Afterburner DLX motor drive boards
- Thread starter John Bennett
- Start date
Thread tidied up on request
Hi John,I’m not sure if you have made available somewhere, but do you have a parts list and file dumps that can be shared? I would love to have my original motor board repaired, however my tech has indicated he needs quite specific troubleshooting info to test the outputs.
Anything I can provide to him may help salvage my board.
Anything I can provide to him may help salvage my board.
John Bennett
Senior Member
Hi, I don't think I got as far as making a manual, like I did for Outrun (probably as there was so little interest in 2019).
Attached is the pdf of my board. It differs slightly from the original in that it's a GAL, not a PAL on the main PCB and I've got jumpers on the triac PCB to allow you to use the ancient TLP511GA triac drivers or a much more modern 6-pin photodiac. You've maybe seen it already if you looked at the circuitmaker project.
The part numbers are 50 greater than the original on the Triac (so 51 is 1, 61 is 11) to keep circuitmaker happy.
The original PALs and the updated GAL are all here on Porchy's site:
If I can get a moment, I can do a parts list for the original and the triac, but I doubt it'll be this week (very hectic). Which board is broken, the control PCB or the triac?
I usually fix them for a bottle of wine plus parts and P&P, but you are on the other side of the planet, which isn't ideal (and things can go missing in the post).
Attached is the pdf of my board. It differs slightly from the original in that it's a GAL, not a PAL on the main PCB and I've got jumpers on the triac PCB to allow you to use the ancient TLP511GA triac drivers or a much more modern 6-pin photodiac. You've maybe seen it already if you looked at the circuitmaker project.
The part numbers are 50 greater than the original on the Triac (so 51 is 1, 61 is 11) to keep circuitmaker happy.
The original PALs and the updated GAL are all here on Porchy's site:
If I can get a moment, I can do a parts list for the original and the triac, but I doubt it'll be this week (very hectic). Which board is broken, the control PCB or the triac?
I usually fix them for a bottle of wine plus parts and P&P, but you are on the other side of the planet, which isn't ideal (and things can go missing in the post).
That would be awesome, thankyou for sharing.
I believe I have issues with both boards.
The Triac board was rebuilt and tested fine. The io motor board was repaired but not properly tested.
Initially left/ right worked fine. After a while it blew the triacs. Both sides of the wave form were working so speed was good.
The forward/ rearward movement only worked on one side of the wave form. The far left of the Triac board wasn’t working.
I think though, it may be lack of signal from the motor board. It was very slow and after a short while the Triac blew and the resistors caught fire.
I have an excellent tech who will rebuild the Triac board, but he says he needs specific test info to be able to look over the motor board again.
Sending that board to you is definitely an option.
Thankyou for your response and all your help.
Very much appreciated
I believe I have issues with both boards.
The Triac board was rebuilt and tested fine. The io motor board was repaired but not properly tested.
Initially left/ right worked fine. After a while it blew the triacs. Both sides of the wave form were working so speed was good.
The forward/ rearward movement only worked on one side of the wave form. The far left of the Triac board wasn’t working.
I think though, it may be lack of signal from the motor board. It was very slow and after a short while the Triac blew and the resistors caught fire.
I have an excellent tech who will rebuild the Triac board, but he says he needs specific test info to be able to look over the motor board again.
Sending that board to you is definitely an option.
Thankyou for your response and all your help.
Very much appreciated
John Bennett
Senior Member
Hmm, interesting.
It would be odd to lose half a cycle from the control PCB. If it's syncing properly, I think it would have to be a damaged PAL output or the ULN2003 buffer on the output. Both are pretty robust.
Have you had a look at the Outrun manual I did? Most of the control PCB is the same for that and I've got debug stuff near the end.
If you see four nice pulses going to the optos, then it's probably fine.
Could be dodgy TLP511 opto-drivers?
It would be odd to lose half a cycle from the control PCB. If it's syncing properly, I think it would have to be a damaged PAL output or the ULN2003 buffer on the output. Both are pretty robust.
Have you had a look at the Outrun manual I did? Most of the control PCB is the same for that and I've got debug stuff near the end.
If you see four nice pulses going to the optos, then it's probably fine.
Could be dodgy TLP511 opto-drivers?
Thanks for your response John, very helpful. I will check out the outrun manual.
All this is a little over my head, I’ll be passing info on to my tech who returns from Xmas early January.
I’m confident the Triac board, although in poor condition can be fixed. I guess the best thing to do from there is test the motor io board in situ.
If it needs work, which I suspect it does I’m happy to either send to my tech or even to you if you are willing.
Thanks again for your time.
John Bennett
Senior Member
Hi Folks,
I was a little uncomfortable that I hadn't had much feedback from the first (tiny) batch of boards and that I might've stuffed-up with this lot, so I asked Stuarth to test one.
Turns out my hunch was right as 4-triac owners would've had a problem as the PAL speed code had differences (error on my part when rewriting the PAL into GAL code).
So with this sorted, I'm going to order some GALs and ship two sets with each board, so you can swap them out for a 4-triac or 2-triac system. I'll order them ASAP and we can get these boards out my study and out the door.
Edit: The 2-triac GAL code is already up on Porchy's PAL archive, but I'll put up both versions on here later (they're not on this PC).
I was a little uncomfortable that I hadn't had much feedback from the first (tiny) batch of boards and that I might've stuffed-up with this lot, so I asked Stuarth to test one.
Turns out my hunch was right as 4-triac owners would've had a problem as the PAL speed code had differences (error on my part when rewriting the PAL into GAL code).
So with this sorted, I'm going to order some GALs and ship two sets with each board, so you can swap them out for a 4-triac or 2-triac system. I'll order them ASAP and we can get these boards out my study and out the door.
Edit: The 2-triac GAL code is already up on Porchy's PAL archive, but I'll put up both versions on here later (they're not on this PC).
John Bennett
Senior Member
Ok, the 2-triac has been online for a while, but here they both are 
.
.Awesome, I can''t wait to feel the rush of excitement as I plug these boards in to then find something else was broken all along also preventing motion 😅
Fantastic result. Great work John.
I know these are all spoken for, but please keep me in mind for those who have had a change of heart.
Afterburned
Newbie
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Hello, I could use about 6 of these boards (we want spares of everything) for Afterburner triac replacements Let, it will be Mike and Ed. We are working on restoring 2 we Have everything ready except this. Thanks a million!!! micahrodriguez50@yahoo.com
John Bennett
Senior Member
For sure Craig!
I think I've comfortably on my way to another 10 requests now after this batch of 10 go out.
I'll definitely look into getting them pre-made next time (or at least partially).
John Bennett
Senior Member
Six?!!!
As in 6 control PCBs and 6 triac boards?!
Wow.
As mentioned above, I'm going to look into outsourcing the manufacturing as I vowed 'never again' after hand-soldering the 10 I'm just about to ship - each one took a few hours to make, clean-up and test.
If that works out then I can hopefully make such large volumes.
It will be towards the end of this year for any more boards, I hope people are ok with this. I've just too much on and to many other things I want to wrap-up first.
John Bennett
Senior Member
Just to check, when you say Mike and Ed, do you mean Ed Starling, as I've been chatting to him on Facebook today? (just so I don't put people's names down multiple times)
Afterburned
Newbie
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Yes 6 each. I need 2 each asap. But if you can't I'll figure something out. End of year? Its the begining of the year. Let me know if you can at least a couple each charge me double if you have to. Thanks.
John Bennett
Senior Member
Yeah sorry, I've got to be realistic - looking at the dates on this thread it took me over a year to do this last batch and I've still not shipped them. I've got a lot of other stuff on the go and challenges outside of work/hobbies.
If I can speed things up with getting things outsourced I will, but I can't offer anything in this quarter of the year.
I could charge a lot more, but it would go from helping the global community to something I'd need to hire a tax advisor to help manage.
If you need boards repairing, I can do that a lot quicker and the cost is an optional bottle of wine plus parts and postage.