Rock on! Asteroids Cocktail Restoration

[opt2not]

Looking really good.  I like the look on the coin door.

(now finish this up so you can get back to working on Robotron)

Thanks bro, I'm really happy with how it's turning out so far. I find the aesthetic stuff to be the easy part, it's the electrical portion that will be the real challenge.

Believe me, Robotron is on the list this year too. It's my resolution  

[Kman-Sweden]

Stunning work.

[opt2not]

Stunning work.

Thank you kindly Kman!


Small update:

The CP's are done!  I received my latest order from Bob Roberts, including some new leaf-push buttons (thanks for the advice Spyridon)!

They're all nice and bright white, and the springs feel nice and new. Here's a comparison to the old ones:


Bob's Atari Asteroids Short Button Set is what I ordered. The shape of the buttons are slightly different, the plunger itself has a sharper bevel on the top edges, not a big deal as they look great and no one's going to know the difference.
As well, his version of the buttons has eliminated the need for an e-clip to keep the plunger mounted to the casing. The "stopper" is molded into the plastic:

I'm not sure if this is a good thing, in terms of cleaning and maintaining the buttons over time, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

The old leafs were in good condition to re-use, so I cleaned them up as well as the wiring, and installed it onto the CP's:

I'm using the old button holders as they were in fine condition, though a bit off-white due to age, but who cares they'll never be seen.

Here's how the CP's look now, beauty!:





Along with my latest order I picked up some electronic parts that include:

• 1N4001 - Diode replacements for the A/R board.
• 1000uf50volt axial - Capacitors for the AC Power supply
• 6800uf50volt radial  - The 2 big capacitors for my monitor
• Xcelite Flushcutters - High quality flushcutters. I was getting really annoyed at trimming cap/resistor legs with a straight wire-cutter. Flush cutters make it easier!
• Circuit Breaker Tester - Saw this on Bob's site, figured the $5 was worth the hassle of blowing fuses once I finish the electrical work and start testing power cycling.

I'm in the middle of doing all my cap-kit installs, as well as the clean-up of the boards, then onto the monitor stuff. The whole next step is to get the game working! 

Keep Rockin'! 

[opt2not]

Recapped the AC PS, and the AR board last night. I'll post pictures later, but it's not too exciting of a change other than they're both cleaner and big-blue is now a big-black (Richey) that I bought off Bob Roberts.
I also replaced that burnt diode on the AR without any troubles.

Using dokert's trusty PS testing tips over at klov, I checked voltages on the AC block first:

Power Brick
Remove the big 15 pin connector P5
 
***V***V***
*1***2***3*
*4***5***6*
*7***8***9*
*10**11**12*
*13**14**15*
***********
 
Meter set to 20vdc
Red lead to pins 1, 2, 3
Black lead to pins 4, 5
Reading should be 10.3 vdc (could read high 13vdc as it is unregulated)

I got 14.31 vdc without load. Might be a bit high...I tested the diodes on the Rectifier Board, (since I have an older version it doesn't have the bridge rectifier like many atari blocks have). They checked out fine. Other than big-blue and the fuse block and fuses (which were replaced with new ones), there really isn't much to this block other than the isolation transformer which apparently never dies!

So I'm not quite sure why the voltage out of these pins are so high. I'll do a bit more reading and researching, it just might be that it's not under load.

Meter set to 200vac
Red lead to pin 6
Black lead to pin 7
Reading should be 36 vac

36 vac for me, perfect.
 

Meter set to 20vac
Red lead to pin 8
Black lead to pin 9
Reading should be 6.3vac

6.5 vac, slightly high, but might be ok.
 

Meter set to 200vac
Red lead to pin 10
Black lead to Pin 14
Reading should be 80vac

I have no pins for 10 and 14. I think his guide is for the stand-up, which may be the reason I don't see these pins on my brick. Those pins may be for powering the Marquee light and extra coin lamp.

Meter set to 200vac
Red lead to pin 11
Black lead to pin 13
Reading should be 65vac

I got 61.1 vac, this might be too low.

A/R I
Remove the 9 pin connector P7 (P5 on the power brick must be plugged back in)
 
__^__^__
*1**2**3*
*4**5**6*
*7**8**9*
*********
 
Set meter to 20vdc
Red lead to pins 5, 6
Black lead to pins 1, 4
Reading should be +5vdc (could be as high as 7 or 8 vdc because there is no load)

With my voltage selector turned all the way down, without load the reading was 5.46 vdc.  Looks fine to me, I can adjust it further afterward.

I think it'll be safe to plug in the game board after I clean and re-cap it as well to see what kind of readings I get then. Though I'm going to recheck the block and see if any solder or connections are loose or faulty, to see if I can get closer voltages to what Dokert posted.

That'll be next! Rock yeah.  

[opt2not]

Cleaned up the Game PCB, recapped it:


Plugged it in and gave it power. Everything lit up, nothing smoked!
The pcb led was lit, and the P1 and P2 buttons were flashing.

At least the power is now flowing! I checked voltages at the 5v and 10v PCB test points.  Was able to adjust the AR board to get a good 5v running through, but the 10v line was sitting around 12.4.  That's pretty high for my liking.

Checking through the troubleshooting encyclopedia, blinking P1 and P2 start buttons could mean 1 of three possibilities listed:

a. Fix: Check the power supply, the large capacitor sometimes comes loose, you'll have to remove it from the cabinet to check it from the bottom.

b. Fix: When my board had that problem, it turned out to be loose caps on the board. Specifically, the largish ones on the right upper side. They mostly have to do with the sound FX circuits. But, if they come loose and make/break contact, they send surges that reset the board. The other suggestions I've seen are valid too. Those caps however, since they stick up off the board, may tend to get loose first, but you should probably check all solder joints.

c. Fix: Resocket all EPROMs.

I checked Big Blue (black), it was fine, nicely secured to the Rectifier Board. Checked around each cap on the PCB and AR, again nicely secured, soldering was fine. I'm going to re-socket the EPROMS tonight and see if that changes anything.

Another solution I read for lowering the 10v line is: I can try thoroughly cleaning the edge connector and making sure the harness connectors, and header pins are good. Because this machine was left out in the rain, I might need to go and replace the pins here and there as they may be rusted. Looks like more thorough spot checking is in order.

Also, here are some of the pictures of the newly re-capped and cleaned-up PS and AR.

New big blue cap, and new fuse block and fuses:

The PS isn't as pristine as I could have made it, there are stains in the metal that I didn't bother trying to scrub out. I just made sure the dirt and grime was off.

I replaced that old charred Diode on the AR with a new one from Bob:


I figured it's about time to get some more eyes on this restoration, so I'm going to start up a thread on KLOV since they've got a lot of experienced restoration and maintenance guys there that might be able to chime in on my power situation. They like posts with pictures too, and you know I love posting pictures!

In the meantime, I got a bunch of caps and parts for the Monitor rebuild waiting for me to tackle. Rock the Resto! 

[Epyx]

Wow Opt2not...seriously nice work!  Friggin sweet! 

You so have me wanting to find a Black Tiger Jamma somewhere in our neck of the woods...wonder if one exists?

[Donkbaca]

Its nice, but in my opinion Burger King Diamond's NES pc and Vigo's SNES are better....

[opt2not]

Its nice, but in my opinion Burger King Diamond's NES pc and Vigo's SNES are better....

Hahahaha, thanks ya' jerky.

Wow Opt2not...seriously nice work!  Friggin sweet!  

You so have me wanting to find a Black Tiger Jamma somewhere in our neck of the woods...wonder if one exists?

Thanks bro.  Yeah you should! If you have the space for another cabinet, why not! I haven't seen one around here, but I'll be definitely keeping an eye out for ya.

I love mame, don't get me wrong, it suits it's purpose for a lot of games. But there is something about having dedicated cabinets of favourite games. Being able to just power it up quickly, playing on the original dedicated controls, learning how they originally worked...owning a classic game that was in arcade circulation... its so coooool! Mame was definitely my gateway drug.

[opt2not]

Last night I reseated the Roms including the big processor, flipped it on to no change in the blinking.

So, I figured I'd go around the board and re-flow some key solder points. Particularly the sockets, and resistors. I also double and triple checked my cap soldering.
Flipped it on again, to see that it went into steady free-play blinking! Yay! I was so happy!  I was able to hit start and have the constant lit P1 button on.
But, it didn't last.
Eventually it started rapid-blinking (resetting) again. I wiggled a few things around, the edge connector, some caps and resistors....but when I wiggled the roms I got it to change. I lightly pressed down on one corner of the Roms furthest from the processor, I was able to get it to go back into steady free-play blinking!

This leads me to believe that the socket isn't making good contact with the Rom legs when seated. Perhaps when I re-flowed the socket points, it shifted the connection for a moment then returned to the previous state.

So I've been pondering whether or not I should just replace the old sockets with new ones, or just get the Braze Hi-score kit and render these sockets obsolete. I've read on the Braze site that the old eproms aren't needed when installing the kit.

[Spyridon]

Don't but the Braze kit...yet.

He is almost done with the asteroids multi kit which would be the better buy.  Same functionality as the existing kit plus it adds asteroids deluxe and Lunar Lander to your cocktail.

P.S. This is coming along nicely.  Good descriptions and pictures too!
 

[opt2not]

Don't but the Braze kit...yet.

He is almost done with the asteroids multi kit which would be the better buy.  Same functionality as the existing kit plus it adds asteroids deluxe and Lunar Lander to your cocktail.

P.S. This is coming along nicely.  Good descriptions and pictures too!
 

Thanks! 
Yeah, I just might wait till then. For now I wanted to test my theory of the sockets, as well as eliminate another audio possibility, so I picked up a few things from a local electronics store:

- New IC sockets for the EPROMs (24 pin) and CPU (40 pin), both dual-wipe.
- New edge connector for the game PCB
- 2 new TDA 2002 audio amps for the A/R board (figured I'd get these since they didn't come with in Bob Robert's cap-kit, and they were available right away)

I replaced the old sockets with the new ones, they came out pretty smoothly since I use a solder sucker and braid to remove the old solder keeping them in place. They just lifted right out.

Here's a picture comparison of the old (top) to the new:

As you can see, the new ones look much more effective in making contact. The chips now slide in really snug, and connections feel more solid than the old.
So, as a first try, I flipped on the power, and voila!  The game boots into free-play attract mode perfectly!  No more rapid flashing, just steady flashing, and after I hit the P1 start button, it lights up solid as if in game mode. 
I'm pretty happy that I was able to narrow down on that problem, now onto the audio.

I replaced the old audio amps on the A/R board figuring it could help in fixing the bad speaker hum/buzzing I'm getting. But to no avail, it didn't.  I still get the same audio results as before. So this leaves me to my last solution of changing out the PCB edge connector, after that I'll have to dig a lot deeper.
I'll do this step next and report back.
 

[saleem]

had realy bad buzz from atseroids upright i got here,i changed the edge connector and it went away.

[opt2not]

had realy bad buzz from atseroids upright i got here,i changed the edge connector and it went away.

Were you getting the game sounds at the same time? Was it a buzz on top of them?
For me I get no game sounds whatsoever, just loud buzzing emanating from the speakers.

[jennifer]

        
If that speaker isnt new [or of the proper resisance] I would be checking for a stuck coil, being subjected to the elements like it was and all.
      Nice job by the way.

[opt2not]

       
If that speaker isnt new [or of the proper resisance] I would be checking for a stuck coil, being subjected to the elements like it was and all.
      Nice job by the way.

The speaker was swapped out with one I had sitting around. Same resistance.
The buzzing was less "crunchy" but still there instead of the audio.

I haven't had a chance to change out the edge connector, due to some other commitments, but I will probably get to it sometime this week. After that, I'm going to put the speaker buzzing problem aside and continue on with the Monitor. I don't want to get caught up by this as there's still a bunch left to do.

[saleem]

had realy bad buzz from atseroids upright i got here,i changed the edge connector and it went away.

Were you getting the game sounds at the same time? Was it a buzz on top of them?
For me I get no game sounds whatsoever, just loud buzzing emanating from the speakers.

i could play and hear the game but,the buzzing was realy bad,nearly to point where it put you off playing.like i say,i changed the edge connector after reading round and it went away.i just get an initial buzz from speaker on powering the cab and then it gos,about 1 sec thats all.

[opt2not]

I'm happy to say I got the sound issue resolved. I now have a working PCB!



I did a lot of reading, researching and pouring over the schematics in the last week or so, on how the sound works and what to look for. I ended up swapping out the LM324N located at P11 with a new one, and it turned out to be exactly what the problem was. I previously read this in Richie Knucklez's KLOV thread, but at least now I have a better understanding on how the audio is mixed. I removed the old LM324N, mounted a socket and installed the new one:


In addition to this fix, I also went ahead and outfitted a new PCB edge connector, with better shielded connections.
Here's the comparison from the old to the new:


You'll notice the new one is slightly thinner, but has better contacts (looks gold plated), and fits much more snug now.

I  wrapped the connections with heat-shrink-tubing to limit any interference I might get, I've read this is a good thing to do for reducing the amount of general speaker hissing. I'll clean up the wiring a bit more, so it's not so messy.

I didn't get any RAM or ROM failure tones when putting into test, so it sounds like my PCB is good to go!
Next up, the monitor repair.

Keep on rocking in the free world!  

[emphatic]

Is that a 56 pin (aka JAMMA) connector? In that case, I just found a casing for these on eBay (search for "jamma connector cover" ). It will fit on your connector perfectly if you have the thin kind (9 mm thick): http://www.emphatic.se/I_received_today/jamma_connector_cover.jpeg

Too bad for me that my connectors (in the cabinets) were about 12 mm thick.

[SirPeale]

Gold plated pins in YOUR situation are not better.  The gold reacts with the tin in the contacts, causing it to oxidize. 

http://www.advantagememory.com/home_page/support_link/faq/why_do_gold_and_tin_contacts_mak.htm

Sorry, man.    Otherwise, a fine resto!

[opt2not]

Gold plated pins in YOUR situation are not better.  The gold reacts with the tin in the contacts, causing it to oxidize. 

http://www.advantagememory.com/home_page/support_link/faq/why_do_gold_and_tin_contacts_mak.htm

Sorry, man.    Otherwise, a fine resto!

Aww crud. Thanks for the heads-up.
I guess I'll grab another edge connector and install it before I finalize this resto. It's just a pain in the  to re-wire those connectors. it's funny, I think I have a better time replacing sockets.

Is that a 56 pin (aka JAMMA) connector? In that case, I just found a casing for these on eBay (search for "jamma connector cover" ). It will fit on your connector perfectly if you have the thin kind (9 mm thick): http://www.emphatic.se/I_received_today/jamma_connector_cover.jpeg

Too bad for me that my connectors (in the cabinets) were about 12 mm thick.

Hmmm, those casings may be too big for this connector. The connector is a 44 pin. Jamma was standardized sometime in '85, from what I've read; this cabinet was made quite a few years before then. Thanks for the info though, I will definitely keep this in mind when I eventually get my hands on a Candy cabinet.
Did you pick them up for your cabs?  Man, your Egrets must have a sweet-sweet setup now eh?

As for the update:
I cleaned up the monitor this weekend, installed new transistors, and re-capped both the chassis and HV board.

Got a lot of dust out of the back of this thing.

Here's a before and after of the Chassis board. After looking around the board, I didn't see any damage to the components at all:


Here's a shot of the cleaned up neck:


I didn't' take a picture of the cleaned up HV board, but here's a before picture:


After all the clean-up and part replacements, I connected it all up to give it it's first go.
Unfortunately, I got no image at all.
Not even a dot. I turned up the brightness, to no avail. BUT, the neck was glowing strong, there was good monitor chatter, and the Chassis had it's LED lit.  I've read that when the LED is lit, the spot-killer is enabled, this happens to prevent any burning onto the screen when the monitor isn't getting any signal input. So I disconnected the monitor, and started checking voltages on connection pins from the PCB.

According to the B&W monitor faq, the following voltages (AC) should be present:
1 -  X Out  6.68
2 - X Ground  6.68
3 - Y Out  6.69
4 - Y Ground  6.69
5 - Z Out  6.70
6 - Z Ground  6.70
7 - 30VAC Center Tap  30.3
8 - Ground Center Tap  0
9 - Ground Center Tap  0
10 - 30VAC Center Tap  30.3
11 - 6.3VAC Center Tap  9.7
12 - Heater Ground  3.0

From my readings, I was only getting 29.8 on Pins 7 and 10... Zero on everything else. The PCB is not giving out any image signals, so I'm going to look at the components that relate to the vector generation and hopefully am able to pinpoint the problem.  Any tips on what to check for would be much appreciated!
 

[opt2not]

Figured I'd update this post.

I'm still trying to figure out why I'm getting no image on screen. After some more checking, and reading I've got to a point where I'm getting the proper VAC to the monitor but still nothing displayed.

On the Deflection board, I've done:
- a full cap kit. Checked and rechecked my work to make sure they were installed right.
- Continuity check on all Fuses - check out good as well.
- Re-soldered the header pins to make sure there were no cold or cracked solder points.
- Tested DB100 - checked out good.
- Spot-checked all components for burns, or faults - none that I can see
- Checked continuity between all traces, checked for breaks - again checked out good
- Replaced all chassis transistors on the metal frame, made sure they were mounted securely and not shorting

On the HV board:
- Installed cap kit
- Checked all diodes and the few small transistors on the board - good
- Checked the two transistors attached to the HV case (q900, q903) - good again
- Cleaned up the Anode cap, and diode connected to it - there is a slight darker colour around the diode, but I don't see any burning indication.

At this point, my suspicions are that the HV section isn't putting the proper juice out to the monitor.
I've got a verified working Asteroids PCB now. My G05-805 has no image displayed when the game is running. Spot-killer is LED lit, lamp heater is glowing strong, and I hear chatter from the monitor, and slight buzz/noise from the HV section. Fuses checked good. No burning, no smell. Just nothing on screen.

I feel that I'm so close! I'm going to read through the B&W Monitor FAQ and see if there's anything I'm missing. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

[jennifer]

 
          I would be wondering @ this point if the vid signal from the board was making the trip, maybe get the scope out [or borrow one].
   Otherwise that has got to be the cleanest chassis I"ve ever seen [used], You may have raised the bar a tad.

[Muffindude]

It's just a pain in the  to rewire those connectors.

Tell me about it. I just wired up my Pac-Man machine, and it is such a pain. Especially when you find out that you put on all the pins on the wrong side, and break one of the pins on the edge connector when you are desoldering all the wires.

[Kman-Sweden]

Any updates?

[opt2not]

Not much progress other than this:

I ended up getting my hands on another monitor that isn't 100% but it's closer than what the other one is has going on with it.
This monitor has good neck-glow, chatter, and the spot killer is on when powered up.  If I turn the brightness level up I get some lines on the screen that look like this:




I applied a cap kit, replaced the chassis-mounted transistors, and all the fuses on the deflection board. Still get the same image above and can't get the spot-killer to turn off.
I'm going to re-cap the HV section, but at this point I'm really suspecting that the signals aren't coming through properly from the board. The board I have is a known working one, I've already verified this.  But what I'm thinking is that the PCB edge connector I replaced earlier may not be wired-up correctly. I'm going to go back and verify my connections.  I've read and re-read the monitor faq, with not much of an explanation with what's next to look at. But at this point I'm willing to try anything, this project is lagging on too long.

[Paladin]

Are you sure you game PCB is working right?  Is this the same one you fixed the audio on?  Just because you can hear it play blind doesn't mean that the video output section is working properly.  If you haven't done so already, try your board in another machine to verify it works.

If you ever plan a trip to the Seattle area you're more than welcome to bring your board and monitor to my place to test in my Asteroids Deluxe cabaret, although you can probably find someone closer.

[opt2not]

Thanks man.
After doing a bit more research, and having a few more people on KLOV chime in, it's more and more looking like this is a board problem. The board I got was from a friend who told me it was working 100% the last time he checked. Perhaps something happened between now and then, but it looks like I can't really rule out the PCB. dammit, this project is really starting to annoy me, I can see now why fixing an Atari Vector game is a hazing for arcade repair.
I'm going to poke around the vector circuitry with my logic probe and see what I can find. My next suspect is the DAC IC's...which I'm hoping is not the issue since they're not cheap to replace.

[fredster]

Any updates on this?  I'm hanging here...
I have a working asteroids cocktail, but it didn't take me all this work.  Of course, mine didn't set out in the rain..

You have good hands. Don't give up.

[opt2not]

I haven't given up yet!  Just haven't had the time to dive too deep into this.
But I've got an extra week off for the holidays that I'm planning on putting in some serious project time. New Year's coming, which means new projects to start! Gotta sew up the old ones.

[fredster]

I worked on mine today.  (I've got one working, but it gets flaky on me.) I have two extra asteroids boards, both blink, no vector, no game play.  I have an asteroids deluxe board that is sweet. I was trying to do some work on the "dead" boards.

Personally, I think you still have board issues.

On mine, I'm either going to swap out the AR board to a -03 or I'm gonna see if Braze ever finished his asteroids multi-game. That way I only have to re-cap the AR, I don't have to replace it.

Here's another great link if for fixing a board if you don't have it already - http://usbdesigntech.com/asteroids/reference.htm

I have been working on this asteroids since I've had it.  It works for a while, then it blinks out.  But I love it, and I'll keep it running as long as there are parts left for it.

[opt2not]

Niiiice, thanks for the link. I'll add it to the link-list in my earlier post.  Yeah, I'm not going to rule out the PCB. Working without a oscilloscope on a vector game is turning out to be a real pain to troubleshoot. I don't really have the cash flow to get one, so I'll have to make due. But as soon as I get a chance, I'm going to start probing around.

It looks like the multigame kit has been stalled for a while now. Definitely going to pick one up if it ever comes out, also if I ever fix this thing!!

[opt2not]

Success!  Updated first post with pics.

Turned out to be a few bad traces and caps.
- Replaced old capacitors on HV cage
- Repaired open trace on main monitor board, there were a couple of almost imperceptible breaks in a couple of traces.
- Repaired trace shorting to chassis. The board was a bit warped, and when the power was put on, it was touching the chassis, shorting out and blowing a fuse)

[opt2not]

Crap.  I modified my previous post rather than just making a new one...  not enough coffee today.  Anyways, this restoration is done.