Wells Gardner D9200 - Horizontal Collapse?

[Rocketeer2001]

That's the impression I was getting looking at all the ones for sale. Thanks for clarifying!

The replacement transistor has arrived, and the MG Chemicals silicone compound has also arrived. Now I'm just waiting on the mica.

[Rocketeer2001]

I'm back!

Got the replacement transistor for Q418, the MG silicone heat compound, and the mica sheets. I think the quality of mica sheets has severely declined since the early 2000's. I could only order them in a pack of 20, and out of all those only 1 looked somewhat better than what I already had.

Anyways, put all that stuff back on the board, put the board back in the cabinet, turned it on and....nothing. I get the *thump* sound when I flick on the power, and the neck tube is glowing, and I can hear a relay clicking 3 separate times, but the screen is black and it doesn't do that frightening electrostatic sizzle a tube typically makes when it energizes.

Seems like I have a power problem now. I don't think I hooked up any wires incorrectly, but I'll go double check. If not that, what else? The flyback? Q401, Q425, IC101, or IC403?

One step forward, two steps back...

[grantspain]

does the sheet fully cover the transistor metal body?

[Rocketeer2001]

Yup! It's the same size as the old one.

[lilshawn]

upstream from the transistor is a fet that can sometime get plotzed when the main transistors go. it'd be Q413. double check that D417 diode pack too if you haven't already. it's hard to tell what the problem is with these monitors since every single system is separate in these chassis, since it sounds like no HV is being produced now... but not sure since you can't actually tell if having the Q418 in there now is working and you have deflection... but can't see it cause of no HV.

if no hv sounds (and not just a horizontal line) you may have to go upstream from both those systems and look at the "h-outctrl" signal coming from the main IC driver chip (IC301 pin 21). if effs off in a tee and one direction goes to the horizontal Yoke drive circuit and the other goes to the drive circuit for the flyback. i'm dealing with a similar issue with a D9200 with "the jitters" and have been pouring over this area for a while trying to find the issue... so i've been getting very familiar with it.

anyway, sounds like maybe that signal has now stopped since you have no HV and previously you did. there is a bit of shared circuitry so it's possible for a failure in one to effect the other. could be worth looking into Q423 Q424...  Q426 and Q427. they are pre-pre-drive transistors and pre-drive mosfets used to drive their respective transformers (T404 and T405) that fire off the h-deflection (2SC5144) and HOT transistors (2SC4770). this is the beginning of the "tee"

make sure you have a +32v power coming in to this part of the circuit at R470, this is the juice used to make the pulses in the transformers by grounding out the other transformers leg to ground through the pre-drive mosfets.

might be a problem with Q413 or D418, since the 170v drive that flows through the 2SC5144 flows through this fet and diode, and grounding that 170v out through an improperly attached 5144 can cause a huge amount of current to go through Q413 and D418. check and make sure you have 170v here as well. if not, you have an issue further up the chain in the power supply (possible blown out R854 or D814 or open L801).

[Rocketeer2001]

Hey Shawn, thanks for the excellent suggestions!

I found 2 faulty parts:
Q413 is completely shorted; all it's legs have continuity to one another and the mounting tab.
Q414 is reading as two resistors instead of a mosfet, so I'm going to assume that one is bad.

Just to be sure, I also checked these parts and they are all still good:
D417
Q423
Q424
Q426
Q427
Q412
Q415
Q428
Q430

I didn't check the IC301 or any transformers or if I had +32v at R470. The two faulty parts you've helped locate are likely the only problem (fingers crossed), unless you think there's anything else I should be check knowing that Q413 and Q414 failed.

[lilshawn]

i would check R854, its a resistor that knocks down the 170 as it comes out of the SMPS. if the 170 line has been overloaded, it's possible the resistor has gone out of spec, causing the voltage to be off.

since both q414 and q413 where both bad, i'd double check everything in that section upstream and down....

R460
c470
D424
c448
C436
D405
C457
R461
R462
D418
D417

basically check the capacitors and the diodes for shorts and the resistors to be within tolerance... having shorted components is a real stressor. hopefully nothing else is wrong, but it can't hurt to check.

[Rocketeer2001]

An excellent suggested list of things to check! I see where you're going with this.

I got started on it tonight but didn't get too far. R854 is fine, but R462 is shot. Has no resistance, so I'll need one of those. I was getting unreliable readings from the capacitors on the board, so I'll have to remove them to test them properly.

To be continued!

[Rocketeer2001]

I proceeded this evening to remove all these components and test them:

R854
R460
R461
R468
D424
D405
D417
D418
D429
C470
C448
C436
C457
C442
C443
C419

Out of all those parts, none of them were bad. They are all fine. The only new failed part I found is the same as yesterday, the R462. I'll put in an order tonight and hopefully have those before the weekend.

Shawn, I hope you're getting somewhere with your D9200 as well.

[lilshawn]

thanks, hopefully that you get back up and running again. (or at least closer to running so we can see what else is going on)

my projects get back burnered all the time. I have stuff at work that comes up that needs my priority, so it can take quite a while to get back around to things. i like "explaining" out my repair attempts in my posts, so when inevitably i forget where i was at in my repair... i can swing back and read through my post to jar my memory. 

getting old sucks 

[Rocketeer2001]

I got all the parts last Thursday...except for that one resistor, which shipped separately and didn't arrive until today. Put all 3 parts in and...still broken

It did behave differently this time though. I had the game board disconnected from the monitor so that I could see if the "no signal" appeared on the screen first before trying to boot up anything else. When I turned on the power, there was a sizzle of high voltage going to the CRT, so that was good, but then the chassis board starting making a quickly repeating clicking sound, similar to a geiger counter. There was also the normal clicking of a relay that I heard before, but still no image on the screen.

I turned it off, then reconnected the game board to see if having a signal would make a difference. Turned it back on and the sizzle, clicks, and relay clicks were there again, but this time the geiger counter clicks got quieter and the relay clicks got slower. Sure enough, there was an image trying to form on the screen, but it was all garbled with micro-seconds of dim clarity of the "no signal" image.
*EDIT* The neck was also glowing, so I assume that means it's getting enough power to run the tube, but just isn't getting a good video signal.

Then there was a loud BANG and I saw a spark at the neck board. I shut everything down, let it cool down for a few minutes then took the neck board off to see if any components exploded. They all looked visually fine; I think it was just a grounding discharge. Not sure why that would happen.

The new clicking sound was coming from the same corner of the board that all the horizontal collapse components failed around.
The spark on the neck board was just left of the neck if you're looking at the back of the board.

I haven't taken anything else out to inspect. Getting a little tired of this monitor. Although, it's technically no longer horizontally collapsing, so I guess that's a win. It's just fritzing in all directions now.

I will now open the floor to any questions and suggestions for the next course of action.

[grantspain]

was the bang noise more of a heavy crack noise?
I imagine you remembered to connect the neck card dag earth?
I can't remember if q414 original was a irfs644 or irf644, the latter would require a insulation sheet

[Rocketeer2001]

Yeah, it was more of a snap. Like a quick arc. I did have all the grounds connected so it was a bit surprising if the neck board is trying to arc to ground. It only happened once within 30 seconds of powering on.

Q414 is just a little guy. Like an NPN transistor, so no insulation sheet.

I've been doing some searches online and the common culprit for repetitive ticking noises is the HOT or the flyback dying. I've already replaced the HOT...twice, so is it maybe the flyback? I should probably remove the HOT again and check it to see if it got fried, yet again.

[lilshawn]

it's not uncommon for the main B+ supply to act weird due to a bad feedback capacitors. changing out C413 C314 could stop it from doing the ticking thing.

faint ticking/buzzing with no power and acting "dead" can be a sign that the SMPS controller chip (U802) thinks there is an overload condition and will continually attempt to restart the power supply. it will also sometimes work just fine... then other times it won't want to start again.

if you heard/saw an electrical arc on the neck board... check the resistors. they can look okay on the top side, but if you look carefully at the side of the resistors that is up against the circuit board, you can sometimes find one blown out.

while i wouldn't discount the idea of a failing flyback... you never know with these things. the D9200 D9400 series monitors where an absolute engineers wet dream. they did all the crazy things they thought was a good idea and the next big thing since sliced bread... and sadly... many of them aren't... it just makes 10x the amount of things that can go wrong.

[Rocketeer2001]

I'll give those capacitors a look this weekend. It doesn't seem to be a power issue though, because the neck tube was glowing the whole time, it just wasn't showing a proper image.

I'm wondering if maybe the chassis board is fine, and my issue is actually with the neck board or the video/sync board, because the slight blips of images I got on the screen were of the "no signal" message, but I had the game board hooked up and running, so I should have been seeing blips of the game and not the "no signal". Perhaps the video signal isn't making it to the chassis board?

The neck board and the sync board admittedly don't look fantastic; almost like they might have been exposed to some water damage in the past. Maybe I'll try reflowing all the solder joints on those two boards and see how that pans out. I'll check for burnt resistors too.

If that doesn't pan out, what is everyone's thoughts on just turfing this stupid monitor and using a CRT TV as the monitor? I've been reading up on how to do RGB mods to commercial TV's, and it doesn't seem that difficult compared to trying to track down the issue with this D9200. So far I've spent $75 trying to make this damn thing work, and I know I can't find a genuine replacement arcade monitor for less than $400, yet I can
find an old TV with few miles on it with no image burn-in for next to free on kijiji, and then spend a few dollars on the couple components needed to mod it.

[lilshawn]

the no signal message, as well as the OSD menu is produced locally on the neckboard using a secondary channel on the video amp IC chip.

could be a sketchy +5v rail maybe? if the voltage isn't stable, the computers controlling things could be cutting in and out.

still concerned by the arcing you described.

[Rocketeer2001]

I'm back to report failures. Now, instead of just clicking, there's no image at all. No arcing this time either, which is a plus, I guess. Here's what it's doing:


I checked Q413, Q414, D424, R854, R462 and C314 on the chassis board, and they were all fine. I also checked Q418 again and it's still fine.

Moved on to the input board and checked Q220, Q501, Q502, R518, R525, R516, and two zener diodes and a capacitor that's in the one corner of the board. Everything was fine.

Tried finding any faults on the neck board and there was only a few questionable resistors, but after pulling them from the board R267 and R217 were fine. I then proceeded to reflow all the solder joints on that board. Took over an hour, and apparently didn't help at all.

It became difficult to tell if components on the neck board and input board were bad because the schematics don't match my boards. They had different parts with different values. Kind of weird that there's only one set of schematics for this monitors even though there are multiple revisions of the boards.

I used this guys repair videos to see if there was anything else was worth checking and all the parts he checked were fine on my boards:




Thoughts? Mine are, "That dumpster is starting to look like a basketball hoop, and this monitor is starting to look like a basketball".

[Rocketeer2001]

Another day of testing, and still haven't found the issue. Just to be sure, I removed a bunch of parts from the boards and tested them to make sure previously tested and/or replaced parts didn't fail again. All of these tested good:

C310
C828
C441

D403
D417
D421
D423
D424
D425
D426
D427
D431
ZD403

R314A
R314B
R317
R406
R415
R416
R426
R429
R432
R433
R435
R437
R445
R454
R462
R854
R481
R483
R485
R487

Q401
Q402
Q403
Q404
Q405
Q412
Q413
Q414
Q415
Q418
Q419
Q423
Q424
Q425
Q426
Q427
Q430

Kind of took the shotgun approach and just went at everything.
At this point, I'm either looking at a transformer, the flyback, or an IC. Or I just keep looking in the wrong spots and it's still an elusive diode, resistor, mosfet, or transistor.

What ya'll think?

[Rocketeer2001]

Slight update:

I checked the B+ voltage at the 854 resistor and I have 170v. It warbles a bit between 169 and 173, but mostly stays at 170.

This means my power section is good, right?

Just to reiterate, I can hear the tube static as it powers on, the screen is black, the 'no signal' message is NOT present, and the neck has glow. All the while, something is clicking away constantly in the general area of the HOT. This is without the game board plugged in, so no input signals are present.

[Rocketeer2001]

I did some further testing this weekend. I was able to borrow a thermal camera adapter for my phone, and using this I could inspect the boards while they were running in the cabinet. Photos aren't the highest quality, and the angles are weird due to the space limitations of shoving my hand and phone inside a live cabinet.

I didn't find anything outrageously hot, but I did get some results. Keep in mind, these images show the hottest thing in the camera's view, and the coldest. Usually that range is from 22°c to 28ish.

In the power section, I can see some resistors and diodes get warm, but nothing unreasonable (see pic).

There's 3 resistors near the back (R137, R138, R196) that get up to 48°c, but I think that's normal for giant resistors like this (see pic).

On the neck board I can see the main IC201 gets warm, as do the large heat sinks, but nothing hotter than 31°, so it seams fine.

The signal input board has a couple of diodes in the corner that get pretty hot (45°) but I recall the dude in one of those youtube video's I posted saw the same thing happening to his board. I guess it's normal. I tested the diodes and they still work, so I guess it's fine? (see pic)

The one thing that really caught my attention was this somewhat hot spot over by R469 (the big ceramic resistor). R490 and IC404 were in the middle of that. I have a different pic where that IC is up to 55°, which is suspicious to me (to be continued).

And I was curious what the tubes neck looked like so I snapped a pic of that for fun.

[Rocketeer2001]

After doing the thermal tests, I then decided to do some voltage checks. Hard to do with the monitor still in the cabinet, so I removed the chassis, located components of interest, hooked up jumper leads to them, labeled the leads, then put it all back in the cabinet and flicked it on. I could then test each lead with a multimeter from outside the cabinet without sticking my hands in dangerous places.

Something odd I noticed is when doing the thermal camera checks, I had the game board off and only the monitor turned on, and the clicking sound would be constant. I also had no static feeling on the monitor glass.
When I was testing the voltages later on, it clicked a few times when I turned it on, and didn't click again. Now it has a slight buzz coming from the neck board and the monitor has static if I run my hand over the glass, so the flyback must be working now, right?
It no longer clicks when I turn it on. It just behaves like it's not getting a signal and still doesn't display the 'no signal' message.
Except for one round of tests where I actually got some color and very distorted blips of the 'no signal' image, but I could never make it appear again. 

I can hear the tube static trickle away when I shut the monitor off, so it sounds like it is degaussing.

Have a look at my marked-up screenshot of the schematic. I've noted where I tested for voltages and the results I got. It seems to me like maybe the IC404 is my issue if you look at the voltages on their pins, and take into account the thermal image of this chip. It's very strange that I get 0V near R490, but have 11.9v at R493. I did test those resistors on-board and their values are correct, but maybe I'll pull them and see if they're still good.

Or maybe it's T401 not creating the voltage IC404 needs to operate?
Or maybe T403 isn't working and it's messing up T401?
At C432 beside T401, I get ZERO voltage. I think it's supposed to be around 18v?

I also tested the Neck Board voltages at the connectors, and compared to what the printed values said, I got:
4.98v (should be 5v)
7.19v (should be 8v)
170.2V (should be 170v)
11.93v (should be 12v)

Lastly, I tested these parts and they're good:
Q404
Q419
C432
D416
D423
R438
R440
R492
R491

I'm thinking of just getting an IC404 and slapping it in there and seeing what happens. Unless you guys have some other tests I should do to narrow this down, or suggest some other parts I should get at the same time just in case I get another domino effect.

[Rocketeer2001]

I'm back with my final report.

I determined that IC404 wasn't putting out the correct voltages so I opted to try replacing it. Before doing so I checked everything around it one last time and found the fusing resistor R415 to be way out of spec. Supposed to be 22 ohms and it had around 230ohms. I went to get a replacement but couldn't fit it in 1/4w, so had to get it in 1/3w instead.

After replacing those two parts, I put the board back in the machine and flicked on the power. Black screen, no high voltage sizzle in the screen, and the HOT was back to repetitive clicking.

Anticipating that this might not solve the problem, while ordering those parts I also ordered a bunch of other parts that could be the problem, along with spares of commonly reported failed components. Since my first attempt didn't work, I figured I may as well toss all these parts in, and then I'd know for sure that A) one of those parts was the issue, or B) none of those parts were the issue but at least I'd know they were all new.

I tested each old part as I removed it, just to see if there was anything amiss. Here's what I replaced:
IC401
IC402
IC803 - Test result said "unknown part". I assume that means it was dead.
IC805
IC806 - Test result said "unknown part". I assume that means it was dead.

C810 - This part was already new, but the troubleshooting guide said to replace it with a 270uf 35v cap instead of the 220uf if you have issues, so I did.

Q402 and Q401 - test result was a little off compared to Q402
Q426 and Q427
Q413 and Q407 - test result was a little off compared to Q413
Q105, Q403, Q405, Q412, Q419, Q423, Q428

After changing all of those, I turned it on aaaaaaand....we're back to the same condition. No improvement.

And with that, I give up.
I've been banging my head against this wall for long enough .
This D9200 is a real piece of work! I've been trying to fix this thing for months and it sounds like these have a history of being great when they work and being a nightmare when they don't. I've only experienced the latter so in my limited experience I'm calling this thing a piece of junk!

I've found an alternate solution. I came across a free 27" Toshiba 27AFX55 TV on kijiji. I went and picked it up and it works great. Absolutely nothing wrong with it. This series of TV's is well documented on how to do an RGB input mod, so that's what I'm going to do and then shove it into the cabinet. I do get a slight downgrade in resolution quality because the Big Buck Hunter game board outputted medium resolution, but this tv will only do standard resolution. I never really got to see the D9200 run for more than 5 minutes, so I'll never know what I was missing anyways. I can set the game board to run in standard resolution.

Here's some photos of the new TV running some tests. First one was me learning that I can't run the game in medium resolution (31.5khz) on a consumer TV that can only do 15khz. Second photo is of my PS1 hooked up with an RGB scart cable to the component input. Looks pretty sharp to me. Photos don't do it justice.

Thanks to everyone that attempted to help! 
It was a long road to get here, but unfortunately we'll have to toss this thread into the every-growing category of D9200 repair failures.

[lilshawn]

these have a history of being great when they work and being a nightmare when they don't.

this is the most accurate statement about the Wells Gardner D9xxx series chassis that has ever been written.

I would like to say they are over-engineered... but it's not really. it's... under-engineered overly complicated engineering. it makes for a very temperamental setup that if you can get it immediately when it fails (ideally before) you are fine. the problem lies in the sections that keep running after a section has failed and it causes more failures in related and adjacent circuits. if they had checks in place to detect failures and shut things down, we wouldn't be in the situations we do with them.

[Rocketeer2001]

Wellp, my plot to RGB mod a TV were thwarted. See this post for the horribly long story:
https://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,168676.msg1772715.html#msg1772715

Or a quick summary:
I can't use a TV because I can't output 15khz standard resolution from the Big Buck Hunter game board.

If you bought this game as a kit to retrofit an existing cabinet, you got the board that can switch resolutions. If you bought the whole machine from Incredible Technologies (oh the irony of the name), you got a board that's locked to medium EGA resolution. This makes no sense to me; it has the darn dip-switches on the board, but the jerks software locked it to medium resolution. WHY?!!?

I can't do a TV mod it'll never display the medium res image this stupid game spits out. Looks like I'll have to fix this D9200 since it's the only EGA monitor I got.

My options are:
1. Keep throwing parts at it with every free moment I have
2. Find someone to fix it
3. Get a universal chassis board from ebay (not sure if they have any that do EGA though...)

It's current state is:
When turned on it will rapid fire a bunch of clickity noises for about 30 seconds, then goes silent. No static charge on the screen, and everything is black. If I leave it on too long it'll start burning out components, as I did when I was trying to measure voltages.

[Rocketeer2001]

I called another well known local repair shop today. They told me they were months behind with a backlog of work, and even if they weren't, they don't want to touch the D9200 with a 10ft joystick. Said the digital monitors are a pain to repair.

So either I'm back to fixing it myself, or...I may have found a lead on a WG K7500 chassis. Those output med res for a 27" monitor, so it should work on this tube, right? I'll check my yoke impedence to make sure it matches, but is the k7500 chassis a good one? More reliable than the D9200?

[grantspain]

k7500 will not run on a d9200, yoke is very different
a d9400 or d9800 will run on your tube
the reason no one want to work on these chassis is partly down to the yokes corroding, there is a paint used on these tubes that flakes off into the yoke and rots through the windings and then causes a short. When that happens the chassis will fail every time, sanwa pfx suffer from yoke corrosion as well.
Proving your yoke is ok is the first step, only real way is try a known good chassis. You can remove the yoke and inspect, you would see areas of burn or rot if it has corroded

[Rocketeer2001]

The K7500 was rebuilt, so I asked for the horz and vert impedance numbers and compared them to my yoke and they're way too far apart for this to work, like you said. Probably has something to do with the D9200 being a trisync.

I could ask him if he has any D9400 or D9800's.

If this yoke winding coating rots away and causes a short, wouldn't that show in a resistance or impedance reading?
When the monitor was working I noticed the image was rotated slightly. From past CRT experience I knew you could loosen the neck clamp and rotate the yoke to straight that out, so I tried that and the yoke wouldn't budge. I read somewhere on this forum that these yokes are glued pretty firmly to the tube and can't be removed without wrecking them. Not sure if that's true or not. What's your take?

I may be back on the "use tv as monitor" train. I realized that the Big Buck Hunter game board is essentially just a computer motherboard, and like any other computer you don't switch monitor resolutions using the motherboard, you use the operating system. My theory is the Kit version of this game that you'd buy for retrofitting an old cabinet, came with a slightly different hard drive that had the programming to allow you to use the resolution dip switches on the motherboard.

I just need to find a copy of that game, clone it onto a compact flash card, slap it into the game board and see if I can switch to standard resolution. I suspect it would work.

Anybody got a CHD of the kit version of Big Buck Hunter II Sportsman's Paradise?

[grantspain]

in my experience you will not be able to read a short on a yoke as it tends to manifest itself only when energized
bonded yokes are not impossible to remove but you do need to be extremely careful

I think your best way forwards is to try to locate a working d9200,9400 or 9800 chassis and hope your yoke is ok

[Rocketeer2001]

Hey Grant,

I told the guy that's selling the k7500 my woes and he chimed in that he has a monitor he can pair with the rebuild chassis board. Then I'd have a med-res chassis with a compatible yoke tube. He wanted $500, which is probably fair, just not sure if I want to spend that much and to drive 8 hours each way to get it. I'll consider this the new Plan B.

Someone else pointed out that the hard drive likely won't have any resolution settings on it, nor the eprom chips. They found another blurb in the manual that I failed to notice, which mentions that the low-res setting will only work if I have a special Monitor Scaler Board, whatever that is. The manual also lists the package contents of the 'kit' version of the game, and this special board wasn't included. Can't find any part numbers for that special board or any mention of it anywhere in the community.

Also In summary, different eprom chips won't help me, a different 'kit' game board won't help me, and a different HDD or image won't help me. I need that stupid scaler board that nobody's heard of.

Or, I'm back to tinkering on the D9200 

[Rocketeer2001]

While I pondered what to do with my D9200, I put my attention towards making the game run on a Compact Flash Card instead of the original Hard Drive which sounds very much like it's on its last legs.

I had purchased an Eagle V2.09 EPROM boot chip from ebay, which is required for the CF card to work. I wasn't sure if the chip was legit or not, so one way to find out is to boot up the system with the hard drive disconnected and see what the boot screen says.

Since my D9200 is on the fritz I thought I should at least be able to hook up an old VGA monitor directly to the graphics card on the game board to see the boot dialog. First monitor I tried would only say "OUT OF RANGE" and displayed nothing else. Second monitor did the same thing. The 3rd monitor also said this, but this one was smart enough to tell me what signal it was receiving. This was great, because now I could test those dip switches too!

I discovered the switches do in fact work! Here's my results from playing around with them:
DIP 1=ON   DIP 2=ON (low res) the monitor says:  15.9kHz / 55Hz
and shows a blank screen

DIP 1=OFF  DIP 2=ON (med res) the monitor says:  25.7kHz / 61Hz
and shows a blank screen
 
DIP 1=OFF  DIP 2=OFF (med res with Low res B adjust?) the monitor says: 640x480 / 60Hz
and totally shows the boot screen! It's like it's in VGA mode with these settings.

Using this I could now see on the monitor the version of the boot chip, so I swapped out the original to the 'new' one and sure enough it shows it as the V2.09! We're off to a good start.

I made a CHD copy of my HDD and cloned it onto an 8GB CF card, then slapped that in an IDE to CF Card adapter, hooked up the floppy drive power connector from the power supply, and set the adapter to work in 3.3V mode, and it was totally happy! Game booted up nice and fast!

However, this is where things got interesting. I couldn't see the game, I could only hear it playing over the speakers. After the boot screen is done and the game loads, the monitor goes blank and I get that same "OUT OF RANGE" message I had before, but this time it says the resolution is 25.7kHz / 61Hz.
I thought I was in VGA mode, so what gives?

Having DIP 1 in the OFF position meant it was in medium res, so this time I tried it in the ON position to enable Low Res. I knew I wouldn't be able to see the boot screen, and likely wouldn't see the game either, but the monitor should at least tell me the resolution it's running.
I fire it up and during the boot process the monitor says it's in 15.9Khz / 55Hz. The switches work! The boot sequence is working! This is it, I'm gonna get the game running in low res mode!
Then after the game loaded and I could hear the music playing, the monitor was black and said "OUT OF RANGE" 25.7kHz / 61Hz. What the?

Now I was back on my theory that the operating system was setting the resolution, so if I tried different versions of the game, maybe I'll find one that's from a kit? I downloaded and tried CHD version V2.02.11 , V2.02.09 , V2.02.08 and they all had the same result. What did change was the volume, oddly enough. It became quiet and would make subtle squealing noises, like it was picking up interference. When using the HDD, it isn't nearly as quiet, but does still have some of that interference. Extra odd was the volume buttons in the coin door not having any effect to change the volume...a different problem for another day.

In summary, the dip switches work to change the resolution, but my prior assumption that the data on the hard drive sets the resolution must be correct. What else could counteract the dip switch setting after the game loads?

If I could get this thing to stay in 15.9Khz, then I could use a standard TV with an RGB mod, and that 55Hz vertical refresh wouldn't matter since RGB doesn't care about that.

[Rocketeer2001]

Well I have some new info! I was in contact with a customer service rep at Incredible Technologies and he said that this mythical "Monitor Scaler Board" I need to make BBH2 run in CGA mode was a device made by Averkey, and that was all he knew. I did a web search and found the AVerMedia AVerkey iMicro PC to TV Converter:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/677824-REG/AverMedia_DKEYIMID2_AVerKey_iMicro_PC_Mac_to_TV_Converter.html

It has a VGA output that's supposedly an RGB SCART, but the specs don't say if the output signal is in 15kHz @ 60Hz or something else. I emailed AVerkey to see what they could tell me. If this works, that would mean this is a scan converter, right? Then I could go back to using the TV as a monitor and doing the RGB mod, or at the very least I could get S-video out of it, so that's a step in the right direction.

Not sure if this converter would mess up the light gun functionality though.

[tiger1900]

Hi Rocketeer2001!

I joined this forum to ask you a question.

I just happened to be working on the same D9200 monitor. I fully recapped it, reflowed all the boards and it worked great, but it would start making a arc noise every so often; after heating up, it increased. I found if you take the factory sealed VR901 and turn it counter clockwise (raising the resistance) the arcing stops (this also scales the picture larger... - note: I wrote down the original value before tweaking the pot). This is also demonstrated in one of the YouTube videos you linked.

Reason why I said "it worked great" was because I decided to do some poking around the board. My monitor is outside of a cabinet, and using a temperature gun I clocked the 2SC5144 getting close to 140f (60c). around this temperature I started getting wacky horizontal happenings (4 hours outside of the cabinet in an 85f (29.4c) ambient temperature room).

I decided it needed new thermal paste. So I took some MX-4 I had sitting around, took out the screw... that's when I noticed the screw for my 2SC5144 (Q418) wasn't tight at all. Without desoldering it, I bent the chip out of the way, used an alcohol wipe to remove the old white silicon, which was totally dry and cracking off both sides of the gray silicone pad, caked on some MX-4 on both sides and replaced it, this time cranking down the screw.

I restored power, and I got a squealing sound now from the monitor that was originally dead silent. Hmmm, was there a reason it was on there loose?

I loosened the screw... still squealing, and a burning smell (still in contact with heatsink); I then powered it up with the chip bent away from the heatsink (cleaning position) and the squealing stopped, it was back to normal. Was this a cracked solder joint? (nope).

I tried to put the screw in loose again, the squealing returned (each of these time, the monitor was only powered for a short period before disconnecting). Lastly, I pulled it away from the heatsink again, and when I powered it up, a FLAME shot from the screw hole! (anyone reading this, yes that whole thing was irresponsible, but it could survive momentarily without a heatsink, a flame shouldn't had shot from it... as far as I know).

I thought to myself, maybe I damaged the casing, cranking it down. The heatsink is just a plate, maybe a burr dug through the silicone pad?

After cleaning  the chip, I found where the flame shot out. I felt the heatsink hole and there is a burr around the hole. I wonder if this had anything to do with it getting damaged? I wouldn't think bending the leads would had done it.

Question: Every time you replaced the 2SC5144, did you more than "snug" the screw for Q418 also?

I think I read in a post that you were getting B+ (170v measured from either side R854) and the majority of your components were fine before the catastrophic failure.
Even though this 2SC5144 had a flame shoot from it, it still tests PERFECTLY! Both in a device like the one you shared, and the way Princess Prin Prin demonstrated.

I ordered a new 2SC5144 and will install it later this week. I plan on deburring the hole and just snugging the screw this time. I feel mine was already on its way out, but my mishandling helped it a bit.

Testing the surrounding circuit. Everything is fine. I cut power every time there was an oddity, and only left the screeching going until I could identify the noisy component.

I think, I'm only the 2nd person to work on this chasis. I'm sure I was the first to touch the 2SC5144 since factory.

[Rocketeer2001]

Tiger, sounds like we're on a similar unfortunate journey.

Did your Q418 have a mica sheet insulator between it and the heatsink? As I found out, it's a necessary part to prevent arcing between the component and the heatsink. Even though mine was arcing, upon removal it tested fine so I put it back in. It doesn't arc anymore but the whole monitor doesn't do much anymore other than make clickity noises.

I didn't crank down the screw. I only snugged it down enough so that the back of the part was sitting flush against the heatsink; just enough to make sure it would make a good heat transfer. I wouldn't think it should ever be too loose, otherwise it wouldn't keep Q418 flat against the heatsink.

It's possible your burr was digging into the back of the 418, just enough to cause it to arc, similar to how my screw might have dug into the edge of the hole for my 418 and was arcing. The part tests fine, but maybe it's somehow damaged. I might have the same issue, but unless I know for sure I don't feel like throwing more money at it in parts.

Keep us appraised of your progress!

[lilshawn]

just an FYI, a component can test fine at the low voltages used by a test machine, but fail when full B+ voltage is applied.

if your chassis is giving the old tick tick tick, it's the SMPS's way of telling you it's output overloaded and it's trying over and over to start up. (just in case the first time it was a large, empty capacitor that needed some more time to charge up.) but a shorted component (like a shorted capacitor or diode that is connected to ground) can also make the SMPS do this.

look at your schematic at everything connected to B+ and see what you can remove to "cut off" part of a circuit. often you can "cut" a circuit down into 3 or 4 separate sections or pieces... by removing resistors, inductors, transformers or diodes. if "cutting out" a section, then applying power results in the main SMPS firing up and not ticking, then the section you cut out has the fault. see attached for some examples. your specific application will vary.


use caution when removing components... you are only powering on the chassis long enough to see if the SMPS now has the short/overload removed from circuit. 1 or 2 seconds max. any longer and you risk blowing up more components as systems attempt to work without their support circuits.

[tiger1900]

Thank you @lilshawn for isolating the circuits in the drawing.

I also agree, even though this original 2SC5144 (Q418) tests fine, I'm replacing it (especially since it shot fire). I've had a similar occurrence where a component tested fine outside of a circuit, but not while in operation. @Rocketeer2001 I'm reusing the silicone isolator, after a cleaning, I found it to be in good physical condition.


Latest: Anyone know where I can find a genuine 2SC5144? I'm in the USA and I can't decipher if a seller has an actual genuine supply.

Reason: I just received an order, and comparing these to what was factory installed, there's a huge difference in their quality and appearance. Out of the two received, one tested bad out of the box.

Has anyone used these? Are they fake? Anyone recommend where can I get a couple of good ones?

Thanks for your assistance.

[Rocketeer2001]

Hey Shawn, I had read a bunch of your old posts about trouble-shooting monitors and remember you saying that a repeated clicking sound is the power supply restarting over and over. I just didn't know where to go from there.

I like the concept of narrowing down the problem by disabling parts of the board by cutting off its power, but as you said there is a risk involved. My board doesn't start clicking until at least 3-4 seconds later, so if I waiting that long with your method I'd be doing damage to other components. How would I know if the power supply wasn't clicking as a result of disabling the problem section, or if it wasn't clicking because the power supply section no longer worked? I suppose having a meter hooked up to read the voltages somewhere in the power section would solve that issue.

I should mention that it doesn't just click repeatedly, it also now makes a squeal or chirping noise along with the clicks.

Not sure I'm confident enough to start removing parts and turning on the power. I don't fully understand what all the parts do or their relationship to one another. Then again, this thing is destined for the trash if I try nothing, so what have I got to lose?

Tiger: I was having a hard time finding the samsung HOT part as well, so I went with the Fuji part FJL6920TU from Digikey. It's supposed to be a compatible replacement.

[lilshawn]

typically if the power supply is clicking it's usually one of 3 things...

(in order of likelihood)

HOT's blown
SMPS rail caps old and dried out
vertical IC issue

most of the time your monitor will have been recapped at some point so generally the HOT is the issue, but if it hasn't been re-capped and it still has it's originals, chances are pretty good it's those. but honestly it could be either one.

the other issue that crops up is the vertical drive IC goes bad. you can usually tell if it's gone shorted if the resistors that feed power into it (usually 1 or 2 larger wattage resistors) are discolored or cooked looking. they will often test higher than what they are spec'd at due to the damage they have endured.

since you mentioned that the clicking doesn't start until a few seconds have elapsed, you are probably going to be looking at a system the fires up AFTER the computer boots and gets going. so something in the horizontal drive system or a pincushion compensation circuit...maybe something in the tube drive or more likely the fets switching the caps onto the horizontal (resolution frequency compensation capacitors) maybe even a sub power supply isn't working and it's dragging down the main SMPS.

try unplugging the connectors off the neckboard (leave the high voltage wires and grounds) and see if it sounds like it fires up. (4 or 5 seconds max) if it still goes to overload ticking, might be an issue with a shorted diode (like in the blanking system) or in the resolution frequency capacitor compensation switching system. (about 12 transistors/fets to check/swap/change/test etc)

<rant>

the D9200/D9400 is an obscenely over designed but poorly engineered chassis... it makes fixing them extremely difficult. the main problem being that it has so many independant and separately powered sub-systems. when one system fails, the others typically keep "running" causing more issues, which end up damaging parts in other systems. this makes fixing this chassis extremely difficult since you can damage new parts if you power on the chassis and the chassis isn't near 100% repaired. a still failed component can kill off a chassis in a matter of seconds... and you end up back at square one again.

last D9400 (not a 9200, i know... but near enough) I fixed required a list of 34 parts to repair, and about 8 hours worth of time over about 6 weeks to fix... and I kinda sort of know what i'm doing sometimes maybe but probably not over the last 16 some years i've been doing this... But even I have 3 or 4 D9X00 chassis in the chassis pile that i have given up on at one time or another.

with these monitors... my main advice is, if you are just a hobbyist electronics kinda guy/gal...and something completely obvious doesn't jump out at you, (like and obviously fried component or  you change out the caps or a HOT and it still doesn't work) it is probably worth your time and money to send it off to someone for repair. Even if it takes 6 months to get back to you and costs you 300 bucks, it's still cheaper than the handfuls of parts and handfuls of hair and the weeks if not months of farting around you will lose trying the shotgun approach to only end up with a monitor that STILL doesn't work. Not being a negative nelly, just stating the reality of what these chassis can do to you.

</rant>

[Rocketeer2001]

I replaced every single cap (about 78 of them) and I replaced the HOT twice. It could be blown again, but like you said it might test fine with a low voltage multimeter, yet fail when in the board with full power.

I think the limited trouble-shooting guide from Wells Gardner says this could also be a failed flyback. My understanding is that part is hard to come by these days.

I tested all the large resistors on the whole board and they all work now (I did replace one a while ago, I think).

I'll give that one method a try (unplugging the neck board low volt connections and turning it on), as that's a quick and easy test.

I don't interpret your advice as coming from a 'negative nelly' at all. I've been working on this thing every weekend (and some week days) for almost a year and it just seems to go from bad to worse. You sound like you know your stuff compared to me, and if it's still a struggle for you then my only chance of succeeding would be pure luck.

I tried to get local arcade repair shops to look at it and 5 of them said "NO". 1 place that is well known for being 'the' place to get your arcade fixed said they were too busy and even if they weren't they wouldn't take on this D9200 monitor because digital monitors are a real pain to work on. I tried emailing 3 or 4 online repair places and didn't hear back from any of them.

I'm going to try my 'Plan B', which involves using a TV as the monitor, coupled with a scan converter to downscale the EGA signal to a CGA signal. Might not look perfect, but it'll be better than nothing. And if that doesn't work, there is a guy about 5-6 hours drive away that has a rebuilt K7500 chassis with monitor that I could swap into the cabinet for $500.

[Rocketeer2001]

Another day of disappointments, hurray!

I received in the mail the AVerkey iMicro scan converter. Lets me hook up the VGA 25kHz output from the graphics card on the game board and it'll output a 15kHz on S-video, composite, or SCART. I didn't have the SCART ready (the TV still needs to be RGB modded), so I tried S-video. Image is...fine...kinda muddy and has a slight jitter, but it was working...mostly. The image is shifted to the right a few inches, and cropped. I can center the image back into the screen, but I don't know how to 'uncrop' it.

On top of that, the light gun doesn't work. I pull the trigger, the screen flashes, but no shots are registered. I tried using the composite output instead, and same story. I'm wondering now if this converter is somehow messing up the signal the game board is expecting when you use the gun.

So close...

[lilshawn]

i posted a few years back about the ITs game boards and how the resolutions are not QUITE standard. they are close, but not close enough. not a problem for analog monitors where you can just stretch out or squash the picture coming in to compensate for the oddball resolution, but not close enough for most digital systems.

I had a similar issue with the GBS8200 trying to sync signals from golden tee machines back in the day, which is where the post came from.

i'm going to say the main issue with the gun not picking up is because of the scan converter... its introducing lag that is delaying the frames too much.

the way the system works is a little different from your average light gun game so i'll explain...

you pull the trigger, the computer sends a full white frame... at the beginning of the frame draw, it starts a timer... the monitor is drawing the screen in white, from top left across to the right...line by line...computer is waiting until the gun says it sees light. however long it takes till the gun says YES there is light now is whereabouts on the monitor it is pointed. then the scene is drawn again, once that's done, another full frame white is drawn and it counts again. this happens 10 or so times in a row (should the average be close enough together it could be as low as 5 or as high as 15) the counts are averaged together to get it about as accurate as it can get. that average number is where on the screen it's pointed and the computer acts accordingly.

problem with the scaler is that it introduces lag into the system. this gun signal timing until it knows for sure where your gun is pointed at is all done somewhere in the neighborhood of 160 to 450ms or anywhere from about 1/8th of a second to 1/2 second from the best case to worst case scenario.

so introducing any lag into a system where it's timing a portion of 16ms (how long a crt takes to redraw a single frame)... no matter how small... is going to screw it up. I think VERY likely the scan converter you have there is probably putting 100 or 150ms worth of lag into the frames. even the OSCC which is probably one of the best converters you can get that is often described as zero latency still has 50ms worth of lag...that is still just over 3 full frames... not going to work.