tron died

p1899m

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So my tron has had an issue with the spinner for a while. Basically the spinner would not smoothly rotate the on screen arm 360 degrees. The arm would bobble around the 12, 3, 6 ,9 o clock positions. Other than this the game worked fine. I tested the spinner in another tron and it worked fine so spinner is not the issue. I suspected that I had a voltage issue and had my eye on the big caps on the power supply as the likely culprit. So today I turned the game on to be sure it was still working then swapped the big caps. I should note here that I swapped the wiring correctly. I know because I checked it against my other tron.

So I power up and the monitor is on but no image or sign of life from the board set. I should mention I smelled a very light hint of electrical burn but found no component that looked burnt.

I check voltages at the linear PS and I have no 5v.

I test the PS board in my tapper and it works fine so this board is not the issue.

Tested all fuses and they all checked out.

I have more testing to do to try and determine where the problem lies but here is what I noticed so far.

Voltage coming in to the cab after the line filter is 118v at the monitor it is 121v. I thought this was odd.

I may possibly be testing this wrong but I got no voltage at any of the pins at j3 on the linear PS. I did get proper voltage at J6 for what it's worth.

I haven't tested the iso yet but I'm thinking it may be working ok since the monitor has power as well as all lights including coin door.

There are two components in the tron power supply that I don't recognize off hand. One is a large black metal thing with wires coming off it (real descriptive right) that sits on the left side nearest the back of the cab. So looking into the cab from the back it is the component closest to you on the left side. The other component sits inbetween the two big caps and the iso. It's silver sort of rectangular shaped but with rounded off corners and of course wiring coming off of it.

Anyone know what these are and how/ where to test them? Also if one of these is bad are there replacement parts?

In general does anyone know where the issue might be and what I should check?

Thanks, Dan
 
this happened to me DAn, when the ribbon cables between boards were not on good enough.

same exact problem with the spinner you described.
 
this happened to me DAn, when the ribbon cables between boards were not on good enough.

same exact problem with the spinner you described.

the issue seems to be attached to the wiring in this cab. I've swapped this board into my other tron and the issue is not there. I've swapped the board set from the tron that did not have the spinner issue into the cab with the spinner issue and the issue is there. So I doubt the board or ribbon cables are at fault. I tend to think it has to either be a PS issue or wiring. IIRC I even swapped the wiring from cab to cab and the problem followed the wiring.
 
gotcha, so what effectively was a "power issue" for me because I didn't ahve power going through my boards properly, seems to be a bigger issue in your cab that is yet to be recoginized where it is coming from.

good luck buddy.
 
have you tried swapping the linear p/s from your other tron to this one?? before i replaced it the p/s in my satan's hollow (same one) took a dump like that, smoked one of the big sand resistors and got 0v on the 5v line...
 
Ok I started pulling pieces of the PS and I found why the game board did not power on as well as what may have burned. One of the wire that runs from one of the two fuses on the enclosure that houses the 2 big caps to a distribution block that mounts on that same enclosure had come loose. Now here's the head scratcher. It looks like the plastic cover for the quick disconnect was a bit burned (browned). I'm guessing this may have been what I smelled burning. The thing is the wire and more importantly the sheath of the wire that went to this connector did not look melted or singed at all, hmmm. Also wondered why the fuse that was in line with this didn't blow? I'll have to check that the correct rated fuse is in that location. Forgot to mention that as I was trying things I swapped the old caps back into the PS. So right now tron is alive again but still has the spinner issue.
 
have you tried swapping the linear p/s from your other tron to this one?? before i replaced it the p/s in my satan's hollow (same one) took a dump like that, smoked one of the big sand resistors and got 0v on the 5v line...

yep I've swapped about everything every which way. Even have a few extra tested working linear PS's board sets ect.
 
I think the bigger issue here that needs to be addressed is:

why do you have 2 trons and I currently have zero in my possession?
 
With my Tron cabs I have had similar issues. I've had success replacing all ribbon connectors on the main PCB stack. In your situation I would also look at the optical pickup board.
 
I just swapped the big blues in my Tron. I had hum bars and distorted sound, and the game would have to be powered on and off several times to get it to boot. In addition, the spinner would occasionally wig out and his arm would just spin around several times. That's why I can only get to 40k.:D

I swapped the big blues and the three other electrolytics on the PS and now all is well.
 
I had a similar issue with my TRON, one connector at the P/S board had a pin pushed about half way out and even though it looked okay from the back side after looking closely at it all I had to do was push it in fully and it all booted and worked.

I had the a similar issue on my spinner, it would twitch and bobble and it would only go from 20 to 90 on the test screen and jump around, turned out to be the connection at the CP had a pin partially pulled the same way as the power board.

I suspect someone before me pulled at the wires when disconnection the wiring and pulled the pins partially out.
 
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