New acquisition: 720

[shardian]

This one kind of fell in my lap. I am 100% out of room, but I just couldn't pass it up!

BYOAC member KenToad was super kind enough to pass this game on to me. So to make you all super envious, yes this game was free. One quick trip 2 hours up the road, and it was at my place.

It is a beater cabinet, but will clean up fairly nice. The sides are decent with original gray vinyl in acceptable condition. The overlays are yellowed as usual. The front panel has to be replaced, because it is super swollen. The lower sides have partially detached from the frame, and need to be glued/clamped back tight - there is a 3/4" gap on each side of the CP.

The main issue is power. The existing switcher was in pieces, and wires were disconnected. I will wire it up tomorrow and see where I'm at. The monitor did fire up last time Kentoad plugged it in.

It was full of animal refuse when I opened it up. When I last brought games uncleaned into my gameroom, I got an unpleasant mouse pee smell. No way this game was coming in dirty! I immediately gutted the machine and gave it a sponge bath (particle board - no hose). I Bleache white cleaned the monitor, power brick, and upper plastics. I also gave a liberal coat of poly to the exposed particle board panels inside the cabinet. Overall, it smells much, much better. I was in a hurry, so no official "before" pics. There are some here though of its initial resting place:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/inde...0426#msg510426
Note: I don't know why the pics show the top plastics and the CP as being gray/white. I assume the pics were brightened or something. There no way they could have yellowed in that short of time considering it was faced away from sunlight.


Currently, I am piecing it back together. I broke a speaker when pulling out the monitor because the wires were awkwardly ran through the monitor frame. I fixed it already, so no permanent damage. I'll report back as soon as I fix/verify the power and wiring.

[KenToad]

Man, you did more with it in one day than I did with it in over three years. 

Sorry about the mouse poop.  I rescued it from an out door location, a junk pile, basically, and before that I believe it had been in some other garage.  In other words, it came with mouse poop.

So, I hope the power supply is the problem and you will be playing and/or selling a newly refurbished classic soon.

Thanks again, Shardian.   

[shardian]

Heh. Yeah I got alot done yesterday. I've strained my arcade technical time to the max though. I got the stink eye pretty bad today, along with a lecture. I will be much slower moving from here on out.

[shardian]

Today I cleaned up the switcher wiring harness, and connected it up. I reinstalled the power brick and switcher. Got the fan cleaned up and installed, but I forgot which way it was supposed to go. Is it supposed to suck in air, or blow it out?

I pulled those pins in the burned connector and cleaned them up. I would have just replaced them, but I don't have my molex crimper right now. I need to get that tool back!
I have a bit more wiring inspection to do, and a few more parts to reinstall. Then I'll drop back in the monitor and fire her up.

P.S. My gameroom has no odor, so operation cleanup was a resounding success!

[SirPeale]

Probably suck in, unless it's @ the top.

[shardian]

FYI, I am providing the cardboard Bezel to Wade to be traced/reproduced. I will scan the trace as a tiff file and provide it here and at KLOV.

[shardian]

Hmmm... I finished hooking up all the wiring, and went for the moment of truth. Power lights on both boards, so power is good. Monitor is the same pink that KenToad had. No noises at all from attempted coin up. I tried to adjust monitor knobs, and nothing. Later I'll flip the test switch on ARII. That is where the test switch is, right?

That sucks.
Now, back to bed. I thought I was well enough to tinker, but now I'm soaked in cold sweats and hacking up a storm. Being sick sucks...

[KenToad]

That does suck.  I'm sorry to hear it. 

Get better soon.

[2600]

Did you use the same switcher?  Have you check voltages?  The System II Power Section sucks.  Everything from the Power Supply to the Harness.  Take some measurements, but I wouldn't be surprised if you need to redo some of the power section.

[shardian]

Different tested working Power supply.

[shardian]

verified +5 at test points of video and cpu boards with DMM. What about the ARII - is there anything on it that can be keeping the game from booting at all? Test switch had no effect on operation.

[shardian]

I've been checking some things and looking at the schematics. The audio II board processes the raw 12 and 18 VAC lines from the transformer into the required + and - 15 VDC needed at the boards. The VAC lines into the audio board are fine. Here's where things get interesting.

I was quite befuddled by the power connector on the video board. Turns out, it has been hacked from something else. That explains the big chunk of electrical tape over part of the wiring harness. I need to take that crap apart and make sure it is all right. After I at least made sure the connector was on properly by comparing empty spaces with the board key, I hooked it back up and tested +15VDC at the video board test point. I got 5 volts.
I went to test +/- 15 at the CPU board, but apparently shorted somewhere. I hooked my negative lead into a ground test spade, but apparently it brushed something and blew the mains fuse. All I have on me are standard 3A fuses, no slo blow.
Either way, whatever makes the +15, -15 VDC on the audio II is the problem.

[Silas (son of Silas)]

I love 720. it falls into the category of 'I love it, but I'll never own it' Its as rare as hens teeth in the UK, and building a dedicated clone would be impossible because of the joystick.

Damn I loved that game as a kid. I don't know how many quarters I pumped into it as a kid when I was stateside. 

[shardian]

I love 720. it falls into the category of 'I love it, but I'll never own it' Its as rare as hens teeth in the UK, and building a dedicated clone would be impossible because of the joystick.

Damn I loved that game as a kid. I don't know how many quarters I pumped into it as a kid when I was stateside. 

ramcontrols will have a complete reproduction of the stick soon, if not already. I know they have a crap ton of spare parts.

[Silas (son of Silas)]

ramcontrols will have a complete reproduction of the stick soon, if not already. I know they have a crap ton of spare parts.

W00t!!  I feel a 720 bar top in my not too distant future. Just got to finish the upright first.

[shardian]

Wade hooked me up with a tested Audio board, and a pack of 3A fuses. I popped in the audio board and fuse, and fired her up. There was life! It was in attract mode, and out of focus. I focused in the image, and it looked great. I coined up and tried to start a game. Holy video glitches batman! Most everything did not show up at all. It did try to start a game though, and played the music.

I could flip the test switch and see the typical audit screens, but most wording had corruption. I then turned it off and set the test switch to run diagnostics. Turned it back on, saw it flash bad rom messages, but couldn't read them. Then, it crashed. I flipped the switch back, but nothing. I am back to a dead game.

I pulled the boards and reseated /cleaned every chip. The brown gold legged chip on the CPU board was crap. I assume this is the one you had trouble with Wade? One of the legs was gone or magically disappeared when I pulled it. It was nowhere to be found on my work table, so I assume it just wasn't there. I used one of my wife's sewing needles to make a new leg. Who knows how great that will work, considering the legs are gold.

So good news: The monitor works, the boards (kind of) work, and the audio works.

The bad news: I have no clue why it up and died. I suspect wiring, but most likely the boards.

I'm hoping me and Wade can pool together all of our Sys. II boards and come up with 2 working sets...

[shardian]

Well.. I seem to have my power issues solved. I pulled all +15 pins, cleaned and 'resprung' them. Still nothing, so I tested voltages again. I had the 4-5 volts at the video connector again. Somehow, the process of shoving DMM leads in fixed it. Actually, the +15 pin fell out. I put it back in and had +15 out of nowhere on the DMM.

The game is doing something when I turn power on. Here are some images of the screen junk:

When I flip the test switch and try to boot, I get odd stuff, but no testing action. Funny, because the game at least somewhat worked before I reseated all the socketed chips.

So, I definitely have a dead boardset now. Take a look at the junk screen and see if it tells you anything. I am also uploading a simple video I took of what it did when I turned it on in test mode. Nothing special there.
I reseated the CPU, and now I still have junk, but it is purple tinted junk.