Battlezone TECH

[simon325836]

[ukvac] Battlezone TECH

I bought a BZ many months ago and got the following

secondhand monitor from Steve Coule that I saw working at his house

ARII board repaired by Andy Welburn

and the two game boards repaired by Mark Leopardcats

I then left everything in packaging as I never got round to putting it together.

Had a try today and put everything together. When I booted it up, leds on game boards are working but no sound or picture, neck of monitor is glowing and LED on monitor board is on.

Put it into test mode, get low drone and can see hatch pattern but this then reets continually every few seconds. ie picture goes dead sound goes dead then it comes back on.

Is this a monitor problem? I know naff all about vector games so don't know where to start.

I didn't name people to apportion blame , just I trust all of these people so know the stuff was ok when I had it back from them , realise due to just leaving stuff around something has gone wrong in the meantime and have no idea where to start troubleshooting

Thanks

Simon

 

[John Bennett]

RE: [ukvac] Battlezone TECH
The monitor sounds ok to me, even if I am biased ;-)

The LED on the monitor board is the spot killer indicating that the monitor
is not receiving a valid and changing signal.

It seems the game board is not happy but this could be the board itself, the
power supply/ARII or indeed the wiring in the cabinet. Try measuring the
voltages on the game PCB if you can ... if they are too low you could see
the symptoms you describe.

Good luck,

Steve



DATA Imported from archives: originally posted by Steve Coule (steves-lists@dsl.pipex.com)

 

[Alpha1]

Re: [ukvac] Battlezone TECH
Had the same problem on an Asteroids Deluxe, it was the big blue/ power
brick.

oll

 

[simon325836]

Re: [ukvac] Battlezone TECH
Did the following

checked voltages with just arII

got -5v -6.66
+12v 11.86
+22v 24.8
-22v -24.9

36vac fluctuates between 12-18 v

plugged in game boards (no monitor)

main board

+5v 4.82
-5v -6.55
+12v 11.78
+15v 15.04
-15 -15.04

aux board

+5 v +4.52
+22 24.3

so the +5v looks low minimum.

Next question does anyone repair the power brick or have one for sale if that is what is wrong

Simon

 

[John Bennett]

RE: [ukvac] Battlezone TECH

Your -5v is too low and the +5v is too low, if the ARII has been
"bullet-proofed", the sense lines will be tied to the output lines and you
should be able to adjust the +5 and -5 on the ARII.

The +22 & -22 are just AC rectified to DC with no regulation so there's
nothing you can do about those (assuming the correct factory plug is
correct). These are regulated on the board to +15, -15 and +12 (I think?)
and these voltages are all looking good.

Where did you measure the 36VAC? Did you measure across the two 36VAC lines
or from one to ground? If you did measure across the two 36VAC lines with
an AC range, I'm surprised you didn't get a correct reading since I think
these are rectified to give the +22v & -22v DC (unregulated).

This is all from memory / assumptions based on other stuff so I'm quite
happy to be corrected on any of this!

Don't rush out and buy anything yet ... it sounds more like ARII adjustment
than anything else. Take a pic of the underside of the ARII and we should be
able to work out it the output & sense lines have been shorted to prevent a
bad connector damaging the PCB

Cheers,

Steve



DATA Imported from archives: originally posted by Steve Coule (steves-lists@dsl.pipex.com)

 

[guddler]

Re: [ukvac] Battlezone TECH
> Where did you measure the 36VAC? Did you measure across the two 36VAC lines
> or from one to ground? If you did measure across the two 36VAC lines with
> an AC range, I'm surprised you didn't get a correct reading since I think
> these are rectified to give the +22v & -22v DC (unregulated).

To get between 12 & 18v, i would hope it was measured one lead on gnd
and the other on each of the pins in turn, and hence sounds pretty okay
for a 36vAC C/T.

Otherwise something's very weird to be getting the correct rectified
voltages as you say :O)

Martin.

 

[John Bennett]

Re: [ukvac] Battlezone TECH
Hi Simon... a couple of thoughts on your BZ problem... (from memory!)

1. Monitor is doing what it should! ie: spot killing. If you get
cross-hatch then the a) the vec-gen/state machine is good/working and the
monitor is working.

2. If the board resets every few seconds on a regular basis in
game-play/attract, then the watch-dog timer is not being cleared
properley, this is probably because...

a) the roms are bad,
b) the program ram is bad (not the vector ram)
c) the addressing logic is bad.

The low-drone is the symptom of the tone-generator not being cleared after
a self-test cycle. It is set/tested early on in the self-test routine, but
not being cleared down properley.

As the tone gen is on the AUX bd, you probably have a problem with the bd
interconnect wiring. Check this out.

In self-test/cross-hatch mode...
Do you get math-box time-out or High/low errors?
Do you get rom chksum errors?

You can run the self-test without the aux board connected, although you
will get the "T" displayed and no sound at all, but it can help. If it
helps, you can also remove all the roms except N1 to run the diagnostics.
The self-test should allow you to move the joysticks and get a beep on
each button activation, but only if the drone has gone...

Check your edge-cons, IC sockets and wiring harness. My vote is a
interconnect wiring problem and/or mathbox

Hope this helps ..? good luck.

Chrz - Tim.

"Simon White" <simong.white@btopenworld.com>
21/08/2004 17:26
Please respond to ukvac

To: <ukvac@yahoogroups.com>
cc:
Subject: [ukvac] Battlezone TECH

I bought a BZ many months ago and got the following

secondhand monitor from Steve Coule that I saw working at his house

ARII board repaired by Andy Welburn

and the two game boards repaired by Mark Leopardcats

I then left everything in packaging as I never got round to putting it
together.

Had a try today and put everything together. When I booted it up, leds on
game boards are working but no sound or picture, neck of monitor is
glowing and LED on monitor board is on.

Put it into test mode, get low drone and can see hatch pattern but this
then reets continually every few seconds. ie picture goes dead sound goes
dead then it comes back on.

Is this a monitor problem? I know naff all about vector games so don't
know where to start.

I didn't name people to apportion blame , just I trust all of these people
so know the stuff was ok when I had it back from them , realise due to
just leaving stuff around something has gone wrong in the meantime and
have no idea where to start troubleshooting

Thanks

Simon



DATA Imported from archives: originally posted by (ygroups@ektr.com)

 

[MarbleMad]

Re: [ukvac] Battlezone TECH

I know it's an obvious one but have you cleaned all the connectors and
removed all the fuses and cleaned all the fuse holders?

My battlezone was (still is) as glitchey as hell but it's usually
connectors.

also - what does test mode do?

In article <007401c487a7$de985570$ae559a51@homepc>, Simon White
<simong.white@btopenworld.com> writes
>Did the following
>
>checked voltages with just arII
>
>got -5v -6.66
>+12v 11.86
>+22v 24.8
>-22v -24.9
>
>
>36vac fluctuates between 12-18 v
>
>
>plugged in game boards (no monitor)
>
>
>main board
>
>+5v 4.82
>-5v -6.55
>+12v 11.78
>+15v 15.04
>-15 -15.04
>
>aux board
>
>+5 v +4.52
>+22 24.3
>
>
>so the +5v looks low minimum.
>
>Next question does anyone repair the power brick or have one for sale if that is
>what is wrong
>
>Simon
>
>
>