pooman2084
Be Attitude For Gains!
I finally got my Metallica up and running after 4 months MIA and had a few friends over for a game of cards on Friday to celebrate.
Within 5 minutes of them arriving, Asteroids Dlx was dead and Robotron was misbehaving with control inputs not matching responses on the screen.
I have a bad track record with vector games as both I have owned have died within a week of me getting them, with the first one having to be sold on to a more experienced repairer when I reached my limit of repair skills. So my heart sank when this latest problem emerged.
Anyway, to ease my hangover the next morning I got my multi-meter and iron out and jumped into the back of both cabs. I don't have a great record with repairing boards, so was preparing to have to box them up and shift them out to one of our resident repairers, but thought I'd have a stab first.
Asteroids Dlx was showing nothing on screen and wasn't playable blind. In test mode it just showed the bottom half of the cross hatch screen, albeit clearly and in the right proportions. When I turned the cab on the next morning, it showed nothing again on the game screen, but this time it showed the full test screen.
It appeared to say 'Hi' on the left hand side of the screen
. I looked in the manual - this meant there was a problem at position H 1 on the PCB. I took the PCB out, checked the tracks and reseated the chip. I plugged it back in and it all works! Woot! I fixed a vector game!
Next up was Robotron. Now I restored a Roby from the ground up a few years back so knew a little about the various boards in a classic Williams setup. There were no error codes, so I thought I'd start with the input/output board. This one was even simpler, a reseating of the ribbon cable and we were back in business. I guess this may be a longer term issue, so will reflow the connectors if it happens again and then replace the cable if no better.
So 2 very simple repairs, but I'm pleased I managed to do them myself and am more likely to have a go next time I have a problem.
Within 5 minutes of them arriving, Asteroids Dlx was dead and Robotron was misbehaving with control inputs not matching responses on the screen.
I have a bad track record with vector games as both I have owned have died within a week of me getting them, with the first one having to be sold on to a more experienced repairer when I reached my limit of repair skills. So my heart sank when this latest problem emerged.
Anyway, to ease my hangover the next morning I got my multi-meter and iron out and jumped into the back of both cabs. I don't have a great record with repairing boards, so was preparing to have to box them up and shift them out to one of our resident repairers, but thought I'd have a stab first.
Asteroids Dlx was showing nothing on screen and wasn't playable blind. In test mode it just showed the bottom half of the cross hatch screen, albeit clearly and in the right proportions. When I turned the cab on the next morning, it showed nothing again on the game screen, but this time it showed the full test screen.
It appeared to say 'Hi' on the left hand side of the screen
Next up was Robotron. Now I restored a Roby from the ground up a few years back so knew a little about the various boards in a classic Williams setup. There were no error codes, so I thought I'd start with the input/output board. This one was even simpler, a reseating of the ribbon cable and we were back in business. I guess this may be a longer term issue, so will reflow the connectors if it happens again and then replace the cable if no better.
So 2 very simple repairs, but I'm pleased I managed to do them myself and am more likely to have a go next time I have a problem.
