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Author Topic: Need help diagnosing cause of seemingly dead display on ROWE LaserStar  (Read 3906 times)

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chaos7

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  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
My display on my CD100A appears dead and I have spent over 30 hours trying to fix. The CCC appears to work fine (with no display to see how it feels) and I checked the following things -
1. On the CCC the LEDs operate as should when the system boots up - detecting no errors.
2. On the display board I get the 8V and 28V measured with DMM
3. On the 5V regulator I get 4.95V out
4. I spent ages doing continuity checks on display board and cables to the CCC
5. The LED on the display PCB that detects 5V is very weak. Checking for 5V around the board seems to be normal measuring  4.85V in a number of spots including right before the 33k resistor to the LED. On the other side of the resistor it measures 1.5V which seems like a normal voltage drop with the 33k resistor (but not sure) and I don’t know if weak LED is supposed to be as bright as the ones on the CCC. It also only measures 2mA before the resistor and 0mA after it (so maybe 0.5 mA).
6. Clumsy me shorted the 5V regulator when probe slipped across the pins but I replaced it with new one. I replaced the zener diodes I was suspicious of and also the tantalum capacitors but none of that made any difference.
7. I’m not sure if it’s a data issue or a power issue I’ve got with the display. I get -38V from the transformer on the PCB that runs the alphanumeric display but I think it’s an AC out for the display and rest of circuit is DC so if I had set it to AC on DMM it might have read +38 instead of -38 as I had my ground probe on the logic ground part.
8. I have a logic probe but not good in using it. I don’t know if the circuit is CMOS or TTL so any advice to this will help (I think it’s CMOS but want to be sure). There are 2 inputs for the data line (+ &-) and 2 for the clock (+ & -) into the first chip on the display board and then to lines out of it to the main display IC. I’m not sure would it should measure with a logic probe (high/low/pulse) but I’m assuming it would be a pulse so help from anyone that knows what I should expect from any of the inputs and outputs would be helpful to know to compare with. There is also a display load/reset pint on the main IC but not sure what that should get with logic probe either.
9. The VSS for the main IC is 5VDC but I don’t know what it should be exactly for the VDD (maybe 10-15V).

Appreciate any easy tips on how to diagnose this problem to find out at least what has failed (eg:CCC/display PCB/wiring/alphanumeric display/transformer/main display IC/etc), so I can just focus on the section that faulty. I’m not sure if anything on the display should still light up (even a dot) so it would be handy if anyone else has a laserstar model they could pull out plug 6 (it only has the 4 data and clock wires) from the CCC and see if anything is left lit up on the display at all. Considering the 35hours I have invested in trying to fix this I feel like if I got a job delivering pizzas I could have made $800 instead to buy another one for sale else where in the world but I do want to finish what I started so thanks for any help in advance.