Will these power issues ever end???

hotrod797

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Ok so I got the brand new switcher from arcade shop tonight with conversion kit for my QIX, I stuck the converter onto the switcher and into the cabinet it went.... powered up and nothing..... Found that the power supply is going into a protect mode, if I unhook the game boards it powers up fine, if I hook up just the power that goes to the sound board it still comes up fine, but as soon as I plug in J4 (game board connector) it craps out and goes into protect mode...

I called arcade shop, he said I had everything hooked up right and the only thing he could come up with is maybe the switcher is bad, he said I could send it back and he would test it (since I have no other games around o test it on) but if I do that I'm looking at a 2+ week turn around.
Is there anything at all I can do here at home to test it before sending it back, or are there any KLOV members close to me that can test this thing in their cab??
 
Sorry, for some reason I was thinking it was in my signature, I am an Northern Kentucky, about 20 minutes outside of Cincinnati
 
Did the game work at all before? If not, there could be a short on your game's logic board. Using a meter, measure the resistance between the +5v rail and the ground plane on the game board. Do the same on the sound board. What do you get?

-Ian
 
Did the game work at all before? If not, there could be a short on your game's logic board. Using a meter, measure the resistance between the +5v rail and the ground plane on the game board. Do the same on the sound board. What do you get?

-Ian

It worked, then the +5 crapped out on the linear power supply, which is why I'm upgrading...

Both logic board and sound board resistance comes in at 341

Is this good or bad?? I am still kind of learning my way around multi meters and processing the results....
 
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I don't see how the resistance of both the sound board and the game board would be exactly the same. You sure you're using that thing right? Set the dial to the ohms setting.

Double check to ensure that nothing is shorting out the switcher's outputs. If the outputs short, the switcher goes into protect mode.

It *could* be a bad power supply, but that seems a bit unlikely since the power supply is new.

With just the sound board connected, measure the 5v at the switcher - it could just be set too low/high.

-Ian
 
I don't think you have a bad switcher....if the switcher was bad....it would shit out on you with the sound board connected. Qix is a three board set-up....sound board, processor board, and ROM board. The power supply sends juice to each board individually. Fire the game up with (only) one board plugged into the power harness....and check the 5VDC rail. Whichever board causes the 5VDC to crash is the gulity culprit.

Qix is one of the more difficult motherboards to troubleshoot/fix.

Edward
 
I don't think you have a bad switcher....if the switcher was bad....it would shit out on you with the sound board connected.

Not necessarily. I've seen faulty power supplies work under low load and shut down under moderate load. Used to happen with the Apple II's - computer would work just fine, but put a disk controller and a drive on it, and it would die.

-Ian
 
Not necessarily. I've seen faulty power supplies work under low load and shut down under moderate load. Used to happen with the Apple II's - computer would work just fine, but put a disk controller and a drive on it, and it would die.

-Ian

I'm not saying it's impossible, but considering it's a new power supply.....the odds are in favor of something else being the issue :)

Edward
 
I don't think you have a bad switcher....if the switcher was bad....it would shit out on you with the sound board connected. Qix is a three board set-up....sound board, processor board, and ROM board. The power supply sends juice to each board individually. Fire the game up with (only) one board plugged into the power harness....and check the 5VDC rail. Whichever board causes the 5VDC to crash is the gulity culprit.

Qix is one of the more difficult motherboards to troubleshoot/fix.

Edward

It was the 5VDC on the old linear power supply that crapped out, it was caused by the pot on the board, rather than trying to find a new pot and solder it in place I just ordered this kit...

I don't see how the resistance of both the sound board and the game board would be exactly the same. You sure you're using that thing right? Set the dial to the ohms setting.

Double check to ensure that nothing is shorting out the switcher's outputs. If the outputs short, the switcher goes into protect mode.

It *could* be a bad power supply, but that seems a bit unlikely since the power supply is new.

With just the sound board connected, measure the 5v at the switcher - it could just be set too low/high.

-Ian

To test that I had the game powered down I removed the power harness from both the game board and the sound board, with the meter set to ohms I placed the black lead on the back door ground (for all the boards) and the red lead on what would be the 5VDC pins on both the sound board and the game board, both came up with 341...
 
To test that I had the game powered down I removed the power harness from both the game board and the sound board, with the meter set to ohms I placed the black lead on the back door ground (for all the boards) and the red lead on what would be the 5VDC pins on both the sound board and the game board, both came up with 341...

You got a picture of the boards in this thing...You keep mentioning two boards....Qix is three boards.

Edward
 
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