Killer Instinct 2 Monitor

[DirkW]

Yes, another thread on the infamous U2000 (I am pretty sure) monitor.  Having problems... Here's the story:

I just had the machine delivered to me yesterday.  Turning it on, I noticed that there was little or no red color coming through.  I went to the setup, got the color bars and sure enough, no red.  I have no electronics experience, but I went in, opened up the back panel and started farting around with the RGB controls on the neckboard.  I had pretty much got them perfectly tweaked.  Went back to make one adjustment on the blue and must have touched something wrong because I ended up with a numb hand from being electrocuted.  The monitor still comes on, but the entire screen is blue.  The sound still plays and the game is still playable (just not viewable).

Do you think this is just a popped neckboard problem?  Is there an easy fix to all this?

[fredster]

Yes, neck boards are pretty easy to fix.

Unfortunately, you have blown something, so it may be harder.  It may not be on the neck board now. Hell, it may be in the actual game now. When you run that much power (and AC at that) into circuits designed fro 5vdc, you have semiconductor failures through everything it's connected to.

When you watch it, does it move at all? Is it a full blue screen with no motion or flickering at all?

Do you have another monitor you could test the game with?  Or another game you can test the monitor with?

Your monitor power supply is good, because you have HV. Since the screen is full, you have vertical and horizontal deflection.  Since you have no black, that means your blanking circuit is good.  You are left with the video processors and amps, and of course the game.

To test the game output, you have to have a voltmeter.  Turn the game on and put the black probe on the connector at pin 1 (one of the grounds) and the red probe at the connector at the red, green, and blue.  You should see the meter jump between .1 and 1.8 or higher volts.  If you see that at the board, you have a video signal. That means the game is sending the signal. If you are getting a signal, that's excellent. It means your board is good, and you can move on to the monitor.

The next thing to do is download a manual of that monitor.  There are tons of sites google will give you to get to the PDF of the manual. identify the transistors that go from the video inputs on the board to the neck board. There should be at least 2, one on the main board and one on the neck board per each color. They should all be identical.  Start there.  If you replace one set and it's still bad, you will have an IC issue with the video amp. 

It sounds pretty involved, but hell, if you want to own games you have to learn to fix this kinda stuff.  I recommend you get some chips and your PC out and watch Randy Fromm's videos on Youtube.  There are 4 - two hour lectures on exactly how these things work and you can be armed.  Here's the link : CRT monitors-Part 1of 4

If that doesn't work, youtube search for Randy Fromm CRT Monitors Part 1 of 4

Once you understand it, it will be clear what you need to do.

[fredster]

And I'm not familiar with this, but does that monitor display a full blue screen if it gets NO video input?

[corycet]

Sounds like you just turned up blue to high when you got shocked. Or maybe your hand bent over the blue driver transistor and shorted it to something.

[DirkW]

I appreciate the replies and I will be looking into your suggestions.  Just to clarify, I now know for a fact it is the u2000 monitor.  Found the wiring schematics for it...

[DirkW]

Is there any kind of trick to removing the neckboard off this monitor?  The monitor is inside the cab... I would rather not remove it from the cabinet, however, it is hard to see what is going on with it.  Is it just kind of a pull off thing?  Does it require to be twisted?  I get quite a bit of resistance when I pull on the neckboard straight out.

[fredster]

There are pins that stick off the tube about 1/4".  If you look with a mirror, there is sometimes a clump of silicone on it to stick the neck board to the tube.  You should scrape this off with your finger before you pull the neck board off. If not, it can crack the fragile plastic that surrounds the neck pins.

About 1/2 the time that connector on the tube cracks or crumbles when you pull the neck board straight back.  The plastic gets dryed out and degrades over time. You should try and put this back together, it helps insulate the tube pins from each other and helps brace them.  If you can, that is.  If it's crumbled, well, it's crumbled.

It will come off pretty easy after that. When you put it back on, you shouldn't have too much resistance. If you do, pull it back off and make sure you don't bend the pins.  It's easy to do that, trust me.  You can bend them back, ONCE. So make sure they are all as aligned in the holes before you make that final push back on.

[DirkW]

I appreciate everyone's help.  Got the new neckboard installed and everything works perfectly now