So I bought a vintage Phoenix machine. Complete but NW

[Kevin Mullins]

Firing doesn't work. You can hear it (so the button input is goos), but there's no animation for it. Bullets are invisible, or better yet, non-existent. Even if I line up with an enemy, there's no hit detection. So I'm assuming it's a PCB problem?

Yup, that's a PCB issue.

Could be anything from a dirty chip/socket to a bad chip.

Have you gone through and clean/re-seated any socketed chips on the boardset itself ?
(too tired to re-read thread/lazy)

[midnightpulp]

No. Been so focused on the monitor, haven't really messed with the PCB too much outside of cleaning the connector. In my  impatient haste, I just bought a Phoenix PCB off eBay for 90.00.

Does reseating the chips require soldering? Or is that just making sure they're firmly attached to the board?

Still would like to get this one working. Two boards are better than one, I guess 

[RayB]

Reseating for me means just pressing down on all socketed chips. Sometimes the big eproms, etc will rise out of the socket ever so slightly, just from vibration of the machine being moved. Press them all in snug.

If that doesn't work, some actually take the chips out completely, clean the legs and put them back in. I don't do that because I ALWAYS end up bending legs, no matter how careful I am, and bending them back usually snaps em off.

[midnightpulp]

Reseating for me means just pressing down on all socketed chips. Sometimes the big eproms, etc will rise out of the socket ever so slightly, just from vibration of the machine being moved. Press them all in snug.

If that doesn't work, some actually take the chips out completely, clean the legs and put them back in. I don't do that because I ALWAYS end up bending legs, no matter how careful I am, and bending them back usually snaps em off.

Gave it a go. Still no animation or hit detection when firing. PCB should be here Wed. Will let you guys know how everything turns out.

Thanks again to everyone. I went from total neophyte to somewhat competent.

[midnightpulp]

Update:

Board arrived today from Quarter Arcade, plugged it in, and after some tweaks, had a working game. Finally! It's one fun game. Thanks once again to everyone. Never could've done this without everyone's help.

Now some fine tuning questions:

Game image doesn't fill the entire screen from top to bottom, leaving about an inch/inch 1/2 gap between the top of the screen and where the image cuts off. Not a big deal, but I'm curious if there's a way to fix this (horiz width coil?)

Got some curl at the right edge of the screen. I'm assuming the curl mod will fix this? However, didn't have this problem with the other game board.

The Player 1 and 2 text, along with the scoreboard text, sits crooked across the screen (had this problem with the other board as well). Doing some research, I discovered that adjusting the yoke rings will fix this. Not sure how to do that, however.

Will get some pics up of the cab in its entirety once I add the finishing touches (new buttons, bezel, etc) and clean it up.

Take care, everyone.