WG4900

[SavannahLion]

Every so often, I send out a fishing line in my area for an arcade monitor. I get a few bites every now and then, but they end up obviously being unsuitable (wrong size usually).

This time, I finally got what looks like a tasty one. It's a Wells-Gardner 4900. Seller is offering to me for less than half a Ben Franklin and he's throwing in a capkit for free. I feel the pull on this one, but this would be my first arcade monitor.

I'ved read the WG Thread, but I didn't see a lot of people talk about the 4900's. Are the 4900's good monitors worth the price the seller is asking for?

If so, what should I be looking for with the monitor? Burn in is the obvious question. Seller says the picture is pretty good (he's offering the capkit anyways) but nothing else. I'm not sure what else I should be checking for if I go with this one.

[Ken Layton]

The 4900 uses a flyback that develops a bad focus winding internally. Doesn't happen to every 4900 though. Remember that this flyback has been unavailable for 20 years and there are no reproduction flybacks for this series.

When you go to look at the monitor, power it up and come back to look at it after ten minutes. If it is not razor sharp and adjusting the focus control on the flyback does not bring it to razor sharpness then the flyback is going bad.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a good monitor though. It's just that some of them suffer from focus problems and the usual Wells-Gardner bad soldering on the circuit boards.

There are three versions of the 4900 series and two different yokes they used during the production run.

"Early" chassis had no Vertical Dampening control ("V Damp") on the main board and used the old yoke.

"Intermediate" chassis has a Vertical Dampening control ("V Damp") on the main board. Uses a different yoke than the early chassis in order to take advantage of the vertical dampening feature.

"Late" chassis has a Vertical Dampening control ("V Damp") on the main circuit board and has a small vertically mounted circuit board near the flyback. That board has a pot on it and it adjusts the Vertical Centering ("Vert Cent"). Uses the same yoke as the Intermediate chassis.

[SavannahLion]

Thanks for the info Ken.

When you go to look at the monitor, power it up and come back to look at it after ten minutes. If it is not razor sharp and adjusting the focus control on the flyback does not bring it to razor sharpness then the flyback is going bad.

I'm a little unclear on exactly what kind of problems a capkit solves. Seems like everybody does it automatically, whether a monitor needs it or not. Could the focus also be affected by bad caps, hence why the seller is throwing in a capkit? I have an old PC monitor that wavers in and of focus and I've been told everything from leaking gas in the tube to it needing a capkit. I've never heard of the a bad flyback causing that kind of problem. Of course, if I have heard of that, I probably wouldn't be asking about monitors, now would I?

Hhmm... so if the flyback has gone bad, it wouldn't be worth it I suppose.

There are three versions of the 4900 series and two different yokes they used during the production run.

"Early" chassis had no Vertical Dampening control ("V Damp") on the main board and used the old yoke.

"Intermediate" chassis has a Vertical Dampening control ("V Damp") on the main board. Uses a different yoke than the early chassis in order to take advantage of the vertical dampening feature.

Since the V Damp seems to be the primary indicator between old and new yoke. I suppose the V Damp is labeled appropriately on the board?

[Ken Layton]

There should be a very small paper label on the edge of the board that says, "Vert Damp" if it has that control. Also there should be about a 4" by 4" control layout diagram pasted to the monitor's framework and it should also show the Vert Damp control (if it has one). Of course paper labels dry out and fall off over the years too considering that this monitor is around 23 years old.

Generally a cap kit fixes uneven brightness, jailbars, geometric distortion, sync, and contrast problems.

On this model, even if the focus isn't 100% razor sharp, it still puts out an ok picture.

[SavannahLion]

I think I kind of blew it. I called the guy a couple of times, got a call back. Started making arrangements, then the baby was born, then my mother shows up and decides to clean house.

So somewhere, buried in piles of "clean", is the phone number I need to get this monitor.

Oh well. I'll try asking around and maybe I'll get lucky again.