Wells Gardner Arcade Monitor Scrolling Problem - ArcadeVGA

[deweyhewson]

I ordered an ArcadeVGA and breakout cable a few a months back to go with my Wells Gardner 25" 7191 arcade monitor. Unfortunately I just can't get the image to "lock" in position. It just constantly scrolls, faster or slower, no matter which resolution I'm set at.

Sometimes if I really play with the V. and H. holds I can get it to stay, but as soon as the image changes at all (game loads, resolution change, etc.) it's either out of alignment or starts scrolling again.

What would the problem be? The monitor itself is in great shape and has been tested with an actual JAMMA cabinet and did not have these problems.

I'm attaching images of the video cable so you can see and hopefully tell me if it is set up right, and this is a video of the problem I am having so you can see:


http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/8425/dscf5453.jpg
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/6266/dscf5455.jpg

[SirPeale]

You describe what the problem is here:

...but as soon as the image changes at all (game loads, resolution change, etc.) it's either out of alignment or starts scrolling again.

These are monitors that were designed to be used with one gameboard.  You adjust your settings to that board and leave it.

Mame can output a variety of resolutions and refresh rates.  When you change resolutions, the monitor can't handle it very well and will have issues, as you've seen.

There are things you can do to help out:

1) Has this monitor been capped within the last three or so years?  If it's NEVER been capped, this may help. 

2) running games that have a similar resolution and/or refresh.

3) how you have your sync wires may determine how it rolls.  I had a G07 recently that I could not get to lock in - on a /gameboard/.  Once I jumpered the - H sync to the - V sync it locked right on.

[deweyhewson]

The monitor is in excellent refurbished condition. I just replaced an older one (which was having the same issues) with this one for $200 thinking it would work. Did I waste my money?

These are monitors that were designed to be used with one gameboard.  You adjust your settings to that board and leave it.

Right, but when I hooked it up to my Smash T.V. board it synced fine, no problems. I didn't even have to play with the V/H hold pots.

Also, it's not just that it doesn't sync, but that when I can get it to sync playing with the v.hold pot the image is still not right on the screen. It'll be overlapping half on half of, or off the screen a bit, etc. It'll never line up.

I'm wondering if the problem is how the sync from my VGA breakout cable is connected. You mentioned jumpering the two together, how would I do that? Also, would buying a JPac and hooking it up JAMMA style solve my issues?

Thanks to anyone who can help, this is all quite new to me.

[deweyhewson]

Also, here is a video of a guy with the same monitor (newer model, though) and it looks great, so the changing resolutions shouldn't be a problem.



Go to about the 8 minute mark to see the screen.

[Ken Layton]

Here is more information on your monitor:

http://jstookey.com/arcade/WG_25k7191/

[deweyhewson]

Ken, yeah I've looked through that site (which was a big help in getting my new isolation transformer wired up), but I can't find any information on there related to this problem. Everywhere I've seen with people using this monitor for their MAME setups shows it syncing and working totally fine, so the problem just can't be the "single resolution only" problem that was mentioned as a possible culprit above.

I've been talking to Andy from Ultimarc and he suspects a bad video breakout cable, so he'll be sending me a new one (great guy, by the way). I'm hoping that's it, because for the life of me I can't figure out why it would do this. I've tried wiring the horizontal and vertical sync wires together to create composite sync, I've tried only plugging in one sync cable, I've tried putting one sync cable in negative and one in positive, I've tried moving the ground around, pretty much everything and nothing works.

I'm 99% sure it's not the monitor, because I had the same monitor before taken from a SMASH T.V. cab which this one replaced and it too would do the exact same thing. While I'm waiting for this new cable, if anyone else has any ideas on what it could be please share them; I'm at my wits end here. I'm considering getting the J-Pac so I can use the JAMMA hookups for the monitor itself hoping that would fix it, but will wait and see what happens with this new breakout cable.

Too bad the local electronics stores don't stock this kind of stuff, eh?  

Also, for comparison purposes, here is the JAMMA video cable SMASH T.V. had used to connect to the monitor, compared to the VGA breakout cable from Ultimarc. It clearly looks like JAMMA is using a composite sync here.

JAMMA:
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/1927/dscf0456o.jpg

VGA Breakout:
http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/8425/dscf5453.jpg

[Jack Burton]

It sound to me like Andy is right.  One of the wires in your breakout cable is broken or frayed inside the cable and isn't making a connection.  I suppose you could test it for the correct signal but I'm not sure how to do that.

The effect you are describing is what happens when you have only one sync working, or none at all sometimes.

On my monitor I can switch back and forth between sync on green and seperate sync. 

If I switch to sync on green while being connected via seperate sync I can play around with the vertical hold and get a stable image.  However, any time the screen changes a little it will roll once, and if the resolution changes it all goes to hell.

[Kevin Mullins]

You could ohm/test continuity check the breakout cable...... locate both the V sync and H sync pins on the vga end and make sure that BOTH pins have continuity to the combined composite sync end going to the monitor.

What pin on the K7000 do you have your composite sync connected to ?