Wells Gardner 19K4625 (help/input request)

[WunderCade]

THe monitor takes about 6-8 full seconds for the picture to appear when turned on and when it does....it sort of does a "fade to black thing" in reverse.

It comes up slowly to normal brightness, then, the picture (Ms. Pac.) does this "cycle"  where the picture gets successively dimmer and dimmer, until finally it blacks out, then it comes back up normal and repeats the dim process over and over. Eventually you can't see anything but a very very dim shadowy picture. Other than that, it plays just fine.

Any ideas?

Also as a side note: Does anyone know of an online or forum cap kit installation tutorial for this? My searches on this board come up with nothing specific.

Thanks very much. 

[Terminatedrone]

I once had a TV that did something similar. The video would get progressively worse, then pop back to normal over and over. It turned out to be a bad solder joint on the tuner. So I would check the chassis for bad solder joints.

As far as the capkit. Go here: http://www.coinop.org/KB.aspx/KB/MonitorTech/ sign up for an account, download "Wells Gardner 4600 - 19K4625-19K4626.pdf" on it all the parts are listed by part number, and it shows you where they are on the board. To do the actual capkit, you just remove the old part, put the new one in the holes, solder it in, test it, repeat.

[Ken Layton]

As I've mentioned lots of times, this chassis is well known for many bad solder joints on both the main monitor board (where most of the problems are) and the plug-in daughter boards. Pay particular attention to the male connector header pins that connect the daughter boards.

You need to install a capkit for sure too.

You've chosen a monitor that is a pain to work on, but should give you a great picture after repairs are done. Be sure to take this monitor completely out of the game cabinet and you'll find it's easier to work on the main board that way.


SAFETY PRECAUTIONS:

Be careful not to break the picture tube neck or the neckboard.

Always have a helper to get the monitor out of the cabinet.

Discharge the picture tube high voltage before working on the boards.

Never plug this chassis in to a wall outlet. It requires an isolation transformer for power (it's inside your game cabinet).

[WunderCade]

I was wondering Ken....what would be the difficult part with this particular monitor for a newbie cap-kit-er? I've heard that this monitor is a particular pain in the ass but apparently the end result will make it good to go for another 10 years solid, so I want to attempt the cap-kit.

Any pointers on the difficult aspects with the cap-kit?

[Ken Layton]

First pointer as mentioned in previous posts:

Take the monitor out of the game cabinet.

Second pointer:

Have a ¼" and ⅛" nutdrivers handy.

Third pointer:

Unsolder the two brown wires going to the width coil. It makes it easier to flip the circuit board over and besides the width coil is delicate. Make a note or tag the width coil wires as to which brown wire went to which terminal. I use a black Sharpie marker to put a dot on one terminal and then put a black stripe on the wire that went to that terminal. Makes it easy to reconnect the correct wires.

Fourth pointer:

Lift up the black plastic daughter board brace/retainer and swing it out of the way. Now unplug the "Video Interface" board and the "Hor/Ver" (X-Y) board.

Fifth pointer:

With the ¼" nutdriver, remove the two ¼" hex head screws on the far left of the main board that hold metal brackets. Now you can lift the circuit board out and flip it over to remove the four ¼" hex head screws securing the black plastic circuit board frame.