Sega Indy 500 4 seats

[Mike A]

I will use this thread to post what it takes to get 4 games fixed up, and playable.

All four seats were playable when I picked them up. Two of them had no force feedback. Two of them have force feedback that needs to be adjusted.

There are some marquee lights out. One had a non working monitor, but the seller had a working one included that they just never got around to installing.

The seat latch is busted on a couple of them so those seats don't lock in place.

When I got the second pair of seats home, seat 4 displayed all of the overlay text and 2d graphics, but none of the 3d game graphics.

Seat 2 has scratchy audio. I replaced the pot with a known good one and no change.

So those are the main issues.

      I started by swapping out the bad monitor for the good one. That was easy enough. Everything worked great except I was getting a loud static discharge at random. Before I put the bezel back together I am going to pull the monitor and make sure everything is connected the way it should be. (Over the course of a few days the problem seems to have solved itself)

      My standard procedure for weird problems is to pull the socketed chips, clean them and reseat them. Well the ROM board on this bastard has 19 or 20 rather large socketed chips.
So I just swapped the ROM boards between seat 3 and 4. If the problem followed the board that would narrow things down. My laziness was rewarded when I fired up the cabs and the problem disappeared.

     My next job is to physically align all of the cabinets and put the topper on seat 3 and 4. I will post a bunch of pics when I feel like it.


   

[jdbailey1206]

....when I feel like it.

[Mike A]

Everything is in place now.

Next job is to fix the static discharge problem on monitor 2.

[Mike A]

So I pulled monitor 2. It has a loud intermittent static discharge. That is my guess anyways. Every minute or so there is a loud snap.

My diagnostic skills consist of looking for obvious visual damage, and texting bperkins01.

There was a spot where a diode was supposed to be. Instead there were 2 twisted together and it was all scorchy in that spot. Luckily I have 4 other chassis to compare to. 3 active and one spare.

The other chassis just had a single diode in that place. I desoldered the offending diode and grabbed a replacement from my spare chassis.

I put everything back together and I ran it for 30 minutes with no loud snap. Replacing the diode or just pulling the chassis and reseating everything fixed the problem. I like it when it is easy.

Time to crack open a few victory beers.

Next step will be to fix the wonky connector on monitor 3. The jumper for Medium Res mode keeps shutting down the signal and the screen goes black. When you jiggle that connector the picture comes back.

Tomorrow I will pull the chassis and reflow the pins on the header. If that doesn't work I will remove the header and the connector and replace them with molex.

[Mike A]

Forum member thatpurplestuff came through big time.

He worked up excellent image files for the seat numbers.

He didn't ask for any compensation.

I am going to put together a swag package for him.

Who should I get to print the seat decals?

[Howard_Casto]

I don't have a clue man, sorry.  I wish you'd make some progress though..... I've got a root canal scheduled for Monday and I'm running out of stuff to distract me from the pain in the meantime.  Basically I want you to dance for my amusement. 

[Mike A]

Well either I messed up something fixing the header or the monitor took a ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- at the same time I put it back together. Gee. I wonder which is more likely. No big deal. I am going to pull the whole monitor and get it fixed up. In the meantime I have a tri mode monitor I can throw in there.  I had to order some stupid  monitor connectors to match the odd ones they used for this game. They are on the way.
It's okay. Three seats are working. I raced my brother yesterday. The game is fun.

[Arroyo]

Local print shops could probably handle the job. Other than that, if he is taking custom work, Szabo’s arcade stuff is really good quality.  Ask Opt how his X-Men came out and I think he’ll give you the thumbs up.

[Mike A]

I don't have a clue man, sorry.  I wish you'd make some progress though..... I've got a root canal scheduled for Monday and I'm running out of stuff to distract me from the pain in the meantime.  Basically I want you to dance for my amusement. 

Ask and ye shall receive.

Seat 4 had a broken start switch. It functioned, but looked like crap.



I was going to try to match one up from the usual places, but I found an entire panel for sale on eBay for a reasonable price. Now I have spares of the other buttons.



Much better.

Seat 3 is the one with the wonky monitor so it doesn't get played much. The up down shifter only shifts up. The seller was upfront about it.

Let's see if we can solve the mystery together kids.



Alright kids. Count the wires on the left coming from the shifter. 1...2...3...4. Four wires. Very good.

Now count the wires coming from the wiring harness.  1...2. Two wires. What the ---fudgesicle--- kids?

The ground wires on the left go to one ground wire on the right.

Wire number 3 is hiding.



Naughty wire. There you are.

I am not sure why this post turned into a kids show. It might be the alcohol consumption.

My buddy kept getting beat by his 10 year old son over the weekend. I figured out that there is a game setting that keeps all of the human players close to the lead human player.

His son is going to be so pissed that he is all of the sudden not good at the game anymore.

I am finally going to pull the monitor from seat three and work on it this weekend. Bperkins01 is going to help me with some long distance tech support.

PRO TIP: Always try to make friends with people smarter than you.

There you go Howard. A little bit of progress.

[jdbailey1206]

PRO TIP: Always try to make friends with people that have more experience with something you are learning.

There you go Howard. A little bit of progress.

FTFY

[bperkins01]

Nice updates 

Its shaping up real nice.  Hope I can live up to the hype

[Arroyo]

Way to pull up your boot straps and get er done.  Nice fixes.

[Mike A]

When you own as many machines as I do, you learn how to prioritize.

I have a full time job that unfortunately cuts into my arcade repair time.

[Howard_Casto]

Nice work man.  I like those easy fixes myself.     Yeah something I didn't realize until I started building my racing rig was how stupidly expensive the sega racing buttons can get... well for what they are anyway.  Buying a spare panel was the smart move. 

[Mike A]

Here is some more progress.

I spent a bunch of time cleaning and reseating pins and connectors.

Boom. The motor controller board is alive.



Next up is the motor driver board.

It blows a fuse immediately when applying power to it.





After removing the heat sink top. It was time for a quick bath and blow dry.

Will you look at that? I wonder if that could be a problem?



Time to order parts. I am crossing my fingers that this is the problem and not just a by product of the actual problem.

[jdbailey1206]

Will you look at that? I wonder if that could be a problem?

[bperkins01]

Nice work - I'll go out on a limb and say that may be the root cause.

[Mike A]

Still more progress.

Seat 4 had glitchy video.

If I pounded the seat like Fonzie's jukebox, it would have an effect.

By the way, that is one of my main diagnostic procedures.

That means it is probably a connection issue somewhere.



The PCB stack was not making a super solid connection to the interconnect board. It looked good, but when i unscrewed the PCB stack from the metal case I could push it a hair further and the glitchy graphics problem stopped.

So for now I screwed the stack back in with the mounting screws angled to make a better connection. I might have to redrill the holes. Time will tell. However for now the problem is solved.

[Mike A]

Remaining problems:

Seat 1 FFB does not work. Parts have been ordered.

Seat 3 Bad monitor chassis. Working on it.

Seat 1 and 3 Seats do not lock in place. Not yet diagnosed. Probably a bent bracket.

Seat 3 FFB needs adjustment. This has to wait until the monitor is fixed.

Seat 1-4 I need to print out and apply the seat decals. This will be done soon. I have a repair crew coming to my arcade in November. They are both more detail oriented than I am. Decal application is a detail job.

Seat 3-4 Marquee light is out. Buy a bulb. Duh.

Seat 2 Scratchy audio. I replaced the volume pot with a known good one and no change. Further diagnosis needed.

[bperkins01]

Very exciting

Pit crew ready for duty sir!
Can I bring my auto detailing stuff too?

[Mike A]

I still have plenty for you to do.

[bperkins01]

If they would hurry up and build a freaking transporter - this would be much simpler..

[Arroyo]

I have enough original machines that I know what a pain it can be when ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- breaks.  Summing up the motivation and time is a ---smurfette---.  You are tackling this one with break neck speed. 

[opt2not]

You're a beast!  These cabs are beasts!  So much Beastin' in this thread.

Subscribed. 

[JimmyU]

Mike, here’s a great deal of you need spare parts and not too far!
https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/sega-indy-500-dual-cab-sw-mich.478005/

[Mike A]

Yeah. I saw that one. Thanks. I really thought about it.

[pbj]

Stop thinking and start driving.

[Howard_Casto]

You can link up to 8 right?   

[Mike A]

Yes. 8 is the limit.
If I did that I might not have room for Daytona.

[pbj]

Time to start building sheds, bro.

Don't be scared.

[Mike A]

I have a 54' x 36' steel barn with a concrete floor.

[Howard_Casto]

Correction you have a 54'x36' steel ARCADE with a concrete floor.   

[Howard_Casto]

Not to change topic but didn't yots enclose a carport?  I wonder about insulation as I've got one I'm thinking of turning into a shed.

[mourix]

Mike's barn 2 years later...


I do like this casual restore style a lot though!

[Mike A]

I pulled apart the chair for seat 1. It doesn't latch into place correctly.

The mechanism itself is fine. The seat adjustment lever is propped up with weatherstripping on the other cabs. This one doesn't have any.

Midway cabs have a real metal bracket to hold the lever in place. Sega, weatherstripping. Way to go the extra mile.

So I am going to go get a replacement seat adjuster bracket (weatherstripping) at Home Depot.

I bought a working monitor chassis to replace the one i repaired (broke) on seat 3. Now I can fix again the monitor chassis I fixed (broke).

I replaced the fried resistors and optocoupler on that motor driver board. I fired up the machine and I got fireworks. There is more damage on that board. I am not sure what is going on, but at least one transistor fried along with at least 1 resistor. Oh well, time to order more parts. At least the board is just murdering itself. The game still plays okay without it, just no FFB.

[Mike A]

I installed the chassis for monitor 3 and it works great. I have a friend stopping by this weekend to help me adjust all of the monitors. They don't have remote boards so one person needs to turn knobs in the back while the other person drinks a beer and says left or right.

[Howard_Casto]

So are you sure it's the motor board and not another board higher up sending it the wrong voltage?

[Mike A]

The voltages are all good. I can swap a good board into that seat and it works just fine.

Troubleshooting is easier when you have 4 identical machines to mix and match parts.

[Howard_Casto]

I guess it's time to pull a good board and go nuts with the multimeter then.  My brain somehow skipped over the fact that you have three working boards.

[Mike A]

Time for another round of updates.

There are some scratchy audio issues with a couple of the cabs. I confirmed it wasn't simply bad volume pots.

Time for an amplifier bath. Each cab has 2 amps. One for the four speakers and a subwoofer amp for the sub under the seat.







I should have done this a long time ago, but everything worked and people were having a good time racing. I hate to take a game out of service when it is working.

After the bath I found bad traces by a capacitor for the amp on seat 2.



I pulled the capacitor and tested it just to be sure. It was fine. There was corrosion all around it though.



There was no metal left around the capacitor holes. so I scraped down to the copper on both sides of the broken trace, blotted down some flux and solder and ran wires to bridge the gap and connect directly to the legs of the capacitor.

If you look at the last pic. Down and left of my repair job you can see another broken trace. I fixed that one too. I forgot to take a pic after I fixed that one and cleaned up my messy work.

A friend's 10 year old daughter wants to learn how to save money so I gave her a job. She helped me pull the amplifiers and wash them and dry them and inspect them.

Then we ate ice cream. Working for me kicks ass. Oh and the audio works great now on cabs 1 and 2. This weekend she is coming back and we are going to look at the audio for cabs 3 and 4.

[Mike A]

This next repair was a few months ago.

A couple of the seat sliders needed to be replaced.

The metal was all chewed up so the seats would not lock into place.

I bought replacements and had another friend's son help me pull the seats and replace the sliders.





They work great now.

Oh. Did I mention working for me kicks ass?



Video game breaks and a sweet ass Alpha Centuri Staff shirt.

[bperkins01]

Nice update..
Making them better and fun for the kids.
 

[Howard_Casto]

Why are you forcing him to play Sonic?   Did he do a bad job?    Put some Super Mario on next time.

[Mike A]

Sorry to rankle your sensibilities Howard.

My NES is upstairs hooked up to a CRT TV.

I have not modded it for RGB yet.

[pbj]

SEGA Saturn is confirmed.

 

[Mike A]

Yeah. I really like the Saturn.

I rigged it to be JAMMA compatible so I can use it in my arcade cabs.

It is fun to play vertical SHMUPS with the Saturn on my vertical candy cab monitor.

[Mike A]

I pulled the monitor chassis for seat number 1.

The display has several issues.

I am going to clean it up, cap it, and inspect the flyback. There is a pretty decent buzzing sound. It might need to be replaced.

I will reflow all of the header pins just to be thorough.

After that I can hook it back up and see if basic maintenance fixed the problem.

If that is not the case, I have other working chassis I can swap to try and start ruling stuff out.

[Mike A]

Oh ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---. More burned up parts.

I will take a bunch of pics as I cap and service this monitor.

Sometime this weekend I will post.

[Mike A]

Okay. So I have been very busy, but I promised I would post some pics so....

I pulled the chassis for seat 1 and put it on my bench. I have a spare tube in my shop.

I hooked up my TPG and the picture was all squirrely and would not lock. That was not the problem when it was in the game.

I decided to ignore that for now.

I let the monitor run for a few minutes and did a touch test of components. One transformer was really hot to the touch. Not a good sign.



Well look at that. 150 degrees. Way too hot.  I desoldered the transformer. Toasty!





I just happen to have a spare identical chassis that does not work. I swapped transformers and this one is cool to the touch after ten minutes.

Next I replaced all of the electrolytic capacitors. For those who don't know, you can get those in a handy kit or source them yourselves.





I finished up and plugged the chassis back into the spare tube and...



---smurfing--- ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.

Okay. Check my work. One leg on one cap had an iffy solder job. I reworked it and...



Hooray.

Now I just have to dial in the screen position, size, sharpness, and colors and such.

The hard part is over. No more buzzing and no more pulsating picture.



After all that my buddy pulled his truck out of my barn for the summer. I went to his house and ate burgers and got drunk.

Hopefully this post is pretty coherent. I didn't drink too much...I don't think.

[Mike A]

I know I still have to start posting the JAMMA tutorial.

I will hopefully start that tomorrow.

[Vigo]

Sounds like a pretty good day! 

[bobbyb13]

Nice job on the monitor.
Hadn't thought about the value of temp checks in diagnostics!

The truck is damn cool.

And your post was so lacking in grammatical, spelling, and train of thought issues that I think you needed more beer.

[Mike A]

When the component is really hot to the touch you don't really need to measure it. I just wanted to visually drive the point home.

[opt2not]

Really excellent work on fixing that CRT 

[Mike A]

Thanks brother. It was pretty obvious stuff really.

If it gets too far beyond "ouch, that part is hot!" I start to get in over my head.

I have a lot to learn.

[Mike A]

So the steering issue is real physical damage.

The other three seats all steer fine. Seat 3 is bad.

The steering wheel is supposed to turn to the left and stop and then to the right and stop. Kind of like a real car, but only 270 degrees of motion lock to lock.

This wheel spins freely. It works, but it gets wacky with the force feedback and then directions get reversed. It can be a mess.

So here is the problem.





That metal piece is supposed to be welded to the shaft sleeve. When it is working that piece clunks into a metal wall on either side to limit its motion.

A friend of mine is going to pick it up tomorrow and take it to his shop to fix it up. They work on military grade Humvees all day so this should be easy.

[Mike A]

Check out my shaft.

[bperkins01]

skinny...

[Howard_Casto]

Long greasy and with metric threads.... just like the ladies like 'em.

So if I'm understanding you correctly there aren't limit switches but rather physical stops to keep the wheel from going wack-a-do?  That is really odd as the earlier sega racers had limit switches in addition to the physical stops.... mame has them hacked and I de-hacked and hooked them up as inputs when I used to work on outrun in mame is the only reason I know.   

[nexusmtz]

So the steering issue is real physical damage...
That metal piece is supposed to be welded to the shaft sleeve. When it is working that piece clunks into a metal wall on either side to limit its motion.

How many slams and at what force were necessary to break that? This is why we can't screw joysticks into MDF.

[Mike A]

It had to be intentional to break that weld.

Howard. I will get you some better pics tomorrow.

[bobbyb13]

All shaft comments aside...

That looks like one big ass motor winding for a freakin arcade machine.

Long greasy and with metric threads.... just like the ladies like 'em.

So if I'm understanding you correctly there aren't limit switches but rather physical stops to keep the wheel from going wack-a-do?  That is really odd as the earlier sega racers had limit switches in addition to the physical stops.... mame has them hacked and I de-hacked and hooked them up as inputs when I used to work on outrun in mame is the only reason I know.   

Once dated an exotic dancer who liked me better when I was sweaty-

I am really looking forward to getting back to the machine that I want to play Spy Hunter on so I can get me some MameHooker going on.

So much of this ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- is still so far above my head that it is a bit disconcerting-

[Mike A]

Long greasy and with metric threads.... just like the ladies like 'em.

So if I'm understanding you correctly there aren't limit switches but rather physical stops to keep the wheel from going wack-a-do?  That is really odd as the earlier sega racers had limit switches in addition to the physical stops.... mame has them hacked and I de-hacked and hooked them up as inputs when I used to work on outrun in mame is the only reason I know.

Howard,

Here is some amateur video of the FFB motor.

[Mike A]

While I am at it the attract mode on this game is pretty cool.

It spans all 4 screens.

[Howard_Casto]

It's very interesting.   My guess would be they finally figured out that the limit switches could be omitted and they could just go by the pot value.... the only problem with that is if the pot is out  of alignment it clanks into the stops.

[bobbyb13]

While I am at it the attract mode on this game is pretty cool.

It spans all 4 screens.

That is awesome

[meyer980]

While I am at it the attract mode on this game is pretty cool.

It spans all 4 screens.

That is cool! I wonder if the attract mode is the same with 3, 2, or 1 machine then, just with the outer edges cut off?

[Howard_Casto]

I'm pretty sure if you only have two it spans both.   I don't know about three as that's not a common configuration.   I'd like to see 8 hooked up.

[Mike A]

Don't encourage me Howard.

I saw a set of 4 for sale. They were in rough shape and far away.

My wallet still twitched a bit.

[Mike A]

I am trying really hard to ignore a pair of Daytona motion rigs for sale 6 hours away from me. One is working and the other is not.

[Howard_Casto]

You know with all the sim software out there and the hardware nuts around here we could probably figure out how to get one of those motion rigs working on pc games.   I'm just sayin'......

[Mike A]

Pass around a plate. I will take any donations.

[Mike A]

If you guys buy them for me I will go get them.
I will document everything here. As always forum members would be welcome to come hang out.


Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[bobbyb13]

Sounds bizarre I know, but I was told a huge number of machines that used to be out here wound up in Minneapolis just a few years ago.

[Vigo]

Maybe they followed the Paradise Arcade Shop. 

[Vigo]

If you guys buy them for me I will go get them.
I will document everything here. As always forum members would be welcome to come hang out.


Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

Wanna come out here for a 5 foot tall Pee Cup? On auction right now, and for some odd reason, currently no bidders.

https://bid.auctionmasters.com/cgi-bin/mmlist.cgi?amasters457/45

[Howard_Casto]

Words fail me.....

[pbj]

I’ll pay for it if you go get it, Vigo

[Howard_Casto]

If he wins, hot tub stream from inside the pee cup.  Put it out in the sun, it'll get warm.

[opt2not]

 

[Vigo]

  There is a time when I would been able to come up with a million cruel and unusual practical jokes for an object like this. I wouldn't mind buying it, but I doubt I have the initiative anymore to find a clever public spot to plant it.

[Mike A]

Leave it to one of my threads to feature a giant pee cup.

This is how you do BYOAC.

Thanks guys. Buy it pbj. I can store it in my barn.

[nitrogen_widget]

Giant pee cup beer cooler is classier than a garbage can right?

[Mike A]

I am still waiting on the steering motor weld job.

While I am waiting I am trying to fix a couple of spare monitor chassis I have laying around.

I will probably fix the seat 3 shifter also.

I am hoping to get the motor back this weekend.

[Mike A]

My steering motor is all welded up.

Hopefully I can pick it up today and put the steering assembly back together.

[bobbyb13]

A welder working on a holiday...?!
Sounds expensive.

Glad you found somebody local to fix that thing.

[Mike A]

He is my friend. He gets paid in pizza, beer, and video games.

[Mike A]

All four seats are working well now. Screens need a bit of adjusting, but they are clear and good right now.  FFB works for every seat.
Four players can finally sit down and race with no difficulties.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[bobbyb13]

He is my friend. He gets paid in pizza, beer, and video games.

This is outstanding.
Not just that the barter system can be alive and well, but that you like him enough to give him something more valuable than $$ !

[Mike A]

Had some friends over last weekend.

All 4 seats got used plenty.

Everything works like it should.

Next up is to dial in all of the monitors and put the shrouds and bezel glass back in.

After my budget recovers from buying Robotron and the Star Trek pin, I need to order up the decals to replace the seat numbers.

[yotsuya]

Had some friends over last weekend.

All 4 seats got used plenty.

Everything works like it should.

Next up is to dial in all of the monitors and put the shrouds and bezel glass back in.

After my budget recovers from buying Robotron and the Star Trek pin, I need to order up the decals to replace the seat numbers.

Yeah, multiple racers are great party games!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bobbyb13]

Had some friends over last weekend.

All 4 seats got used plenty.

Everything works like it should.

Next up is to dial in all of the monitors and put the shrouds and bezel glass back in.

After my budget recovers from buying Robotron and the Star Trek pin, I need to order up the decals to replace the seat numbers.

I am envious for sure.

I will have two at least, but that is if I can figure out how to get another monitor chassis functional.

Hope those in attendance appreciated the fun.