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.