Tron Help

paine007

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I am new to the hobby, and have been tinkering with a Tron that I bought about 5 weeks ago. It was not working and the guy said it had not been working for a couple of months. I really doubt that was the case, as I discovered that the ribbon cables were see-through and I could see where the metal had been separated in several areas. I thought I'll just get new ribbon cables. then as I start learning more about Tron, I discover this is going to get costly, there was no video cable going to the monitor and the dual amp sound board were missing, and the MCR power supply was of course acidified and the only light or anything for that matter that worked was the lower Control Panel light and it has neither of the back doors. So I bought all of these items

Switching power supply
MCR Adaptor
Ribbon Cables
Video Cable
3 Ballasts, (oh did i mention that the scenery light fixture is missing as well)
4 flourecents
4 starters
Dual Amp power board

I am having trouble figuring out the orientation of the Tron AC power distribution block. I'm not sure what goes where. I have the switcher hooked up to it and currently have a triple image on the screen and the marquee light working, but none of the others, and I have blown a few fuses by i guess hooking up to the wrong connectors on the block. Does anyone have a pic of what their block looks like. It is three rows long and on each side of each row it has 3 male connectors.

I also have no sound whatsoever. Is the switcher & mcr adapter supposed to replace everything on the power brick except for the iso?
 

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Tron can be a monster of a first project. I'm a rook too and most of your issues I cannot help. Root around the forums for some issues like the ones your having.
 
The switcher/adapter will replace the MCR Power Supply (Green board, with large black heat sink). This is not the "suitcase" on the very bottom of the cab that has the iso transformer. That will stay in the cab.
 
I believe that the mcr controls the board and monitor. Could be wrong. The other power supply is for all the lights and sound. Check your fuses and make sure they are correct. All 3 of them are different. Make sure they are all correct and good.
Also check your MCR adapter to ensure you have the correct set up.

As said earlier, Tron is a difficult game for most people. But guys on here should help.
 
Yeah you're in for a rough ride; I swore I'd never work on a TRON again now that I have mine working. But in all fairness I got a lot of great help from peeps here. Post in the General Repair sub-board and knock out the problems one by one. Some of the restoration work was done before I got mine so I couldn't really offer guidance on that as such, but one thing I can say is that it doesn't look like there's a downside with this game to putting in a switching power supply and associated apparatus. So you probably need to start with that.

On a positive note, once it works, if you don't actually break it yourself, it seems to stay working. Pretty decently, really.
 
The one I used to have was missing the MCR power supply when I got it but after I obtained one, it worked fine. That was the only functional issue I had with it. Some jerk painted over 90% of both sides of the cabinet with some horrible textured painted. Removing it would have been a major PITA so I did a cabinet swap into a Two Tigers converted Tron. That cabinet's original artwork had been covered up with Two Tigers side art. So, when I peeled it off, I had near perfect Tron side art. The only other thing I did was remotely mount a rechargeable phone battery and wire it across the old NiCd battery solder locations. The MCR power supply happily charged the battery and the battery happily saved my scores.

I should have kept that machine but I traded it off for a Donkey Kong.
 
Yep, I've been checking voltages and it seems like where I should have 12V, I have 13.8 to 14.1. I know typically the sound problems are a lack of the 12V measurement, but that doesn't seem to be the problem. I know that I clipped the wires on the ISO that lead to the old transformer. I love a good riddle but this is starting to trouble me. :)
 
You mean you have to read the instructions, that's just not in my nature. seriously i read them before i bought it.

I solved the issue that i showed in the attached picture by adjusting the vert hold. Now I'm looking into why I can see none of the moving objects (Tanks,tron,bullets,mcp cones,spiders)
 
Here's the deal:

If you've got the picture up on the monitor, then you know that

A. the monitor works
B. the power 'brick' in the bottom works
C. the power supply works

You've having an issue with your gameboard. It's possible it's caused by having the wrong voltage going to it. On the board you can see on the front, you'll see a large capacitor in a corner. Measure the DC voltage from one side to the other and let us know what you've got. It should be near 5 volts. If it's too low or too high it may make the gameboard do something weird... probably not what yours is doing, but possible.

After we get that adjusted in, if it doesn't fix it, you're likely going to have to take the board 'stack' apart and clean all the chips on the board (remove them from their sockets, carefully, one at a time, clean the dirt off the legs, then replace them).

Good luck!
 
You mean you have to read the instructions, that's just not in my nature. seriously i read them before i bought it.

I solved the issue that i showed in the attached picture by adjusting the vert hold. Now I'm looking into why I can see none of the moving objects (Tanks,tron,bullets,mcp cones,spiders)

The moving objects (or sprites) reside on the Video Gen board and you could have bad ram. IIRC there are 8 2114 ram chips on that board. Other issues could be bad IC sockets for one or more of the EPROMS.
 
I have pulled and lightly sandpapered and replaced all socketed chips on all 3 boards, on the very last chip, i pulled it out at an angle and it caused one of the legs to be severely bent and upon me bending it back it came loose, it happened after it was back in the socket and surprisingly hasn't changed the way that the video looks on the screen, but it can't be good, so I ordered a replacement AM93422PC RAM chip to replace the broken chip. maybe I should have ordered all 8 of that kind of chip.

How would I be able to troubleshoot if the IC sockets are to blame?

Are the 2114 ram chips the same thing as the AM93422PC's?

Thanks

@Lyonsarcade, just to peak my curiosity did that Wells Gardner 4900 that you had recapped and had a great picture that you sold yesterday have any burn-in? If it did have burn in then I can sleep easier knowing that I missed out on it :)
 
The 93422's cross to 2101's (2101A's?), not 2114's. It's a possibility that the problem you're seeing can be caused by a bad one. The easiest way to isolate a chip is to work with known good ones. You could have more than one bad 93422 and simply switching one out might not fix the issue. Or you may see the sprites now, but notice different problems, etc. That's why I tend to buy multiples when I need a new chip. You may be able to piggyback the good chip on each of the other 8 on the VidGen, one at a time, and see if it clears up the issue, and then you know which one to replace.

Definitely test all the RAM before you worry about a bad socket. I don't think there's a way to test sockets with 100% certainty. You could insert a chip and test for continuity between the chip leg and the socket pin on the other side of the baord. But then you have to worry about thermal expansion and there not being proper contact when the board heats up which may be a possibility. I think that's why if people suspect sockets, they replace them all.
 
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