darkness issue by adjusting the "screen" knob on the monitors flyback.
 
That's a nice looking T2! I don't have any answers on the sound thing - other than to check the RAM at U2 and verify it is working properly.
 
Turns out the monitor is actually a Neotec. The bulb is a Philips.

I fixed the darkness issue by adjusting the "screen" knob on the monitors flyback.

monitor tips:

the screen and brightness adjustments, you want these to only be high enough to a certain point, otherwise you will risk burn-in on your monitor. have the game on a black screen, the Test mode is very good for this, then turn your Brightness knob to the middle, then turn the Screen pot on the flyback up just high enough to where you see little brown dots in the black background. then take the Brightness and turn it down just enough to where the brown dots go away and the black background is absolute black.

next, adjust your Contrast, the Test mode is perfect for this too because for this you'll need text on the screen... turn it up the Contrast a little bit, don't turn it up too much, or you can damage the tube... turn it up just high enough to where the text starts to bleed off to the side, then progressively turn the Contrast down until the bleeding goes away.

you might want to adjust your Focus on the flyback at this point. there's no science to this, turn the knob all the way back and forth to kind of test its extremes, then pretend you're at the eye doctor and turn it to where it looks its clearest and use your best judgment "is it better or worse?"

the sound board issue is an age-old one that has eluded many techs, some really knowledgeable ones on this site. there's a few little preventative maintenance things you can check first though. if you've never removed ROMs or any socketed chips before, I want you to know that it's not something you do with your fingers. I've had the best success using a 1/4" flathead screwdriver, I have a really long Craftsman one that has a rounded base instead of a squared one, and it works PERFECT for pulling roms.

try to poke the screwdriver underneath the rom, give it a slight twist, then alternate to the other side of the rom and do the same thing. the idea is that you don't want to remove the chips crooked, you want to get it as even on both sides as possible. alternate working this back and forth until the chip comes out. inspect the chip legs for any corrosion -- you'll know it if it has a dark appearance or it looks cruddy. some fine grit sandpaper like some 220 works to rid the chip of this corrosion, you're best off tearing a small piece off and folding the sandpaper to get it to be very thick and stable, and then set the rom on a flat surface to sand the legs until they're shiny and silver. you won't have the flat surface luxury when you do the outside of the legs, so try your best not to snag the legs and bend them.

you'll find you can bend them back a LITTLE BIT, but not too much, cause they will break off. then you'll find yourself talking to Steph at www.hobbyroms.com instead. :)

if it's not an issue of corrosion however, there's a likelihood that the roms just need to be reseated. you've pulled them out by this point I'm hoping, so all you have to do is plug them back in. make note of the U-shaped notches on the chips AND the sockets, the notches have to face the same direction. failure to do this will burn up the chip if you install it backwards.

do this for the sound board roms and any other socketed chips. hopefully this solves your problem.

as for the guns, they're not light guns, they're actually a lot like a driving game steering wheel, they utilize potentiometers. 2 of them, one for X and one for Y direction. if they're not operating smooth you're probably going to need to replace them. you could alternatively try contact cleaner in them, but you're probably looking at 20+ year old pots in there and they need replacement. if your missile button doesn't work you might be looking at a loose wire in there or something else stupid. otherwise, I have 2 brand new missile buttons that I bought for a T2 project that I just wound up selling.

you're going to need a security torx bit set to open the guns up, you can find them at like Harbor Freight or you can get a set online somewhere.

hope all this helps.
 
That is a really nice T2! Ive been looking for one for a while now... good luck with the fix! Ive tried to fix similar issues with other games and ended up replacing parts.. If you ever want to sell it please let me know!
 
Anyone have any tips on fixing the Coil Lamp driver board? My guns won't aim basically - they do absolutely everything else, and the coils and lamps works just fine. I know how the guns are set up and have checked all 4 potentiometers and they are fine. I've read about a few other people having this same problem, but haven't really heard of a solution other than buying a new board. Alternately, does anyone have a working board that they might want to sell?
 
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