Testing Spy Hunter boards without spares.

Projammer

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You may remember from previous threads that I've wandered into restoring a Spy Hunter upright.

Marquee and monitor power up. Blinking LED on cheep squeek and that's all the activity I've got.

What I need it to know is what I need to do to test the boards individually. I've been looking around but haven't found where anyone describes what outputs I should be getting from test points.

Any thoughts or suggestions? I know I can box the lot and get cdjump to look at it, but I'd like to make a solid effort at it myself first.

Thanks!
 
You may remember from previous threads that I've wandered into restoring a Spy Hunter upright.

Marquee and monitor power up. Blinking LED on cheep squeek and that's all the activity I've got.

What I need it to know is what I need to do to test the boards individually. I've been looking around but haven't found where anyone describes what outputs I should be getting from test points.

Any thoughts or suggestions? I know I can box the lot and get cdjump to look at it, but I'd like to make a solid effort at it myself first.

Thanks!

Measure the voltages at the chips then you have a starting point. If voltages are around +5 volt at the chips then you need a logic probe and more test equipment. Do you know if the monitor is good?
 
Not certain about the monitor, though I am certain that there's no signal being sent to it. Test equipment includes a logic probe and 60Mhz scope so I can read the signals if I know what data I'm looking for.

I've also got the manual with schematics and diagrams.
 
What I need it to know is what I need to do to test the boards individually. I've been looking around but haven't found where anyone describes what outputs I should be getting from test points.
There really aren't any.... You can completely disconnect the SSIO (ribbon cables and all) to run the game and you should get video. Beyond that:

1. Verify +5v / +12v is reaching the board by measuring at the legs of some ICs
2. Pull all ROMs and check them against the MAME images
3. Probe address/data lines off the CPU and verify they at-least wiggle, using your oscilloscope or logic probe
4. Connect a Fluke 9010a if you own one and test the RAM
5. Check RESETn and verify it's high, so the game isn't being held in reset
 
Unfortunately an EPROM programmer and that Fluke meter aren't in my tool cabinet right now. They'll be at the top of the list if I start seriously retoring games, but for now...

So I can disconnect everything except the stack and work my way out from there when/if I get that going?

Or can I cut out some board in the stack too?
 
So I can disconnect everything except the stack and work my way out from there when/if I get that going?
No.... the guts of this machine consist of (at least):

1. Power supply
2. 3-board gameboard stack
2a. Video generator board
2b. CPU board
2c. Super Sound I/O board (SSIO)
3. Stereo audio amplifier

So if you disconnected the 3-board stack, you wouldn't have "the game" to generate video and run the game. right? Check the schematic for a block diagram to understand this.

The typical approach is to loosen some wiring, splay the 3 board stack outside the machine, and start fixing. Since the CPU and video are all it takes to get video onto the screen.... you can simplify things by disconnecting and removing the SSIO. It'll boot-up, you just (obviously) won't have any controls or sound.

The reason I suggest that... among this 3 board set there are 2 CPUs and a shared address/data bus that goes across ribbon cables. Simplifying is the objective here.
 
For #4, checking the ram with a Fluke 9010a is a bit of a problem on the MCR baords as they use a background process to do video updates. Which can lock the CPU out of memory access. I have only intermetantly been able to get the ram tests to pass on those boards (on known working boards).

There really aren't any.... You can completely disconnect the SSIO (ribbon cables and all) to run the game and you should get video. Beyond that:

1. Verify +5v / +12v is reaching the board by measuring at the legs of some ICs
2. Pull all ROMs and check them against the MAME images
3. Probe address/data lines off the CPU and verify they at-least wiggle, using your oscilloscope or logic probe
4. Connect a Fluke 9010a if you own one and test the RAM
5. Check RESETn and verify it's high, so the game isn't being held in reset
 
Unfortunately an EPROM programmer and that Fluke meter aren't in my tool cabinet right now. They'll be at the top of the list if I start seriously retoring games, but for now...

So I can disconnect everything except the stack and work my way out from there when/if I get that going?

Or can I cut out some board in the stack too?

You might look into an eprom programmer there are some fairly cheep that do older eproms and some that do eproms and proms.

As far as you wanting to test the boards individually; It would be best if you can get a working set and swap your boards in until you find the bad guy(s).

I try to keep at least one set of working pcb for each game for this purpose and I call them my "golden set".
 
Make sure you check your +5 volt at the 3 stack board on one of the 74XX chips. It must be around 5.2 volts DC. I know that when my board initially had problems, the voltage was up to around 5.8 VDC. That may have been what killed some of my chips.

This is a link to a helpful troubleshooting book I found online. It may help you to understand what is happening in the logic:

http://arcarc.xmission.com/PDF_Misc/MCR2.pdf
 
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