Atari Firefox

[Jodo]

Hi all,

My Firefox upright was delivered yesterday! (Cheers Martin!) It's in really nice condition; unmarked vibrant side art, yoke and dash decals perfectly intact and it's super clean inside. I'll get some pictures up shortly when I can get it in good light.

There are a few things missing however; somebody's been having a little poach! The LD player is a given I suppose but there are a couple of other bits gone and I'm going to need some tech help with the cabling please; a large amount of which is not plugged in.

My intention is to try to keep everything in 1 thread and to get the cab running as it should, minus the LD, ready for when the LD replacement solution comes out from Mr Spicer

The PSU brick was missing but I've sourced a replacement from Alpha1 (thanks dude) and that is ready to go in the cab base.

• My immediate question is that the AR-II-02 is present but the AR-II-04 is not. I have a spare AR-II-02 here that's got the sense mod and is confirmed working; will that work instead of the AR-II-04? (I suspect not otherwise Atari would have just used 2 x AR-II-02s!) but I have to ask
  
• The cab has twin fans in the base with the standard Atari power plug hanging loose - where do these fans plug into please - anyone know? Is it the main loom or the power brick itself?

There will be more but I'm only just finding my way around her...

Thanks in advance,

Phil.

Jodo2013-07-06 13:59:04

 

[Jodo]

Well I've had better starts

I am getting a confirmed 238v AC into the power brick but nothing out of it. I've measured for voltages on the main (large) power brick output socket and also the smaller 3 pin output that's supposed to be powering the fans. Nothing. Not a flicker.

• All fuses test good for continuity (both in situ and out)
• The 'J3' plug is keyed for UK 240v
• Big blue replaced
• Visual inspection shows nothing obvious (to me)

Any ideas guys?

The cables are quite generous, so I can have the brick outside the cab and still get power to it; is there anything I can probe for voltage other than the output sockets to show if I have a duff brick?

Sexy pictures of power brick:

 

[andyman]

Have you got this connector wired up, its for the interlocks, wont do anything without

andyman2012-11-19 22:38:05

 

[DanP]

What Andy has circled is for the power switch. I'll take a picture of one tomorrow.

Dan

 

[Jodo]

ARGH! - no - it doesn't have anything there Andy.

I don't suppose you have one in your shelf'o'bits (tm) do you fella?

I could nick one out of JEDI I suppose for testing purposes if they are the same...

 

[tb lilley]

You can bypass it with 2 bits of wire and 4 matchsticks. Not ideal, but should suffice for testing purposes. To be even less helpful than usual I can't remember which wires to go where .....

 

[andyman]

Phil, if you look from the base, you have live/neutral wires, just jump them to the other two wires in the connector directly in front of each (Black and white).
Ah Dan's right power switch, no Interlocks. I have an few bits of atari loom, if you can't find anything I can make you something up

 

[tb lilley]

What Andy says. From the base you'll see 5 wires. Green, Blue, Brown, Black, White. You just need to jumper, from above, so that blue jumps to white and brown jumps to black. 2 wires, and a handful of matchstick. If you want to be fancy about it you can use cocktail sticks. Or acquire a 6 pin molex block and jump it that way.

 

[DanP]

Here's what the switch looks like. Check your cabinet, it might still be in there

Dan

 

[Alpha1]

Here's what the switch looks like. Check your cabinet, it might still be in there

Dan

Nice one Dan!

Chop Chop Jodo.

 

[Bensonrad]

Jesus, how clean is that power brick! did you clean that up or did it come from Oliver like that?

 

[Jodo]

*EDIT* Yes the brick really was that clean. Oliver must have slept with it under his pillow.

Now I'm confused - is that the ON / OFF switch that hangs out of the rear of the cab? My power cable is green / black / white and runs from the inside of the ON/OFF switch enclosure along the side of the brick; it has a 3 pin female on the end, that then plugs into a male connector on the top edge (opposite edge to big blue) of the brick:

I looked in my JEDI and it has this plugged into the same socket; which I then proceeded to steal in the name of Firefox research:

It fits nicely into the Firefox brick and, looking underneath, appears to jumper black, white, blue and brown but not the 5th cable - green earth:

Have I made any progress?

Jodo2012-11-20 18:12:40

 

[Alpha1]

You got a new big blue and fuse holder too in that brick - can't remember if anything else was replaced.

 

[tb lilley]

As long as its not jumpering blue to brown, or white to black, you should be good to go.

 

[Jodo]

OK - the brick looks good - that plug did the trick and now the fans spin up nicely when power is applied.

My cabling currently looks like this on the AR2's; it's worth noting that the length of these cables is such that they only reach to the sockets I have plugged them into; I didn't have much choice which is why I'm fairly confident.

My only concern is out of the 2 AR2s, one is fully populated in every socket whilst the other only has 2 plugs into it. It could be fine - but there isn't anything left over to fill any of those empty sockets anyway, if you get me.

 

[Jodo]

I've had better nights! Just finished up pretty disgruntled but I suppose if I'm being realistic what did I really expect?

• The voltages checked out 'a little high', so a couple of volts above where they should have been on the AR2s
• I took this as being because there was no load and reasoned with the PCB stack attached, we'd drop down to what was expected
• I checked the PCB stack edges for damage and spotted some discolouration around the +5v line but the pin itself was nice and clean, as were the other pins, so I assumed wear and tear.
• I attached the PCB stack and booted the cab up
  
• Everything came on fine - the PCB LEDs lit up and nothing shorted, burned, went bang or otherwise made any unsavoury noises. No speech though.
  
• I hit the Service button. No speech.
• I powered the cab down, flicked the test switch and then powered her back up. No Atari beeps
  
• I did however hear *something* coming from the speakers and turned up the volume slightly. Basically the cab was cycling through a series of 'clicks' from all 4 speakers; 'click-click-click-click' i can only liken the sound to a record stuck in a groove
• This was pretty disappointing but at that moment everything went south.
  
  I measured the voltages across the 2 opposing PCBs and got 6.5v on both of them!!
• I'd say the cab was running for a good minute or so before this happened. I threw the off switch and disconnected the PCB stack
• Deciding to re-check the AR2 voltages and adjust downwards as necessary, I got my multi, powered the cab back up and probed....
• The voltages were / are now all over the place! 22v is reading as 24v, 10.3v is reading as 14v, +5 is reading as 14v (!!!) and 36v is reading as 17v. It's crazy - everything is wrong
• If the stack was getting 6.5v it's fair to say they are probably fried I guess
  
  The AR2 I replaced was tested good and the existing one that was in the cab when I bought her is factory new - it's minty (but doesn't have any voltage test loops on it)

I feel back to square one now. I need (potentially) at least one new / fixed AR2 and a PCB stack repair

It worries me what's going on with the AR2 voltages though - that was tested good in Tempest beforehand.

 

[Equites]

Sounds like the SENSE circuit was cranking up the juice - this usually happens when you have poor connection to the PCB. Look at your edge connector and check for tarnish and burns.

 

[karlcdoe]

ah well, like I suggested with Tempest its worth hooking up a dummy load to something rare like this before attaching your valuable boards. I'm pretty glad I did this with my mad planets after leaving it unfinished for 4+ years as within minutes of powering up with a test load some resistors starting doing a nice impression of a bar fire... however, you may not have done any real damage. The clicking sounds like a watchdog reset of some sort. In order to prove that you'd have to scope/probe the reset line on the CPU(s) to see whats going on.Personally looikgn at those voltages I'd test what I could using a street fighter bootleg or something

 

[Jodo]

"+Sense" is the 5v on an AR2 - correct?

The cab inside is mint - the connectors are super tight - you really have to waggle to get them off. It only has 27 plays on the counter. The AR2 that was inside matches the cab serials and looks NoS.

I'm going to verify the brick for 36v tonight as that 18v reading is oddly half the voltage of what the AR2 should be getting.

Jodo2012-11-22 18:52:51

 

[Jodo]

All voltages on the brick check out fine. It looks like something is unwell at the AR2 side of things. I'll pull them over the weekend and start to check each component.

I *Do* love this sh*t but sometimes you wish for....a little luck