Tank II

[CheffoJeffo]

I checked my basement, it looks like I have 5 19" color monitors and no black and white ones. I guess I sold or gave them all away.

Too bad yours doesn't have a 23" monitor, those things are a dime a dozen it seems (all those Sprint 2's with burned up boards left a lot of the 23" monitors floating around). I think I still have a few good ones in my basement (I know I have six monitors down there, but I don't have any real games to use them in anymore).

* CheffoJeffo needs to schedule a roadtrip to grab up some 23" BW Atari monitors

* CheffoJeffo resigns himself to the fact that he has to fix his own damned 23" Atari BW monitor

[ChadTower]

I haven't even loaded the pics from the camera yet. 

I just checked those two HV diodes in the burnt section... both seem at least mostly okay.  Junction drops are 0.49v and 0.51v, one way.  I'm not sure if that is on the low end of acceptable for MR501s... any opinions?

EDIT:  ooh, the big resistor between what appears to be a VR (a transistor looking thing with a heat sink) and the diodes reads as 0.3ohms.  We may have a winner.

Now to just try and figure out what it should be.

Gah, how do I tell the difference between silver and grey?  I mean, it's only 0.01 and 100,000,000 respectively.   

If I'm reading it right, it is either 2200 megohms or 0.22ohms... and it actually reads 0.3ohms.  Why the eff would it be so big if it's only 0.22ohms?  Voltage level?

[Level42]

Because of the low resistance, there's probably a good deal of current running through it. To handle this, the resistor needs to be big(ger). The more Watts (power) a resistor can/has to handle, the bigger it gets.

U=IxR (Or as US people say: V=IxR)

By the way, silver is NOT used to code the resistance but the tolerance.

Silver is a certain percentage and gold is a certain percentage, I don't remember what the exact percentages are.
It is the tolerance in resistance level. A resistor is never exactly the given value, but around it. The tolerance band indicates how big or small the difference can be.

And uhmmm.... a 2200 megaohm resistor would be about the same as an open.....

[ChadTower]

There are two silver bands... fourth one is tolerance.  The third band is also silver.  The multiplier.

I'm going to try to find some test points to ensure the voltages are proper when running, but if I can't, I'm almost to the point where I'm going to pack it in and give it to a pro.  I'd like this game to be running soon.  I'm not sure where I'll put it, though.  Maybe up in my son's room since it is so short (they have slanted ceilings).

[ChadTower]

A very interesting ebay auction in terms of debugging this game.

I haven't been able to find mention of this document anywhere. 

The handbook is basically a course in electronic circuits and monitors in the pong era.  It cover b&w monitors, and ttl circuits.  It's about 100 pages and has a motorola xm-501 monitor schematic for circuit analysis.  Must have come from some operator training seminar.

[CheffoJeffo]

I can find mentions of it, but no scans.

Interesting ... wonder how much more info it contains than, say, The Book ?

[ChadTower]

I can find mentions of it, but no scans.

Interesting ... wonder how much more info it contains than, say, The Book ?

No way of knowing without buying it.  The fact that it uses my exact monitor as its circuit analysis example is worth money to me in and of itself.  It wouldn't bother me to scan it for ionpool.

[Level42]

Uhm....

http://arcarc.xmission.com/PDF_Arcade_Atari_Kee/Tank_II/Tank_II_TM-049.pdf

[ChadTower]

Thanks... that showed real promise at first, but after the first 5 or so pages, everything in that manual is in the standard manual too.     It fully lays out the TTL schematics but I have no idea how to go about troubleshooting any of it beyond the way I'd troubleshoot a more modern board.  Of course, I'm still learning that too.

[Level42]

Same here....didn't know what you had already of course....
If you got questions about the TTL stuff let me know. I don't know everything, and I can only understand partly how all these things work together, but I can always give it a shot.

Are you also looking for the monitor manual ?

[ChadTower]

I'll keep that offer in mind, thanks.  I need all the help I can get.

I do have the monitor manual.  It amazes me how much more detailed the old manuals are than modern manuals.  I wouldn't have been able to get the cap job finished without the schematic in the manual.

[Fozzy The Bear]

It amazes me how much more detailed the old manuals are than modern manuals.  I wouldn't have been able to get the cap job finished without the schematic in the manual.

That's because nobody bothers to repair stuff any more. When it breaks they just chuck it out and get another one.

It's even the same in the arcades now.... Most new machines are coming in with domestic monitors and TV's in them and in most cases there's no way to put the LCD ones right when they do break. In the UK "Lets Go Jungle" is fitted with a 65" Sony Bravia projector TV set!!! Time Crisis 4 is fitted with really crappy domestic Thompson 4:3 projectors, Go Figure!

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[Level42]

Very true. Atari's documentation is awesome, especially around the classics period.
The Williams manual I got about the Getaway pinball is amazing too. Imagine just how many hours were put in writing and drawing those manuals.

I remember the time that Philips put a schematic (not a complete service manual, but still) with every device they sold.....imagine if they would do that now. You're lucky if you don't have to download a user manual !

[ChadTower]

Over the past week or so I made two orders from Bob Roberts.  I ordered the replacement B+ caps and I figured he cross shipped them.  I sent in payment.  Before the B+ caps came to me I ordered a couple of PCB edge repair kits.  Another shipment, another $7.  Fair enough.

Bob didn't cross ship the first package for some reason.  He waited for the payment to come in and then did cross ship the second order.  For some reason he shipped them in two separate boxes - one with four caps in it, the other with 2 edge repair kits in it.  Both were small boxes marked about $4.50.  I paid $14 to ship $9 actual cost of what in this instance was a combined couple of ounces of material and could have been about $4 cost.

That is annoying enough.  Want to know what Bob used as packing material?  Moon Pies.  ---smurfing--- Moon Pies.  There were more pies in each package than there were parts.  So I paid $14 to ship $4-5 shipping cost of parts and 5x that weight in ---goshdarn--- Moon Pies.

Bob Roberts is losing his mind.

[Level42]

Yeah, Bob (or one of his workers) also made a mistake with my G07 cap-kit. It was corrected by Bob, but maybe.....ehm, he's getting old ?

Hey Chad, have a look at this thread on KLOV forum:
http://forums.webmagic.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=2&Number=665749&Main=352030#Post665749

There's a guy named "Questor" who has a fully working Tank II. Maybe he can help a bit ?

[ChadTower]

Yeah, Bob (or one of his workers) also made a mistake with my G07 cap-kit. It was corrected by Bob, but maybe.....ehm, he's getting old ?

When I reported the errors in the cap kit for this game he told me it wasn't possible.  I may be done ordering from him entirely.

[Xiaou2]

 Moon Pies?   Are those the chocolate covered marshmallow gram-cracker
delicacies?   Yummy Yummy for my Tummy!   

 I wish everyone would use moon pies as packing material   lol

[danny_galaga]

Because of the low resistance, there's probably a good deal of current running through it. To handle this, the resistor needs to be big(ger). The more Watts (power) a resistor can/has to handle, the bigger it gets.

U=IxR (Or as US people say: V=IxR)

By the way, silver is NOT used to code the resistance but the tolerance.

Silver is a certain percentage and gold is a certain percentage, I don't remember what the exact percentages are.
It is the tolerance in resistance level. A resistor is never exactly the given value, but around it. The tolerance band indicates how big or small the difference can be.

And uhmmm.... a 2200 megaohm resistor would be about the same as an open.....

i thikn silver is 10% tolerance and gold is 5%...

[Level42]

Yeah, Bob (or one of his workers) also made a mistake with my G07 cap-kit. It was corrected by Bob, but maybe.....ehm, he's getting old ?

When I reported the errors in the cap kit for this game he told me it wasn't possible.  I may be done ordering from him entirely.

Well....first I ordered some Atari PSU rebuild kits, the one's that come with the fuses. I noticed that not all the required value fuses were in there. I mailed him about it and got about the same stubborn reply. So I replied and explained what is needed in values by an Atari PSU and what was in the bags. Then he explained that the included fuse set was NOT specifically aimed at the Atari PSU but it was a "general" set of fuses, or something like that.

I thought it was stupid, but after reading again on his site, he told like it was.

Next I had an order with the G07 cab kit, amongst other stuff. I got two wrong voltage caps. I mailed him about it and he was a lot less stubborn and asked me to send a picture of them, which I did. I got back a _very_ long e-mail explaining about his handling process (which sounded pretty good) and that no-one there could understand how this mistake had been made. Believe it or not, he also told me that he had watched the video tape to see where it could have gone wrong. So, he's apparently video taping the handling process !!! I've seen things like this at companies like DHL etc. but that amazed me for a small business like that.

Anyway no-one there could explain what had happened and he was going over it in his sleep.....

Anyway, he sent me the two correct value caps, so I'm still good with Bob.
He even cross-shipped the order to me, as soon he learned that Shilmover forwarded the money for me. Bob's a good guy, he's just a bit weird maybe Eaten too many moon-pie's ? (never had those, I wouldn't mind give it a try )

It's not like we have a hundred places to get our materials from...

[ChadTower]

 Moon Pies?   Are those the chocolate covered marshmallow gram-cracker
delicacies?   Yummy Yummy for my Tummy!   

Yeah, but I got mostly banana, not chocolate.   

I didn't actually ask Bob to replace any of the caps in my cap kit.  I ordered it like three years ago and put it in the cab for when I fixed it.  I just mentioned it in an email to him and asked him if they were reasonable sub values.  He told me they weren't, but then got mad that I was even asking, seeing as how it's not possible.  Not like I was looking at the list and at the caps seeing they were half the required voltage or anything.

Now that I'm getting decent at identifying parts and finding places to order I see that there isn't anything I have ordered from Bob that I can't get elsewhere. 

[IG-88]

Ok, I realize I'm a bit naive here but are you serious! Moonpies! WTF! Why in the hell would he do that?

I actually had someone ship me a mobo in REAL popcorn once. And I thought that was weird

[ChadTower]

That's a bit of the schematic for the edge connector of board 1.  I checked the voltages on pins 2-5 and found:

2 & 3:  7.3v

4 & 5:  14.8v

I assume 7.3v in is good enough but 14.8?  Probably way too high, yes?

I also used the edge connector repair kit Bob sent... went very well, looks good.  Busted out the dremel in order to put key slots in the fingerboard.  Pics will be coming when I get the chance.

[Fozzy The Bear]

I assume 7.3v in is good enough but 14.8?  Probably way too high, yes?

No it's probably fine..... Most PSU's exhibit over volts, when they're under a no load condition. This is especially true of older designs that don't have really good regulation. I assume it's supposed to be 6V and 12V.  You could design a small regulator board to clean it up a bit if it bothers you.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[ChadTower]

No it's probably fine..... Most PSU's exhibit over volts, when they're under a no load condition.

Why would it be a no load condition?  This is with board and monitor in the cab.

There are a couple of other voltages I didn't check... I'll look at those soon.

[ChadTower]

Hrm... I found a loose wire, end exposed, hanging out in the harness.  I am having trouble tracing where it should go without undoing all of the cable ties.

I went to check to see if it should be on the connector and discovered something a bit odd, to me at least.

On board 1, there are no wires connected to the pin for 10 (5v) or 15 (-12v).  I don't see any lines coming off of those contacts in the diagram, either.  Anyone know what gives with that?  The harness for board 2 looks like I would expect.

[ChadTower]

Hrm... I found a loose wire, end exposed, hanging out in the harness.  I am having trouble tracing where it should go without undoing all of the cable ties.

Found it... it traces back to the ANT (pin 10) in the board 1 harness.  Did have to undo a couple of ties.

What is ANT?     It just ends in the diagram.  Could that be an implicit tie to ground?

[Level42]

Antenna ?

About the voltages: I take it you measured between pin 1 (Gnd) and all the other pins ?

[ChadTower]

Antenna ?

That's all I can think of too.  Why would it have an antenna without a tuner?  And what of it just ending in the diagram?

About the voltages: I take it you measured between pin 1 (Gnd) and all the other pins ?

Yep. 

[ChadTower]

Damn.  Thought I had something here.

[ChadTower]

Answered.

1.8d Qualified Personal PCB Adjustments

Antenna Wire: Trimming this wire adjusts the Sensitivity of the static
discharge system. Please be aware that the adjustment will depend to a
certain degree upon the environment in which the Machine is located.
Trimming a bit off the wire will decrease the sensitivity of the discharge
system while adding a length of wire will increase the sensitivity of the
circuit. Adding is indicated if players are able to obtain free games by
introducing static discharges. Trimming is indicated only if the machine
disables game credit during the game.

[shardian]

Answered.

1.8d Qualified Personal PCB Adjustments

Antenna Wire: Trimming this wire adjusts the Sensitivity of the static
discharge system. Please be aware that the adjustment will depend to a
certain degree upon the environment in which the Machine is located.
Trimming a bit off the wire will decrease the sensitivity of the discharge
system while adding a length of wire will increase the sensitivity of the
circuit. Adding is indicated if players are able to obtain free games by
introducing static discharges. Trimming is indicated only if the machine
disables game credit during the game.

Wow, those EE's back in the day were super clever and inventive weren't they? I wish I could've been an Engineer back in the 60's/70's.

[ChadTower]

I bet stuff like this is why they stopped routing power/controls/data through the monitor chassis.

I missed the end of that Atari doc auction.  Dammit.  I sent the winner an email offering to buy a copy off of him.  If I get it I want to scan it for the public domain.

[Level42]

Answered.

1.8d Qualified Personal PCB Adjustments

Antenna Wire: Trimming this wire adjusts the Sensitivity of the static
discharge system. Please be aware that the adjustment will depend to a
certain degree upon the environment in which the Machine is located.
Trimming a bit off the wire will decrease the sensitivity of the discharge
system while adding a length of wire will increase the sensitivity of the
circuit. Adding is indicated if players are able to obtain free games by
introducing static discharges. Trimming is indicated only if the machine
disables game credit during the game.

Mmm, I vividly remember kids using those piezo gas-lighters, the one's that spark, to credit games.
This was at a holiday park where they had a little "arcade" that was completely unattended.

One of them comes up to me and says, you wanna play that game ? I say, yeah sure, so he holds that piezo thing to the coin-door (they had bend-out the pin that releases the spark) and fired away.
There I was with like 83 credits on Frogger This was in the 80's and the games were from the 80-84 era...

The trick worked on some games, but not all.

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME WITH YOUR CLASSIC CABS !!!!

[ChadTower]

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME WITH YOUR CLASSIC CABS !!!!

You know better than that.  You know as soon as this thing is working I'm going to try it.

[Level42]

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME WITH YOUR CLASSIC CABS !!!!

You know better than that.  You know as soon as this thing is working I'm going to try it.

Yeah, I know, because you have to try it to see if you have to trim or extend the antenna 

[ChadTower]

Okay... more voltages:

pin 10:  4.7v
pin 15: -10.6v

Both too low, yes?

[ChadTower]

Monitor 73v was 72.6.  Measured this by checking pin 32 (73v) vs pin 14 (chassis ground).  Tweaked the 73v control pot up to 73.1v.

Okay, more voltages, from the schematic of the chassis pinouts:


Pin 28 should be +550v is +525v
Pin 22 should be +73v   is +73.1v
Pin 9   should be +6.3v  is nearly zero
Pin 7   should be +30v   is +28.56v
Pin 4   should be +550v is +525v
Pin 3   should be +150v is +142.9v
Pin 2   should be +73v   is +73.1v

Clearly I need to be looking at what feeds pin 9.


EDIT:  found the 5v driver transistor... it's q19 on the little audio plugin board.  It has a resistor between B and C that is not in the schematic and the telltale flux of some tech's fingerprints.   

[ChadTower]

Tried to bust out the in circuit transistor checker but I have no idea how to read the results.  It beeped a lot.   

[MaximRecoil]

Over the past week or so I made two orders from Bob Roberts.  I ordered the replacement B+ caps and I figured he cross shipped them.  I sent in payment.  Before the B+ caps came to me I ordered a couple of PCB edge repair kits.  Another shipment, another $7.  Fair enough.

Bob didn't cross ship the first package for some reason.  He waited for the payment to come in and then did cross ship the second order.  For some reason he shipped them in two separate boxes - one with four caps in it, the other with 2 edge repair kits in it.  Both were small boxes marked about $4.50.  I paid $14 to ship $9 actual cost of what in this instance was a combined couple of ounces of material and could have been about $4 cost.

That is annoying enough.  Want to know what Bob used as packing material?  Moon Pies.  ---smurfing--- Moon Pies.  There were more pies in each package than there were parts.  So I paid $14 to ship $4-5 shipping cost of parts and 5x that weight in ---goshdarn--- Moon Pies.

Bob Roberts is losing his mind.

You would have paid the same $14 without the moon pies. $7 shipping on each order is the standard (and minimum) rate that he charges. Your moon pies were free. If you had ordered everything at once in the first place it would have only been $7 shipping, and you probably still would have gotten the moon pies to boot.

[Level42]

That pin 9 voltage is a problem. I wouldn't worry much about all the others.

Since you don't know how to handle it, send that transistor tester to me. 


What value resistor is it (remove one leg and the measure the resistance in Ohms setting on your DVM )