Asteroids Restoration -- Hardware 100% / Starting Cab work...

[mcfreak]

Picked up a non working Asteroids Stand up in pretty bad shape at the Super Auction.

Couple of interesting questions/comments:

• At some point the sides were cut in half about 3/4 the way up by the monitor.  Why in the world would someone do that?  We have been perplexed about this since the purchase and just can't figure it out.
  
• Its a double PCB board with double 30-40 pin adapters going between the boards.  Is that normal? I haven't seen an asteroids board that was a "double" board.

I got about 3 hours with the one I got at the auction, re-soldered the loose capacitor and repaired the power switch.  Got it to power up but it blows Fuse F3 on the power supply.  The Marquee light works and I get a red light on the monitor board...

It's a really weird board though.  It wasn't what I expected when I opened it up.

These are general cabinet pics:

[mcfreak]

Okay, found a bad fuse on the monitor and replaced which made the red "spot" killer go away.  I am still blowing the F4 fuse when the PCB is attached.

Here is the one in question.  Should I go down the path of cleaning and reseating all the rom chips?

Some of the cuts/repairs, monitor...

[Austin.Wolff]

You might as well.  I've heard of it working pretty well.

[Paladin]

Have you tried figuring out what is powered from that fuse?  You could try disconnecting the control panel and coin door and see if it comes up, maybe there's a stripped or crossed wire that's shorting.

[mcfreak]

I unplugged the monitor, Marquee, Controls, coin door, just leaving the PCB board(s) plugged in and it blows.  Without the PCB and but with everything else plugged in it doesn't...

Gonna do some cleaning and there might be a capacitor that is completely blown off of the PCB...

I also need to check the voltage again to make sure it is pushing what it should be.  I am going to take a picture of the PCB to see if anyone knows if it is even Asteroids... 

[Jeff AMN]

Asteroids is one of my top 10 games. Do you have any pics? I'd love to see pics of your progress and I'm morbidly curious about the cutting they did.

[mcfreak]

Yeah I just didn't have a camera with me at the time.  I will take some this afternoon as I want everyone to see the carnage that was done.  The only thing I have done so far is clean it up a bit, the monitor cleaned up nicely.

Also, Should the Vector monitor power up without the PCB board or is it powered from the PCB?

[mcfreak]

Okay, here is the PCB.  What in the heck is it?  Looks to be a conversion to me but I have no idea.  Again, it is still blowing one of the fuses only when the PCB is plugged in.

[mcfreak]

More of the PCB...

Come on guys, help a newbie restore this beast.  If I can find out "What" this is, it will at least give me a place to start.

[mcfreak]

Last one for now...

[arcadefever]

 

that does not look like an asteroids pcb at all 

what the hell is that

[mcfreak]

that does not look like an asteroids pcb at all 

what the hell is that

GREAT Questions.  I did a google image search for Asteroids, A Deluxe, Lunar Lander, and none of them look like this board...

I did, however, find a few problems on it:

[Kaytrim]

I can't help you figure out what it is but if you fix those caps and broken traces it might help stop blowing the fuse.

TTFN and Good Luck
Kaytrim

Separate the two boards and see if there are any markings on either side besides part numbers for each item on the boards.  That might help an expert id this board set.

[arcadefever]

This project is starting to get very interesting  what is this mysterious PCB 
by fixing those caps, may help you to get the answer 

did any asteroids bootleg were produce

keep us inform on your progress 

[mcfreak]

And on top of all the mystery with the PCB, why did someone cut her head off?? 

[theCoder]

I'm no oscilloscope jockey, but it looks like you've got a starting point for your repairs.  Maybe you'll get lucky and it will fire up after these fixes.  Good luck with it.

[The Chugnut]

Really interesting project Mr Mcfreak. Can't wait to see the conclusion to the mystery!

did any asteroids bootleg were produce

I believe there is at least one; it was a bootleg that ran on the Lunar Lander hardware apparently 

EDIT: Linky

[BobA]

That extra board looks like a standard jamma finger board.   Could your cab been reworked with a jamma harness?   Seems a bit weird for a vector game but who knows what that cab has been through?  Just thinking maybe the board in your cab is not even a vector game.  Maybe it never worked.

[mcfreak]

I was thinking down that path as well.  The vector monitor is obv still there so I am not sure what is going on.  I will do the repairs tonight and see if I still blow the fuse and then go from there.

[Level42]

Follwing your steps closely.

The only reason I can think of why they cut the cab is that maybe it has been moved to or out of a place that wouldn't allow it to be normally moved in/out. I have the same problem with my stairs in my house. I could manage to get an Atari Domino's up there (with the marquee box removed) but no-way I'm going to get any other cab like Galaxian, Mario Bros etc. up there. It's because of a turn in the stairs....

That disc capacitor is probably only there for filtering, I'd repair it but don't expect wonders of it. THe traces are definitely a problem though...

Search http://www.system16.com/ for maybe a PCB that looks like yours ....

[mcfreak]

Okay, made the repairs from above, re-seated all chips and cleaned prongs, found one other problem which I also fixed in picture 1...

Picture 2 is the only date I could find on any chip/board.  It's an Intel Chip dated 1977.  I don't know if that's good or bad but it's something.

I replaced the capacitor at C34, the one that was blown completely away, with a best guess because I don't know what board it is.  On power on, it that capacitor gets very hot and smoked for a short time. (until I pulled the plug).   I don't know if I got the Cap right or not but at least its some progress.  Obviously something still isn't right...

Pictures attached.

[mcfreak]

Also got new Slow Blow fuses...  Still blows, disconnected the secondary board, still blows...

Grrr....

[IG-88]

Just curious, but how in the heck do you fix those traces? 

[mcfreak]

Here's a pic.  I did it pretty dirty just to see if it would make a difference.

This worked well back when people would use too hot of an iron on their original xboxes.  I did a lot of "patch" jobs for friends that didn't think.

You basically just follow where the trace should go and bridge them with small wire, then clean up the traces to make sure they arn't touching...  I don't know if this is the "right" way to do it as I am a tinker-er...

[IG-88]

Ahhhh.... makes sense. Thats some darned small soldering. Doubt if my hand would be steady enough anymore....

[mcfreak]

And the winner is..... Drum Roll....

It's a Phoenix PCB...  WHAT THE 

http://www.crazykong.com/pcbs/P%20-%20S/Phoenix.pcb.html

[IG-88]

Sweet! I love Phoenix. But what the heck is that doing with a vector monitor?

[mcfreak]

So I just need a sanity check here.  I DO have a vector in this cabinet right??? 

[Hammerhead]

I know you have already identified the board, but here is a site that has a ton of pics of boards for all games
http://www.crazykong.com/pcbs/  (I'm new to the board so if everyone knows about it already sorry)

[torez]

So I just need a sanity check here.  I DO have a vector in this cabinet right??? 

You have Electrohome 19" X-Y (vector) monitor.

[Kevin Mullins]

CrazyKong is definitly a great site to help identify boards...... but sometimes the details of the board that is being identified need to be looked at. Such as in this case it may be a Phoenix boardset, but it may also just be Phoenix "hardware". Meaning that it may be based on a Phoenix boardset that has been modified. Note the small extra pcb on one side of the orginal posters boards....... that isn't on the pics of the Phoenix boardset. So it may still actually be based on Phoenix hardware, but NOT actually the Phoenix game.

Now there is still the question of why the hell it would be in a vector cab that still has the vector monitor in it. There is no way that pcb is outputting a vector signal of any kind.
And YES, that is the original vector monitor still in there to answer mcfreaks question.
I noticed it wasn't plugged into anything in some of the early pictures.....
Maybe this was a conversion in progress.

The only reason I can thing of as for the cab being cut like you described is that maybe it was badly water damaged and they cut it and replaced the side portions to fix it.
EDIT: Just looked closer at the pics and now I think it was just plain ol' "busted" and then repaired. Maybe it got dropped off a truck or something.

[SavannahLion]

Interesting coincidence. There is (was?) a free Pheonix cocktail about an hours drive away. Got everything but the wiring harness according to the current seller.

[Level42]

Now that is interesting: an Intel chip with an AMD logo ! Or actualy, it's the other way around....an AMD chip, licensed from Intel...



About the monitor.....am I missing something ? I only see one little PCB, is that all ? Is that the HV-PCB, and if so, where is the deflection PCB ?

[mcfreak]

Now there is still the question of why the hell it would be in a vector cab that still has the vector monitor in it. There is no way that pcb is outputting a vector signal of any kind.
And YES, that is the original vector monitor still in there to answer mcfreaks question.
I noticed it wasn't plugged into anything in some of the early pictures.....
Maybe this was a conversion in progress.

I was already troubleshooting by then so things were getting unplugged as a test to see if it would blow that fuse.  When I first powered it up, it had a good fuse in it, which blew. 

[mcfreak]

So I just need a sanity check here.  I DO have a vector in this cabinet right??? 

You have Electrohome 19" X-Y (vector) monitor.

Yeah, I was 100% sure of that when i started bidding on it, now, it could be microwave de-cased and I wouldn't be surprised.  This thing is amazingly interesting and very frustrating on the same token.

[mcfreak]

About the monitor.....am I missing something ? I only see one little PCB, is that all ? Is that the HV-PCB, and if so, where is the deflection PCB ?

Sorry, I just didn't take a picture of that side.  Here is the HV in a metal casing on the other side, and from what I can tell it looks complete.  Here is a web shot of one: http://www.andysarcade.de/data/picseries/vecmon_eh_g05802/pic001.html

[SavannahLion]

Now that is interesting: an Intel chip with an AMD logo ! Or actualy, it's the other way around....an AMD chip, licensed from Intel...

According to Wikipedia, Intel licensed production of 8086, 8088 and 286 processors to AMD between 1979 and 1991. Wikipedia also cites AMD as a formal partner to Intel pre-1986.  It wouldn't be a far stretch to figure that Intel probably did the same with the 8085 in 1977. Interestingly, I couldn't find any mention of AMD producing 8085's anywhere.

[arcadefever]

when you pick up the game at a auction, did the seller told you a bit about the cab ?? or something

weird to see a phoenix pcb inside 

[mcfreak]

Didn't even meet him/her... 

[torez]

I don't see any burn in on the monitor.  If it works, you still have a good score.

[Kaytrim]

Maybe you are dealing with a botched up conversion in progress.   The seller couldn't make the phoenix board work so just sold it off to recoup some cash.  You might want to do one of two things.  Get a real Astorids boardset (if you can find one) or swap the monitor and other high voltage stuff and see about getting that pheonix board working.

TTFN

[BobA]

Either go for an asteroids board for your monitor or get the phoenix board going on a regular arcade monitor.  Even a small add on board is not going to convert a raster game to vector, the requirements are totally different.

[mcfreak]

Either go for an asteroids board for your monitor or get the phoenix board going on a regular arcade monitor.  Even a small add on board is not going to convert a raster game to vector, the requirements are totally different.

Done, have a working one on the way, however, that takes some of the fun out of this.  At least I will get to test my monitor...

[CheffoJeffo]

Done, have a working one on the way, however, that takes some of the fun out of this.  At least I will get to test my monitor...

Careful what you wish for ... 

[mcfreak]

So I started sanding the sides down where it was cut... (damn that was painful watching the side art paint disappear in that section).  Once I bondo that up and sand again I am going to need new sideart.  I know I can get the sideart overlay for 135 at arcadeshop but my question is:

Do they have a Stencil set for the Asteroids sides that you can paint the 4/5 colors back on?

BTW, new PCB should be here tomorrow...

[mcfreak]

Got the new PCB in, the 5+ test point on the Voltage Regulator board is only putting out 1.90 vdc and doesn't change if you adjust the little "adjuster" uhh, thing...  I think one of the caps is bad on that board.  It's probably time for some stuff from Bob Roberts...

[arcadefever]

  we have some progress here ...
the capkit on the audio board should help, order also the big blue 

[prOk]

I'd bet money that the phoenix pcb was just slapped in there with a faked 'adapter' just to make the game 'look' complete for auction purposes.. just a typical auction scam tactic

For the sideart, Arcadeshop sells a screen printed version that looks really nice and given how much printing it yourself on an inkjet would cost it's a good option considering it will cost about the same and you get screen print quality.

/b

[mcfreak]

IT LIVES!!!!!!  I ordered a cap kit for the AR board, Big Blue, and the G05.  Just finished capping the A/R board and it PLAYS BLIND!!!  I also get a small glow on the monitor tube so things are looking up. 

Next is to cap the Monitor!

[arcadefever]

IT LIVES!!!!!!  I ordered a cap kit for the AR board, Big Blue, and the G05.  Just finished capping the A/R board and it PLAYS BLIND!!!  I also get a small glow on the monitor tube so things are looking up. 

Next is to cap the Monitor!

 

keep going 

[mcfreak]

Okay, G05 Monitor Cap kit installed as well as the new Big Blue(Black) on the PS.  Plays well blind still but no video, and now I get glowing red hot R100 and R101.. AHHH
See picture...

I know, I know, Read the Vector Monitor FAQ... I'm going, I'm going...

Thoughts?

[mcfreak]

Okay. I fixed that issue.  I was an idiot and didn't put the insulation back on the chassis  transistors. 

Put those back on and I am in better shape now.
It looks like the Y amplifier isn't working... Here is what the FAQ say's:

Horizontal line (due to "Y" amplifier defection).
·  Bad "Y" amplifier output transistors.
·  Blown "Y" amplifier fuse.
·  Open fusible resistor in the "Y" amplifier.
·  Yoke pins not making good contact (very common).
·  Bad yoke.

[mcfreak]

And we are fully playable...  After a few adjustments and some cleaning of the connections this is the result.

[arcadefever]

 YHEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

congratulation  now you can play one of the best Arcade game ever 

[mcfreak]

THANKS!!!  Yeah, I am pretty ecstatic.. Now to get her head patched back up and new artwork.  I love me some Asteroids.

[mcfreak]

Curiosity got the best of me now that I have all the components working I had to go back and plug in that Phoenix PCB just to be sure.  Yup, still blows that one fuse so I am done with it.
 
Hooked everything back up the the Asteroids PCB and all is well.  Now to move on to the woodworking and the cabinet restore...

[Level42]

 

Yeah, I love it when a classic is brought back to life ! Well done, I know EXACTLY how you felt when that picture came up for the first time ! (And also how you felt when you discovered your mistake with the insulation on the transistors, you're VERY lucky that didn't do more damage !! Thos resistors look frightening !!! How did you still dare to take a picture, I would have shut it down immediately instead 

Are these pictures of the playing game a bit out of focus ? Else try to adjust the focus control on (or near) the HV transformer......

Again congratulations, I'll follow this thread

[mcfreak]

Yeah, I knew I didn't have a clue if they were supposed to be like that or not... Felt like a big goof!

The focus on the HV does nothing if I turn it either way so I still have something not right on the HV unit...  However, I am still just super excited it plays.  Just a few more games and then I will troubleshoot that issue.  I read your thread and saw you got a few games in before you finished your electronics work. 

[Level42]

Very true !!! it shows how good these games are, it's so hard to stop playing  !!

[mcfreak]

So there are two pots on the HV board for the Vector monitor.  One is adjustable through a small hole in the cover and looks to be a large pot. That one seems to do nothing.

The second is a small metal pot on the board which looks to me like it "zooms" in and out the picture.  That isn't focus is it?

[mcfreak]

Finally got some time to continue this project.  I got everything back in the cabinet and I had a couple of lines in test mode that were "Chain link fence looking".  I re-seated each chip and cleaned their legs with an eraser.  Now when I power it up I just get two dots about an inch apart from each other in the center of the screen and they just cycle back and forth.  The reset button does nothing and the diag switch doesn't change anything.  I've taken each chip back out and reseated again with no result. 

Has anyone seen two cycling dots on an Asteroids?

[Level42]

I wish I had an Asteroids but you could try ask at the KLOV forum or the Vector list (http://www.vectorlist.org/)

Also try to search for Asteroids trouble shooting manuals and documents about the monitor...

[RetroACTIVE]

Finally got some time to continue this project.  I got everything back in the cabinet and I had a couple of lines in test mode that were "Chain link fence looking".  I re-seated each chip and cleaned their legs with an eraser.  Now when I power it up I just get two dots about an inch apart from each other in the center of the screen and they just cycle back and forth.  The reset button does nothing and the diag switch doesn't change anything.  I've taken each chip back out and reseated again with no result. 

Has anyone seen two cycling dots on an Asteroids?

Interesting... my asteroids has a couple of small dot problems... there is 1 very faint dot to the left of center and another up near the P1 score... they are not there during self test but are during game play.. also they don't appear immediately... it seems to take a little 'warm up' time before they start showing up...  I've not tried to correct the problem with cleaning or re-seating though.

[ChadTower]

Awesome to see the progress on this.  You'd probably get more readers if it were in the Projects forum.

You definitely got what we call an Auction Grab Bag.... someone threw a bunch of stuff into a beater cab to make it look complete.  I don't know that I agree with it being a scam, though, since you do have the opportunity to look at the thing for as long as you want during the viewing period.

Cutting the top off the cab off is definitely for moving purposes.  Short doorway, vehicle that doesn't quite fit it, etc.

[mcfreak]

Awesome to see the progress on this.  You'd probably get more readers if it were in the Projects forum.

You definitely got what we call an Auction Grab Bag.... someone threw a bunch of stuff into a beater cab to make it look complete.  I don't know that I agree with it being a scam, though, since you do have the opportunity to look at the thing for as long as you want during the viewing period.

Cutting the top off the cab off is definitely for moving purposes.  Short doorway, vehicle that doesn't quite fit it, etc.

It was originally there but was moved because of the technical discussion (or that was the excuse I got)...

All electronics are fully functional again so back to the cabinet restoration.

[Level42]

So you solved the dot problem ? We want to know how you solved it

[mcfreak]

So you solved the dot problem ? We want to know how you solved it

AHHH DAMMIT!!!  I was hoping no one would ask.  With the amount of dumb mistakes I have made on this machine I am surprised I haven't destroyed it.  So remember I said I had all the electronics out of the cabinet and then I installed them all again.  Well I made an assumption about certain connections and how they connected.  The wiring harness I have has a separator 3 pins in.  When re-installing it I looked at the finger board and assumed that the because there was a notch 3 pins in....  Well you know the rest.

I PUT THE F-ING WIRING HARNESS ON BACKWARDS!!!!! 

At one point in my chip pulling I must have connected it the correct way and then then still had a small issue... That is where my two week sabbatical started. I went back to the manual/diagram and noticed my mistake almost immediately.  Good news is I know exact what an asteroids does with the harness on backwards and that it won't destory the whole thing, nor blow any fuses.

Long story short, mark everything and don't be a jackass like me. 

[quanlee]

Hmmm... what did it do when you had the harness on backwards? I'm having problems with an Asteroids, ram issues from what I can tell. The board reads +5vdc ok though.

[mcfreak]

Hmmm... what did it do when you had the harness on backwards? I'm having problems with an Asteroids, ram issues from what I can tell. The board reads +5vdc ok though.

It would cycle two dots  *                        *  <-- think of those blinking back and forth (similar to a spot killer dot) but would blink... And if you pressed player 1 they would stop.  I don't think that is your issue.

[mcfreak]

Few shots of my progress.  I am working on color matching the artwork I have so that I can print it on the vinyl paper I purchased.  It's interesting that the original printed more "red" which I actually think looks really good as it matches the CPO.  Anyway, a few shots...

[AnthonyB]

sweet, awesome find and great resto!