Author Topic: my asteroids (Read 24981 times)

SirPoonga · « **on:** June 18, 2005, 01:50:50 pm »

Since I am on dialup I won't upload all my pics right now. Will have to wait until I get back to my apartment.

For those who don't know my uncle gave me his asteroids machine. The monitor isn't displaying but the game plays. It is being stored at my parents place. That's where I am this weekend.

Now I got to take a closer look. I think I know what is wrong. I thinka fuse on the monitor is shot. The fuse markings are :
3/3 3AG 5A 250V
It is definately blown.

So hopefully I just need to replace that and it is all working

Anyway, it is hacked into what looks like a megatouch gambling cabinet. The wiring manual inside says Cocktail Asteroids. Is this the cocktail version?

I hope so. I'd rather put it in a cocktial. I will have to research this some more.

The wiring is hacked. There's electrical tape all over the wiring. I did find were the test switch and volume control is located.

If this is the cocktail version I will put it in a cocktial cabinet, which means I could rewire

I'm uploading a few pics right now, uneditted, IE not rotated.
http://photobucket.com/albums/v472/SirPoonga/asteroids/
When I get to my apartment I will clean them up.

SirPoonga · « **Reply #1 on:** June 18, 2005, 02:44:42 pm »

Have to remember to check this out when I get to my apartment...
http://www.ionpool.net/arcade/asteroidtech/asteroidsrepair.html

Als I have the WG 19V2000 Monitor, as KLOV puts it:
The Wells-Gardner 19V2000 black and white vector monitor is a direct plug-in replacement monitor for an Asteroids machine. The pinout is almost identical to Asteroids Deluxe.

I noticed a bag of parts in the bottom of the cabinet.

SirPoonga · « **Reply #2 on:** June 18, 2005, 03:22:38 pm »

I uploaded the pcb and numbers on the pcb. See the finger board in the bottom left of the pcb, I wonder what that is for...

Paladin · « **Reply #3 on:** June 18, 2005, 03:33:20 pm »

I believe the 'fingerboard' is for attaching a harness to a device that is used to test the PCB.

SirPoonga · « **Reply #4 on:** June 18, 2005, 04:37:19 pm »

Well, I bought a fuse. It blew right away. Not a good sign. It probably is due to the fact the cabinet is not grounded correctly. Someone cut off the ground post on the wall plug. And I see a cut ground wire coming from the on/off switch, that one probably isn't a big deal but I will attack it to the grounding post on the power supply.

So I took the power cord off (it connects via a molex) and I will try and find a new plug for it.

ChadTower · « **Reply #5 on:** June 18, 2005, 04:40:10 pm »

If it blew right away, a good amount of the time the problem is bad edge connectors/contacts. Retin the edge contacts and check for solid continuity in the harness. Bad connectivity causes inconsistent voltages, which can cause anything from a simple blown fuse to fried PCB components being run out of voltage range. This is hugely common in old Atari cabs. Also replace the big blue cap, don't even bother to test it, just get a new one. That's almost always gone or going.

SirPoonga · « **Reply #6 on:** June 18, 2005, 05:06:38 pm »

you mean the big blue one on the power supply that the wiring diagram says is 26,000uf@15v. Ha. How do you properly dicharge that thing?
Could I just get a new power supply, even though I see it isn;t like my standard one in my dynamo cabinet.

ChadTower · « **Reply #7 on:** June 18, 2005, 05:18:39 pm »

Quote from: SirPoonga on June 18, 2005, 05:06:38 pm

you mean the big blue one on the power supply that the wiring diagram says is 26,000uf@15v. Ha. How do you properly dicharge that thing?
Could I just get a new power supply, even though I see it isn;t like my standard one in my dynamo cabinet.

Don't replace the whole supply, that transformer is a tank. It will last a long time yet, it's the cap that dies after a while, as with any other capacitor. I don't think you have to discharge it when you remove it, though verify that with Paige or someone. By nature, when it's dead, it's because it won't hold a charge properly anymore. You can get a new one from Bob Roberts for like $12 before shipping. It is SO worth it, if you don't replace the one you have, even if it still works, it will die with regular use at this age and it will take something else with it, probably your game PCB.

2600 · « **Reply #8 on:** June 18, 2005, 05:28:57 pm »

In case it wasn't mentioned or you haven't found out, I believe I remember hearing that for Asteroids the difference between the cocktail and regular version was the wiring harness. I forget the specifics, but hopefully it will get you started in the right direction in case someone made it back into the standup version.

BTW, can anyone verify that?

SirPoonga · « **Reply #9 on:** June 18, 2005, 06:15:39 pm »

2600. I read the upright and cocktail were seperate boards. I don't recall where I read that.
I took a pic of the wire schematics and uploaded one pic. See how player 1 and 2 are wired together except pin 6. Pin 6 goes to seperate grounds on the harness.

If I brought my multimeter I could do some testing.

Chad, if the cap was bad would the game still work? The game works, but the monitor fuse blows. I put a new power plug on. I fired it up. This time I saw the fuse blow

without my multimeter handy I don't know if there is anything I can do.

ChadTower · « **Reply #10 on:** June 18, 2005, 07:42:22 pm »

The cap is like any capacitor, only bigger. It would slowly lose its ability to hold a charge, so yes, the game could work to a certain extent, but the worse that cap gets, the worse the quality of power coming into your PCB and monitor. It could be bad enough to cause problems on the PCB. If your monitor is blowing its fuse, definitely replace it. That is step #1, making sure you are getting clean and proper power on all lines (IIRC, and I probably don't, it's +12v, +5v, and maybe -5v, then whatever the monitor uses). Part of making sure that is the case is replacing that power filter capacitor.

Next you would test the PCB for proper voltage at its test leads. Those are the raised metal circles that are labeled with an output. There are definitely X, Y, and Z leads in the video section of the board, probably +5v and possibly +12v leads too. If those are all good, you know your board is working pretty well and you would test your edge contacts the same way. Once that is good, you would test the same things on the end of the video signal harness. Then you know you have good video signal. Check the voltages on the proper pins of the monitor end of the monitor power cable, and once you get that good, your monitor shouldn't blow a fuse. If it does, you have a problem on the monitor chassis, and you'll do a cap kit and start troubleshooting the chassis if that does not work.

Obviously, if you see anything amiss at any of these steps, you would correct it before moving on to the next one. If you're not sure how to do any of these things, we can work through them one at a time here.

SirPoonga · « **Reply #11 on:** June 19, 2005, 12:54:01 am »

I will have to wait then until I can get my machine to my apartment where all my stuff is.

However, I am having trouble understanding the edge connector.

ChadTower · « **Reply #12 on:** June 19, 2005, 11:33:04 am »

The edge connector, or the edge contacts? It's common for the edge connector to have more pins than there are edge contacts, since the edge connector is just a straight-thru wiring extension. It's not always specific to the exact amount of contacts on the edge of the board.

I don't remember if your PCB should have contacts on both sides of the PCB.

You have it right about testing the PCB test leads, one wire to ground and one to the contact. For X,Y,Z you should see something like fluctuation between 12v and -12v (don't remember the exact values, a search on RGVAM will tell you).

paigeoliver · « **Reply #13 on:** June 19, 2005, 02:35:09 pm »

No need to try to discharge a big blue, just unscrew it and screw the new one in, you don't even have to solder anything.

ChadTower · « **Reply #14 on:** June 19, 2005, 06:37:10 pm »

Quote from: paigeoliver on June 19, 2005, 02:35:09 pm

No need to try to discharge a big blue, just unscrew it and screw the new one in, you don't even have to solder anything.

You've turned over a lot more Atari cabs than I have, feel free to correct anything I've said here that is mistaken.

2600 · « **Reply #15 on:** June 19, 2005, 07:56:42 pm »

Quote from: SirPoonga on June 18, 2005, 06:15:39 pm

2600. I read the upright and cocktail were seperate boards. I don't recall where I read that.
I took a pic of the wire schematics and uploaded one pic. See how player 1 and 2 are wired together except pin 6. Pin 6 goes to seperate grounds on the harness.

If I brought my multimeter I could do some testing.

Maybe that's all the diffence is between cocktail and upright, i.e. Ground P2 pin 6 means cocktail, Floating P2 pin 6 means upright.

This isn't where I read it, but is the last place I read it.
http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=33155&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1

SirPoonga · « **Reply #16 on:** June 20, 2005, 01:29:59 am »

According to "cw" in chat, especially since I have "replaced" parts that consist of two transistors and two fuses, he thinks "[00:22] <cw_> im betting your chassis mounted transistors might had a bad one in the bunch".

SirPoonga · « **Reply #17 on:** June 20, 2005, 01:34:44 am »

oh yeah, and cocktail is just how it is wired, not a seperate board. Not sure where I read that, I didn't trust that info anyway.

I will be transfering this to a cocktail cabinet sometime though.

SirPoonga · « **Reply #18 on:** June 20, 2005, 01:41:53 am »

Well, there isn't much I can do until I can get the machine to my apartment. I think the first step will be check wiring, make sure everything is going where it is suppose to.
I'll wait until I get a acocktail cabinet befor eI rewire. The current wiring is a mess, alot of electrical tape.

paigeoliver · « **Reply #19 on:** June 20, 2005, 06:25:25 am »

Quote from: ChadTower on June 19, 2005, 06:37:10 pm

Quote from: paigeoliver on June 19, 2005, 02:35:09 pm
No need to try to discharge a big blue, just unscrew it and screw the new one in, you don't even have to solder anything.

You've turned over a lot more Atari cabs than I have, feel free to correct anything I've said here that is mistaken.

I have never worked on a B&W Atari vector, but I have replaced big blues about a dozen times in raster games, color vectors, B&W games, and converted Atari cabs that still had them installed, and there isn't anything to discharge. I actually tend to save them, as they are weird, sometimes you'll get one that won't work in one game, but will work perfectly fine in another (at one point when I had several games that used the suckers I had one machine that would ONLY work with this brand new one I had, then there was a Kangaroo that would work with ANY of the half dozen I had laying around, while there was another one that worked with about half of them).

Unfortunately I don't know a whole lot more than that about repairing an Asteroids.

SirPoonga · « **Reply #20 on:** June 20, 2005, 09:55:14 am »

BTW, how do these "tin can" transistors work? There's only two pin on them.

ChadTower · « **Reply #21 on:** June 20, 2005, 10:24:50 am »

Start here.

SirPoonga · « **Reply #22 on:** June 20, 2005, 10:43:02 am »

The fuse that is going out is the the F100.
http://slot-tech-ftp.serveftp.com:8080/technical_department/monitors/monitor%20schematic%20diagrams/wg_v2000.jpg

Hmmm, directly from the connector to the rectifier...
Oh, and I got the wrong fuse, I grabbed a fast blow fuse. So I should see what is coming from the connector then....

Whether that be the case or not I think I will get a cap/tansistor kit and a new big blue. To be on the safe side. And slo blo fuses... Bob carries all of that I believe.

ChadTower · « **Reply #23 on:** June 20, 2005, 10:46:43 am »

He does carry all of that, may as well save shipping and do it all. It's all worthy work, anyway, and just standard refurb stuff to make your machine reliable again.

Q*Bert_OP · « **Reply #24 on:** June 20, 2005, 10:50:46 am »

The cabinet looks like a Stargate cabinet.

ChadTower · « **Reply #25 on:** June 20, 2005, 10:56:30 am »

I hadn't looked at the pics, that's a pretty odd looking cab.

SirPoonga · « **Reply #26 on:** June 20, 2005, 11:02:15 am »

To me it looks like all the gambling (megatouch) machine cabinets in that small town (where my uncle lives). Which is what I suspect happened. I should ask him how he got the cabinet. My bet is he wnated an asteroids, talked to someone local who had a working board, put it in the first available cabinet, tada. The red button on the bottom is coin.

Is it easy to replace the LED on the volcanos or do I need the whole switch? Is ther ea place to get just the LED?

SirPoonga · « **Reply #27 on:** June 20, 2005, 11:08:18 am »

Asteroids cocktail used a 13" monitor right, IE the cabinet listed here is the original?
http://www.arcadeshop.com/games.htm

Bah, I am going to turn mine into a cocktail. But not original. Will keep the 19" WG monitor

I could probably find a midway cabinet around here...

If I get this working I am going ot have to buy some of the "toys" for this game..
http://www.arcadeshop.com/asteroids-hss/asteroids-hss.htm

ChadTower · « **Reply #28 on:** June 20, 2005, 11:11:28 am »

Quote from: SirPoonga on June 20, 2005, 11:02:15 am

To me it looks like all the gambling (megatouch) machine cabinets in that small town (where my uncle lives).

SirPoonga · « **Reply #29 on:** June 20, 2005, 12:09:00 pm »

I have volcanos that was going to use when I make a cocktail emulator cabinet. I can replace it with one of those if needed...

Anyway, I found a pic of Big Blue on Bob's site. So do I have to take the psu casing off then? Or is it open underneith, I just need to unscrew it form the bottom of the cabinet to get at the nuts for big blue?

RayB · « **Reply #30 on:** June 20, 2005, 12:13:48 pm »

Unscrew the PS unit from the bottom, and then you'll see underneath it's all open. You'll have access to screws that hold the big blue in.

ChadTower · « **Reply #31 on:** June 20, 2005, 12:14:21 pm »

See that big blue clyinder at the bottom of the cabinet?

RayB · « **Reply #32 on:** June 20, 2005, 12:15:48 pm »

Chad, yer funny. He was talking about the big brass colored metal box that the big blue and other parts attach to.

ChadTower · « **Reply #33 on:** June 20, 2005, 12:18:47 pm »

Quote from: RayB on June 20, 2005, 12:15:48 pm

Chad, yer funny. He was talking about the big brass colored metal box that the big blue and other parts attach to.

I figured he was, but just in case he's not... taking apart unfamiliar things requires guesswork, and every now and then someone guesses incorrectly.

rchadd · « **Reply #34 on:** June 20, 2005, 12:20:08 pm »

Quote from: RayB on June 20, 2005, 12:15:48 pm

Chad, yer funny. He was talking about the big brass colored metal box that the big blue and other parts attach to.

the transformer

SirPoonga · « **Reply #35 on:** June 20, 2005, 12:22:19 pm »

Now for some odd questions.

Asteroids used leafs or micros, my guess is leafs.

Is there such thing as a cocktail table with a 19" horizontal layout and the players play across form each other? I've been thinking aobut this, it might be tough to find a cocktail asteroids and the 19" monitor...

Oh yeah, you guys realize I am just trying to figure things out before i get the machine here, so I have to guess at some things

SirPoonga · « **Reply #36 on:** June 20, 2005, 12:25:05 pm »

Quote from: rchadd on June 20, 2005, 12:20:08 pm

Quote from: RayB on June 20, 2005, 12:15:48 pm
Chad, yer funny. He was talking about the big brass colored metal box that the big blue and other parts attach to.

the transformer

No, the transformer is that big thing on the left side of the big brass colored box

I know what a transformer is (no, not the autobot kind), I have a toroid sitting next to my computer monitor that I need ot find a use for.

Ray had it right about what I was tlaking about

Q*Bert_OP · « **Reply #37 on:** June 20, 2005, 04:07:11 pm »

Asteroids uses leafs.

paigeoliver · « **Reply #38 on:** June 21, 2005, 06:50:31 am »

Asteroids is one of those games that is fairly non-directional. Really try it, those of you with rotatable monitors, rotate to vertical and play Asteroids, it is THE SAME.

Really you can, try it. Think about it, the game displays a ship which rotates in all directions, and Asteroids that rotate in all directions.

ChadTower · « **Reply #39 on:** June 21, 2005, 07:52:34 am »

Plus there would be no letter boxing, the the edges on all sides are flat black anyway.


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