TheShanMan's Tournament Cyberball 2072

[TheShanMan]

I bought Tournament Cyberball 2072 today. It's a game that I played a lot in my late teens with a friend of mine, at a time when my interest in arcades had otherwise died out due to not caring much for games of that era generally.

This one is not working, so unless it turns out to be something easy it might be a while before I really dig into it. I just have a few other projects that are a higher priority. But the cab itself is in good condition, other than needing some TLC. New t-molding most notably, and I'll probably replace the little triangular piece of wood above the instructions decal (absorbed some moisture). Interestingly, there are no side decals on it, and though I haven't actually seen pictures of what is supposed to be there, it's my understanding that there is supposed to be some decals. Unfortunately I also understand that it is really hard to find this art.

I think it's a conversion from Cyberball (its predecessor).

It's been sitting in a teen center that has been closed for a while in a really small town in Oregon. They're trying to revive the teen center and wanted to get rid of the non-working games. Got it for $275, which is at the high end of what I would pay for it, but since it's a rare find, I didn't want to pass and not come across another one for a long time (klov ranks it 6 out of 100 on the rareness scale).

Here are some pics after just giving it a real quick dusting.

[TheShanMan]

Inside pic.

[RayB]

Oh man, check out the dust n there!
Cool buy. Fun game.

[emdkay]

jealous!

[TheShanMan]

My first task was to vacuum the inside of the game thoroughly. There was a THICK layer of dust covering everything. Looks much better now (I'll have to post a pic on that soon).

Second task was to fire it up now that I can actually see components on the boards, and figure out if LED's give any indication of problems or whatever. Went to the upgrade kit install manual and saw a reference to a self test switch. Found the switch, flipped it, turned the game on, and IT WORKS!!! It was just the darn self test switch. So I guess this is one of those classic cases of picking up a non-working game that turns out to just be a fuse or something similar.

Only odd thing: it seemed to keep resetting. Each time it would reset, it would last longer before another reset. Something like 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 15, 20. And ultimately it stopped resetting. So I don't know what's up with that. Maybe once it's warmed up it's more stable for some reason. Any ideas why?

EDIT: Added pics.

[SirPeale]

Any ideas why?

Capacitors.  Likely on the powers supply.

[TheShanMan]

Thanks Peale. I turned it on this morning to see if it would happen again and it did not. So I'll keep an eye out for the problem and keep your excellent tip in mind if I do see it again.

Did a lot of taking apart and cleaning last night - man this thing is DIRTY!

[Neverending Project]

Well done! You were hoping it was something as simple as a fuse, and it turns out it was!

Is your boy going to be into this one too? Maybe he'll give you a run for your money.

[TheShanMan]

He is SOOOOO excited about it! I've been trying to get him interested in football generally (he's 6), and it might just be that this is the catalyst! We played a game last night (same team, vs. the computer), and I said we'll have to practice on the mame cab so we can pause it and talk about what the plays mean, and how football generally works. He liked that. And when it comes to watching a real football game, I'll have to tie it into cyberball to keep him interested.

[Chase]

This was one of my favorite games back in the day!  Congrats on the great find!

[tomdotcom]

What a cool cabinet! Wicked find! We've been playing the hell out of league bowling on my neo cab I just got... Love it..

[TheShanMan]

Definite resetting problems tonight. I'll have to try Peale's suggestion. I have a brand new PS from Bob Roberts, so I'll try putting that in there to see if that stabilizes things.

[TheShanMan]

Haven't put in the new PS yet, though I did notice that the old one was running at about 4.89, so I adjusted it up to 5. That didn't make the problem go away (at least not completely). I played a full game, and then shortly after starting a second, it reset on me. I was hoping it was just the voltage adjustment.

So this has WG k7601 monitors, but I'm not finding much at all on the net on these. Would I need to look by series, and would that be k7600? Or k7000? I don't know how that stuff works as I know very little about monitors. The colors on one of them aren't too great, and it isn't real crisp, so it definitely needs a cap kit, while the other I think must have already had one done because it looks good.

While I'm mentioning that monitor, it also needs its v-size adjusted, but the pot does absolutely nothing. All other pots work and I don't see any damage or obvious signs of failure where soldered to the board. I assume it is supposed to work as labeled???

I have noticed occasional flickering of pixels near the players and other objects. Nothing major (only the most observant people would even notice them probably), but I ran it in mame and certainly didn't see them there. Any ideas what might cause that? Otherwise the video signal seems to be perfect.

[TheShanMan]

Been a while, but did some work today. Mentioned the v-size problem in the last post. That turned out to be a bad transistor, so that's now fixed. I also installed a cap kit on that monitor. I then spent a good hour or so adjusting all the pots to make the picture as perfect as I could (first time doing this, so it was a little trial and error). Got it looking pretty good. I didn't take "before" pics, but I haven't improved the left screen yet, so I'll use that for comparison (note: the right screen was WORSE than the left one before I started). I am absolutely thrilled with how the picture looks now. See pics below. As for the left screen, I'm going to try just making adjustments and see how it compares to the right screen before I decide if I want to install the cap kit I have for it.

And with regard to the resetting problem, the switcher that came with it was pretty bad, and would cause sporadic resets. I put in a brand new one, and now it only resets about a half dozen times within the first minute of being turned on, but is rock solid after that. I have caps for the main board and sound board, so I'll see if that helps.

I actually bought original cyberball boards off of ebay last week, and I have the main board in there now. I don't think it has reset at all. So at least I know that the problem lies on the main board. It will also be nice to have the boards if I ever want to play the original cyberball.

[TheShanMan]

Re-capped my game and sound boards, and the resetting appears to be gone completely (fingers crossed). Also, I've mentioned in the past that I'd get occasional pixel flickers surrounding objects on the screen. It was a minor problem that wasn't very noticeable, but it appears to be gone now after replacing the caps. So as far as I can tell there are no remaining problems!

I got the left monitor adjusted as best as I could, but I'm going to go ahead and install the cap kit when I get a chance. It's not bad but I don't have enough adjustment in the red to get it right. Hopefully re-capping it will fix that, and if not I guess using a rejuvenator would be the next step. Hopefully it doesn't come to that because I don't own one yet!

I'm absolutely thrilled at the current state of the game. Now I'm all ready to give it some serious playing time. What's left is basically cosmetic stuff. I have t-molding waiting to be installed. I need to touch up some minor damage in the cab. And then there is the artwork. I could use new CPO's, and I have no side art. Reproduction side art should be available in the not too distant future though.

[TheShanMan]

Had a little resetting after thinking that was a thing of the past. And to make matters worse, it was happening about 5 minutes after start up (previously it only seemed to happen in like the first minute). Given my recent experience with my Defender, I decided to start jiggling the power connectors. The problem seemed to stop after that, so my fingers are crossed. It actually makes a bit of sense if true - the resetting problems went away when I swapped in my other 2022 set of boards and replaced the caps, so it is entirely conceivable that it wasn't actual board work that fixed it, but the taking off and putting on of the power connectors. We'll see.

If it starts up again I may just drop in the 2022 boards for an extended time and see if it ever happens with those. Also, I heard over at KLOV that the filter boards that are between the power supply and the game board tend to be problematic (apparently these boards are common in arcade games) and aren't essential to proper operation. So removing that is another thing to try if all else fails.

Capped my other monitor too. I'm not entirely happy with how it looks though, and like I mentioned in my prior post it may require rejuvenating from what I hear.

[randyoaks187]

Do you still have the cabinet.  I have been searching for one, and if you ever grow tired of yours, I would be interested in buying!

Thanks,

Randy O.