Galaga Machine project - It's now ALIVE!

[Cyberflexx]

I just picked up a Galaga from a guy for $100 but ended up spending $98.50 since there was some coins in the bottom.  I just brought it home and started to tinker with it.  When it powers up, you hear a high pitched squeal and there is zeros and red 6's on the screen.  Anyone know how to fix this?  See pictures for the error screen.

There is a chip in the front panel, near the coindoor.  I can fill that in with bondo or something and sand it and paint.  There are some scratches in the sideart, that I can deal with until I get new artwork purchased ( after i get it working).  The monitor has some burn in, the marquee is very nice.  It also came with 20 years of dust inside.. whoo hoo!


Anyone know how to fix this error?

Thanks!

[Mauzy]

Nice find! Does the high pitched squeal sound like a single note tone being held? If so, thats part of the normal start up. It should squeal for a while then you'll hear the BOOM when it goes into attract mode.

As for the 0s and 6s, check your voltages and check the legs on your custom chips (2L, 2J, 2H, 2E, etc) for corrosion.

[RayB]

Nice. Your side art stickers are all intact! Lucky you.

[Cyberflexx]

Nice find! Does the high pitched squeal sound like a single note tone being held? If so, thats part of the normal start up. It should squeal for a while then you'll hear the BOOM when it goes into attract mode.

As for the 0s and 6s, check your voltages and check the legs on your custom chips (2L, 2J, 2H, 2E, etc) for corrosion.

Thanks Mauzy for the advice.  I'll try to check that today or tomorrow.   The squeal is really high pitched, a single tone the same pitch.  I let it run for 5 min. and it never did a Boom and stayed with the 000 and 6666 on the screen. 

I did notice on the power supply that I think it's J1 molex connector, the pin 1 and 2 look to have been scorched.  I cleaned the pins thinking corrosion might have made them loose.  I noticed with I jiggle the 2 wires in the socket, it will stop working, and start again.  I will have to re-pin that connector.  i am going to put a switching powersupply in it but I am a little unsure on doing that.


Anyone have a tutorial with pictures on how to put a switching powersupply in a classic cabinet?

[channelmaniac]

Try cleaning the legs 06xx chip on the CPU board and the 04xx chips on the Video board.

If that's not it, then replace the 2114 SRAMs one by one until you find the bad one.

RJ

[Mauzy]

Try cleaning the legs 06xx chip on the CPU board and the 04xx chips on the Video board.

If that's not it, then replace the 2114 SRAMs one by one until you find the bad one.

RJ

I wasn't sure which, but the 06xx and 04xx sounds correct when it comes to the custom chips.

The squeal is normal. Is part of any boot up in Galaga (I think...mine always did it and it ran and sounded fine...). The 0s and 6s aren't normal. Try looking at Galaga starting in MAME to see what youre looking for. If mine was running Id make a video.

As for the power supply, check here http://therealbobroberts.net/parts.html (scroll to the very bottom, you'll see it) for a premade harness and power supply that simply plugs into your existing harness. Im sure if you Googled you could find plans to make your own. I bought my harness already cut up for a switcher...

[Cyberflexx]

As for the 0s and 6s, check your voltages and check the legs on your custom chips (2L, 2J, 2H, 2E, etc) for corrosion.

I checked all the chips and they look OK.  I did find a weak solder joint on R20 ( i think it was) and I re-soldered that.  I was hoping that would fix it, but nope, same ol thing.

I didnt check my voltages yet.  I may do that later tonight..I just hope this is something simple to fix

[Cyberflexx]

Try cleaning the legs 06xx chip on the CPU board and the 04xx chips on the Video board.

If that's not it, then replace the 2114 SRAMs one by one until you find the bad one.

RJ

Thanks.. I'll pull the pcb out again tonight and check those chips.  I dont have any of the 2114 SRAMS.  Where can i get those?

[Mauzy]

Try cleaning the legs 06xx chip on the CPU board and the 04xx chips on the Video board.

If that's not it, then replace the 2114 SRAMs one by one until you find the bad one.

RJ

Thanks.. I'll pull the pcb out again tonight and check those chips.  I dont have any of the 2114 SRAMS.  Where can i get those?

I bet you can get those from channelmaniacs site:
http://www.arcadecomponents.com/memory.html

funny how he'd bring that up as a fix...

[Cyberflexx]

I have the board pulled and going to check those chips.  I think I have enough time until the kids wake up. 

I checked C1 and I am getting 5 volts to it which is good from what I read online.

I cant find 06xx chip.  I am looking at the CPU board and I see row 6 and I assume that it is the big black IC infront of C1 and the 3 prong power plug.  It has a number 5410 on it.

Sorry I am still a newb... Thanks

[Mauzy]

The 06xx chip will look like a rom-type chip that has 06 then 2random numbers on it. The last 2 are number that will differ from chip to chip and they dont matter. only the 06 is necessary to see. Im not near my machine and wont be for a couple hours. Post if you find it. If you can't, let me know and Ill get the location off my board when Im home.

[Cyberflexx]

OK Thanks..

I pulled out 4D and am cleaning the pins right now.. I also pulled 6M and cleaned the pins
I havent tested yet..

I have me laptop at the workbench with me

Thanks again

[Cyberflexx]

I found 06xx  it is at the 2L socket.  The chip number is 0620 and its a socketed IC.  I am going to clean it, then put it in the machine.  I might have to stop working on it here in 30 min. since we are going out to dinner.

Thanks for your help, Mauzy

[Cyberflexx]

Cleaning those IC's did not resolve the issue.      I have to stop working on it for this evening. 

[Mauzy]

Hmm... I would take channelmaniac's advice then. Galaga boards can be very finicky and can easily have many different problems stacked on top of one another. Good luck and I will be watching your progress!

[Cyberflexx]

If that's not it, then replace the 2114 SRAMs one by one until you find the bad one.


I bet you can get those from channelmaniacs site:
http://www.arcadecomponents.com/memory.html

funny how he'd bring that up as a fix...

Nope, they are Out of stock...

[channelmaniac]

I've got a BUNCH of them in various speeds - both tested pulls and new, but since it's a hobby based business and I have a full time day job, I haven't gotten inventory updated yet.

Sigh. I need a vacation from the day job to get about 150 new SKUs added to the site and about 1200 chips added into existing SKUs.

I sent you a PM about your board, but dummy me forgot that the symptoms were listed on this thread. You can always swap the 2114 SRAMs around to see if you can get the board to come to life enough to give you a RAM Error message. Same thing for the CPUs - swap the first and third CPUs around.

Just beware of the following:

• The CPU & ROM sockets SUCK on Galaga boards. Don't be surprised to find intermittent ones
• Legs on the custom chips are prone to corrosion and may fall off when cleaning. You may need to solder on a new leg or three to fix them.

If you run into leg problems on the custom chips you should get a good quality double wipe socket, fix the chip, put it into the socket, then plug that socket into the socket on the game board.

RJ

[Cyberflexx]

I got another Galaga board without any chips on it.. sockets look good, it all looks clean.  I am going to swap my IC's ( very carefully) to put on this board.  I am also going to clean the legs of the IC's   I got the board for 16 bucks, I didnt think that was too bad.  I'll post more when I get the stuff swapped out..

[Cyberflexx]

I took the video board of the Galaga set that I bought and put the chips from the original on it ( only 2 ICs) and swapped video boards in the cabinet. I get the same exact error.  This tells me its not the board or but maybe 2114 memory as this board had full mem banks.

I then took the 2 IC's that Channelmaniac suggest that I swap around, and that did not do the trick either.  I really think I narrowed it down to something on the CPU board.  My other cpu board that I bought does not have the processor IC's on it.  I am wondering if I should just take all the IC's off the original board and put them on the other board that I had bought.  I think there might be 4 of the many IC's already on the replacement board. 

What would you all do at this point?

[RayB]

I didnt check my voltages yet.  I may do that later tonight..

Have you done that yet? 

[Mauzy]

I would only swap the processor ICs to the second CPU board. Then if it gives you different results, swap the chips one by one (i.e. swap a chip, test, swap, test). You may find that something relatively easy is wrong with the first board, fix it, and sell it to start the recoup process.

If you don't get different results, then its either your video board, or you got REALLY lucky when you bought that CPU and you bought something with the exact same problems.

Also, Check your voltages!!! RayB usually has halfway decent advice...

[Cyberflexx]

I didnt check my voltages yet.  I may do that later tonight..

Have you done that yet? 

The only voltage that I had time to check was the main capacitor on the CPU board.  It is getting 5 volts.  I am unsure where to check all of the other volatages..

I do have a switching power supply that I am going to install. It is made by Pesco. I verified that it works since it was given to me when I was working on my NeoGeo.  I just dont know how to put it in the Galaga quite yet.

The NeoGeo I restored a couple years ago had a bad power supply and I installed a ATX power supply from a computer and it seems to work well.

[RayB]

Measure the +5 off the board, near where it comes in from the board harness. And also look up whether or not this board requires a little more than 5.0 . Sometimes errors on boot up are simply due to voltage being too low. But I am not personally familiar enough with original Galaga boards to know. (My bootleg reports RAM errors if voltage isn't high enough).

Would be a shame to find out that's all it was, after all your fiddling with ICs, etc, but I had to ask. Measuring voltage to the board is the #1 first thing to check and make sure is correct, before anything else.

[Cyberflexx]

Measure the +5 off the board, near where it comes in from the board harness. And also look up whether or not this board requires a little more than 5.0 . Sometimes errors on boot up are simply due to voltage being too low. But I am not personally familiar enough with original Galaga boards to know. (My bootleg reports RAM errors if voltage isn't high enough).

Would be a shame to find out that's all it was, after all your fiddling with ICs, etc, but I had to ask. Measuring voltage to the board is the #1 first thing to check and make sure is correct, before anything else.

I am getting + 5 Volts to the board for sure.  I did not have time to do any power adjusting last night.

[Cyberflexx]

IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!!!

Well, I was able to play Galaga tonight.  I fixed it.  Board level repair and a bit of luck.
I ordered a galaga PCB from a guy on ebay for 16 bucks that had missing parts to it.  1st thing I did was swap out the video board and all the IC's.  Plugged it in and same results as before.  Tonight I did the same thing but with the CPU board.  In the process I accidentally broke a pin on the 53xx chip @ 4h posistion on the board.  I had to take a jumper wire and tack it to the back side of the socket and solder it to the very very small section of broken pin on the processor.

Every once in a while the screen will flicker very quickly, so i might have a loose wire somewhere or my monitor is slowly drifting away.  The red color needs adjusted some, but other than that, I am very happy!

Thanks everyone for all your help in troubleshooting my board..

[Mauzy]

Was that a Buy It Now board on eBay?

Gald to hear it works! Just fixed mine couple days ago too. New socket and z80 at 4j and I was good to go.

[Cyberflexx]

Was that a Buy It Now board on eBay?

Gald to hear it works! Just fixed mine couple days ago too. New socket and z80 at 4j and I was good to go.

Yeah, it was a buy it now, for parts or repair.. 

Good to hear you got yours going.


Now that the machine is running, I am doing a 72 hour burn in test. 

I am going to clean out the inside with a shop vac and start working on the cabinet blemishes.

[Mauzy]

So what happens to the leftover boardset?

[Cyberflexx]

So what happens to the leftover boardset?

I am going to go over them with a guy I work with who is a whiz at board level repair.  Eventually replace all the IC's on it and keep it as a spare board.  I may use it as a trade item as well, just depends..

[Mauzy]

Good. Just wanted to make sure it didn't get tossed in the trash. Good luck with the repairs whenever you start them.

[Cyberflexx]

The galaga has finished it's 72 hour burn in and everything works great.  There is a slight hum sound in the speaker, but I can live with that for now.  I am ordering some black matt vinyl for the sides instead of painting.  Rich over at www.thisoldgame.com sells the stuff at a resonable price.  I havent ordered any yet, but I plan to do that sometime today or tomorrow.  I am going to peel off the sideart with a heat gun, fillin all the cuts and blemishes in with a wood filler and sand it smooth, then apply the new vinyl matt instead of painting it. 

I do have a question.  Is Galaga suppose to clear the highscore when the machine is turned off?

[RayB]

I do have a question.  Is Galaga suppose to clear the highscore when the machine is turned off?

Yes.

[Mauzy]

I do have a question.  Is Galaga suppose to clear the highscore when the machine is turned off?

This is worth every penny.

http://mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/store.pl?sku=HSGALAGA

Ive used one for about a year. So far my high score still stands at 210,000 and change sped up, 150,000 and change original speed.

[Cyberflexx]

mini update: I started filling in some of the scratches and little screw holes from the cup holders with some wood filler.  I tested the coin mechs about 20 times each, they all seem to work without problem.  I am placing an order for some black matt vinyl so I dont have to paint the cabinet.

[gatordad]

mini update: I started filling in some of the scratches and little screw holes from the cup holders with some wood filler.  I tested the coin mechs about 20 times each, they all seem to work without problem.  I am placing an order for some black matt vinyl so I dont have to paint the cabinet.

Where from?

[Cyberflexx]

The only thing I will have to paint is the inside of the cabinet where the monitor is.  The paint is worn away from hands being on the game for years.  The stuff I am going to get for the sides is made as an alternative to painting arcade machines.  I am getting it from a place called www.thisoldgame.com  The prices doesnt seem to be to bad at all.

I did email them about what I needed and they did not reply for my quote on the price with shipping, but I wanted some other custom things made as well.   He is going to try to match the Red to my Neo-Geo so I can re-do the sides on it as well..

[shardian]

That is a nice price he has on black vinyl. Most games would only take 12-13 feet. You can't buy paint and supplies for that price hardly.

[Cyberflexx]

Last night I masked off the monitor with paper and sprayed flat black to the inside monitor area of the cabinet.  The paint was worn down from people's skin oils over time of people leaning on the machine.  I took the control panel off, everything looks good under there.  I do need a new CPO but I will get that later after I finish the sides.  I am waiting on some information from thisoldgame.com about the vinyl, they are slow on email replys.  I told them to email me with the invoice and paypal information and I would pay this weekend. 

[Cyberflexx]

I sanded down my marquee holder bracket and shot it with some flat black paint.  It looks alot better now that the rust is gone.   I started to heat up the graphics on the side and take that off.  I had ordered new sideart and a kick plate graphic from Phoenix Arcade, but my package got lost in the mail.  I am pretty ticked off about that as I am wanting this game in my game room really soon.  The tracking number doesnt really tell me much and the post office doesnt show where it was received or delievered and no one has signed for it.

Has anyone ever had any problems with packages from Phoenix Arcade?

[Cyberflexx]

I finally got my Galaga side art today.  It was shipped on the 28th of Oct. got it 11/13  it got lost in the mail...

I started peeling off the old Galaga sideart with a heat gun and a metal paint spatula.  This is going to take alot of time..

Whats the best / fastest way to remove the old artwork?