Worst thing that's ever happened after powering up a game

ieure

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Worst thing that's ever happened after powering up a game

I don't have a ton of experience with game repair, but I've successfully fixed a handful of monitors and power supplies now. Out of an abundance of caution — or maybe just paranoia — whenever I power a game on after having worked on it, I make sure to have a fire extinguisher handy. So far, I haven't needed it. The worst thing that happened to me was a WG6100 deflection that started smoking when I turned it on.

But it got me thinking about what could happen. What's the worst that's happened when you powered something up?
 
I had a game blow-out a power supply and fry a board because the previous owner through they knew how to wire in a switcher. The game was a total mess! I don't even remember what the game was, but it wasn't a typical title (conversion kit).

Scott C.
 
Fixed a 4900 on a Gyruss at the storage room in the mall that the arcade used. It was a storage room, but still had glass windows (basically it's an unused store) so you could see inside and see all the cabinets and all that crap.

Fixed up the monitor, came up... looked great. I needed a couple of tools from Radio Shack, and as the mall doesn't have a RS, we hoped in the car and drove down the street to pick the stuff up.

... apparently shortly after we left the flyback fried on that Gyruss, which we left running. We got back and apparently the fire dept. had been called because the ENTIRE room (remember... glass windows so people could see in) had filled up with smoke and people were getting a little nervous. We looked at the, noticed the flyback, and informed them of what it was and what happened and that while it looked bad, there was no real danger.

About 2 weeks later the mall sent a crew by and painted all the windows for that room black so people couldn't see in anymore.
 
Well. Too many things to remember. I've been fixing games for coming close to 30 years so there have been lots of explosions after a repair.

The one I remember most wasnt me but one of the other guys. He installed a switching power supply BEFORE the fuse in a WMS game. When he wired up the supply he tied line and neutral together on the supply. When he plugged the game in the breaker TRIED to trip but because it was old it got stuck. The power cord melted to the nylon carpet and when it finally burned itself open the breaker decided to trip (go figure).

That was a huge mess.

I've probably had some where close to 100 GO7 flybacks blow up upon power up. One of them got stuck in the top of the Defender cab that the monitor was in!
 
A former coworker of mine used to tell stories of exploding G07 flybacks. Apparently, one he was familiar with left chuncks of ferrite core imbedded in the ceiling tile directly above the monitor in question. I have only been around two flybacks when they died. One of them went quietly and the monitor just didn't come up (my own Ms. Pac). The other one made a weak "pop" noise but continued to produce the whine that you hear normally. I shut it off very quickly anyway.


When checking out some games my cousin had for sale, I plugged in a Time Soldiers (Make Trax cabinet). The back was off and one of the caps on the game PCB immediately exploded upon getting power. I unplugged the game quickly and decided not to buy it.

Years later, I took the game off her hands just to have it gone. It turned out that the +5V output on the original power supply had died and sent an unfriendly voltage to the game PCB, thus frying it. Eventually, I put different PCB and switcher in there. I also had to fix the monitor (4600 with bad horizontal/vertical card).
 
I had a Star Castle I picked up, inspected for any problems, didn't see any so I power it up - and sparks jumped about 6 inches up off the monitor chassis (which was designed without a fuse :rolleyes:)...
 
I've probably had some where close to 100 GO7 flybacks blow up upon power up. One of them got stuck in the top of the Defender cab that the monitor was in!

That is why I almost always wear safety glasses now when powering up games or at least don't look for the first several seconds.
 
I've probably had some where close to 100 GO7 flybacks blow up upon power up. One of them got stuck in the top of the Defender cab that the monitor was in!

That is why I almost always wear safety glasses now when powering up games or at least don't look for the first several seconds.

that is why I replace original G07 flybacks when I do G07 rebuilds. Never had one blow on powerup after a rebuild...
 
Hmm I bought home an asteroids one time.. wouldnt power up at the
guys house so I got it cheap.

Bought it home to work on it and start probing around. Plugged it in
and tons of smoke started coming off the PCB..

Still No clue what happened. I ended up rebuilding the power supply, AR and replaced the PCB.
 
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