Sound Issues With my Upright Spy Hunter

[jasonbar]

Howdy-

My Spy Hunter has exhibited some occasional strange sound issues & I'm looking for help in resolving them.

The other day, when I played, a quiet static started up in the speakers & then grew louder & louder & louder until it was quite loud.  The game sounds & music were still also playing normally.  Turning the left or right volume knobs made no difference.  Then the sound went away.

Today, upon power-up, there was a loud hum in the speakers.  Again, the in-game sound effects & music were still there & fine, though the hum was quite a bit louder, and adjusting the volume pots didn't affect the hum.

I was on my way out the door to work, so I didn't get farther than wiggling a few of the connectors, which made no difference.

Know where I should start looking?  Or, if somebody knows which board(s) is wrong, got a spare for sale?

Thanks,
-Jason

[SirPeale]

Because the sound starts off quiet and grows louder the longer it's been on sounds to me like something thermally related.  Bad cap maybe.

[jasonbar]

Thanks--that makes sense.

However, the time that the scratchy static sound grew louder & louder, it also went away after a bit (or after a power cycle?).


And today's hum started immediately & didn't change over time...


Thanks,
-J

[freeder23]

I have static and ocasional popping in mine. I would be curious to see what you find out.

[jasonbar]

What I've found out is that it's very common, happens recurringly, & can be for a variety of reasons.  Dang.  It's going to take me ages to getting around to troubleshooting this, but here are the many paths down which I will go...

Most of the info is from klov.com or rgvac.  Just typing in "spy hunter" into the search engine will pop up a ton of sound messages--sound problems make up a diasppointingly large percentage of posts on the topic of that game...


1: from http://forums.klov.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=KLOVHELP&Number=891374&Searchpage=1&Main=891358&Words=%2Bspy+%2Bhunter+%2Bsound&topic=&Search=true#Post891374
 
I have the same problem with my Spy Hunter I. My problem is the slam switch. The lock cylinder gets loose and causes the slam switch to barely make contact, making almost a gounding out sound. A very loud rumbling sound.
 
 [that didn't work for me--I unplugged the entire coin panel assembly & no change]


2: http://forums.klov.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=888914&page=0&fpart=all&vc=1
 
The speaker hum is a fairly common issue and there are several possible causes. If you buy this game, the first thing I would do it check all the connections. This game has a good amount of wiring and is very sensitive to shorting. Also check the voltage coming from the power supply.


[Have to look up the PS output.  Wiggled all the connections that were easy to get to--need to take out the stack of main boards on the right to get to some of those connectors]


3-6 are from this morning's searches.

 
3: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.video.arcade.collecting/browse_thread/thread/9738d0cf6f496d1a/2688411544d35662?lnk=gst&q=spy+hunter#
 
4: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.video.arcade.collecting/browse_thread/thread/888360183e82bfba/21740f7cfe67171f?lnk=gst&q=spy+hunter#21740f7cfe67171f
 
5: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.video.arcade.collecting/browse_thread/thread/cbed2dca0fcb1f78/0e13e5a097721bda?lnk=gst&q=spy+hunter#0e13e5a097721bda
 
6: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.video.arcade.collecting/browse_thread/thread/8c3e84343e34309/beb22603f6afc75e?lnk=gst&q=spy+hunter#beb22603f6afc75e


-Jason

[jasonbar]

Problem solved!  Here's the scoop on my research & my fix:

Spy Hunter is very sensitive to the power supply not being tuned in.  Capacitors go bad over time, the power supply goes wonky, & the sound boards start complaining & freaking out.

I ordered replacement 55000 microFarad & 100000 microFarad capacitors (from arcadeshop.com for $20 & $25) for the power chassis, installed them, & I was back up & running!  Spy Hunter still had a hair of background hum/hiss/static, but it's very quiet relative to the game sounds.  I had a bit of wave on the monitor that I didn't recall seeing before, & my accelerator pot was way out of wack (surely due to the fact that the ADC on the board is reading 0-5V from the pot & that 5V changed when I changed the caps in the power supply.

So, I went 1 step further & installed the $75 switching power supply replacement kit (also from arcadeshop.com...I'd bought these items all at once, so I might as well use them--plus, this kit bypasses another old board w/ a modern switching power supply, so that's little insurance investment...).

1st, I wired the new switching PS to a brand new 3-prong cord & plugged it into the 3-prong outlet on the power chassis.  Oddly, that outlet is always hot, so part of the game would always be on when plugged in, so that was no good.  Also odd is the fact that, of the 3 connectors on the little kit board, 1 goes straight back to the big old power chassis, so the chassis can't be removed altogether with this kit.  It replaces one of the power boards instead.  Oh, this might be a good time to mention that the manual makes note that Spy Hunter is the red-headed stepchild of this era of Midway games, & you might need to try a higher-current switching power supply, installing a jumper on the Cheap Squeak Deluxe board, or sacrificing a chicken (OK, I made that last one up...).  This would be good to know *before* buying this kit!  :\

Powered everything up, tuned in the switcher PS 5V to 5.1V per the manual, and the game worked fine still.  Phew!  Monitor seemed a bit less wavy too--bonus!

Then I looked a little closer @ the manual & kit & realized that the kit includes 2 splice wires to get the switcher's 120VAC from the marquee light instead of the chassis, as the marquee light is (obviously) switched by the main power switch on the cabinet.

Did this step.  Game still worked great.  Monitor waviness still good.

Realized I was no longer grounding the switching PS to the main PS chassis, so I re-plugged my hacked 3-prong cord in & tied just the ground line between the old & new power supplies.

Still good!


However, I have had a beeear of a time trying to tune in the accelerator pot.  If I set it to 0B (not touching the pedal) per the calibration screen, then my top speed is noticeably slower than it ought be.  If I get the top speed set, then the car idles along very slowly when my foot's off the gas (it ought stay put).  Also, throttle response seems a tad flaky.  I gave up after >1hr of tweaking & left it where the car creeps at idle, & it's *almost* OK.  There is a *sliiight* bit of backlash in the gear mesh, but not enough to account for this much tuning difficulty.  I think my pot's gone south--it ought be cheap enough to slap a new one in to test it.


Anybody got a source on Spy Hunter pedal pots?

Thanks
-Jason

[jasonbar]

Finally got around to attacking this.  Thanks for all your help, demogo.

My Mouser order took quite a while to arrive, because I also bought some chips for a friend, & some of his stuff was backordered...I ordered their 360 degree 1K linear pot 882-eup1125-1K.

- I first desoldered the wiring harness from the old pot & wired in the new one & did a test on the Spy Hunter pot calibration screen & was delighted to see a much larger numerical sweep when turning the pot than I had before.  Good!

- To get the gear off the old, broken pot, I had to use a 3/32" pin punch & a vise & some careful hammer tapping to get the roll pin out
- I made a stab at tapping out the holes to a 4-40 thread, for easier installation & removal, but my tap set is so cruddy--I think the tap was softer than the gear, so it didn't go anywhere...
- So, I did a quick axial location estimate, lined up the gear, marked the hole with a thin Sharpie, knocked a little divot into the soft pot shaft w/ a center punch, pulled out a #42 drill (.094" dia) & drilled through.
- After slipping the gear on, I ran the drill through again to make sure the holes lined up.
- I slipped the new gear & on & carefully tapped/pressed the roll pin back in
- I attached the replacement Mouser pot to the pot mount/adjust plate, but it required filing down a clocking tab on the pot housing mounting face & then there was no circular registration feature on the new pot to align it with the mounting plate's feature, so I had to do manual eyeball adjustment to get the pot centered on its mounting plate.  This ensured good gear mesh between the pedal gear & the pot gear.
- Hooked things up.  Darn, the pot was wired backwards--pushing the accelerator slowed the car down, & releasing sped it up.  Duh.
- Swapped the 2 outer wires (gnd & +5V).  Set things up.  At first, I got the same "backwards" behavior, which was crazy, but then I realized that the pot was "wrapping around" the dead zone & that pushing the pedal all the way down wrapped it around to where the car stopped--scared me for a minute there...


So, it's all awesome now.  Had time to play only 1 game so far, & I got an awesome 200k score (my high is 304k) on my 1st try, without practice or warm-up.  The throttle is *REALLY* responsive now--it makes  *HUGE* difference in the amount of control you have in the game & makes gameplay significantly easier.

Hmmmm...so, if you want to get really good @ Spy Hunter, play w/ a messed-up accelerator for a while.  Then, when you fix it, you'll be awesome!   :cool:

Thanks,
-Jason

[edlee]

I searched for information regarding sound malfunctions for Spy Hunter and found information which indicates that the capacitor labeled, "C122", on the Cheap Squeak Deluxe sound board needs to be removed:

http://www.pinrepair.com/6803/6803removecap.pdf

This might not fix the Spy Hunter sound board if it is already damaged.

[jasonbar]

Thanks for the input, but I sold that machine about 5 or 6 years ago! :]

-Jason