Golden Tee no sound, random watchdog.

[SassMate]

Golden Tee bootleg.

Don't zoom in too far, it will hurt your eyes.
This is not really a fix log atm as I made the situation worse. Hopefully i a few days it will be a fix log..

I've had this board for a while but I've never powered it up as I don't have a track ball.
Powered on tonight out of curiosity , booted just fine and works ok with a joystick.
I'm not sure if that's what all the wires on the board are doing, I haven't really looked too closely at them and I don't really care, I'm never going to sell it and I can play it which is great.
I have a passion for golf arcade games, neo turf masters being the pinnacle in my eyes, all despite I've never really taken to the game in real life.

This particular example has no sound.
I played it for around half an hour, during which time it restarted maybe 3 times. I then heard the SFX for the first time, only for a brief moment before the board started to reset at the exact point the first sound should play.
Thinking this was a thermal issue, I let the board cool down after measuring voltages at the sound chip and at the 12v side of the audio circuit. All good.
After 20 mins or so, I booted it back up and it played ok again but no sound, must be thermal...
I removed the Yamaha YM2203C chip which is socketed to check the condition of the pins, They all look to be in good condition as does the socket.
I gave them a bit of a clean with a fiber glass pen just to be sure and popped it back in.
I tried to measure the voltage at the SCR, I don't know why I did this, at that stage I didn't even know it was an SCR or what an SCR does.


I now know it's there to provide over voltage protection, If that had incorrect/no volts I reckon most of the board would be dead..

Anyway, I slipped with the multimeter and shorted the anode and the gate which blew the 2A fuse next to it
A mistake I won't make again
Cue competent and flowery use of Anglo Saxon language as I realised I don't have any spare 32mm glass fuses and I resigned myself to the fact that I'll be waiting probably till after the weekend for the new ones I ordered online to be delivered..
I'll be back in a few days with news of what will hopefully be a successful fix.

 

[SassMate]

Round 2...

Day off from work today so I went into Bridlington to see if I could track down some fuses.
Tried a motor factors who informed me that they no longer sell glass fuses.
I then went to Abyss caravan and motor home spares who happily sold me half a dozen for less than £2. result.
Brids cool and all but it's not like living in a big city.
If I was back living in Sheffield I'd be able to just go get some from a known place.
Brids small many a time you have to travel miles for stuff that's not common.
Got home and popped one into the fuse holder and the board booted but repeated the pattern of random resets, no sound then constant watch dog after around 20 mins.
I re checked the voltages at the YM2203c chip just to be sure and I found I'm only getting 2.6v between ground (pin 20) and Vcc (pin 40)...
I removed the YM2203cc again and I noticed I'd snapped pin 21, probably when I put it back in last night.
I soldered a leg from an LED onto what was left of pin 21, clipped it to length and I'm confident it's making good contact in the socket.
It made no difference to the voltage at pin 40, which I didn't expect it to ,to be honest.
I set about trying to find out the exact point where I drop from 5v to 2.6v on the audio 5v rail.
First off I measured between ground and vcc on a pair of HCT541 chips I thnk are buffers for the audio section.

5v. Cool beans. At least I know the 5v line is alive at that point.
These led me to a pair of MIG3403N sitting between the YM2203C and the amplifier.
Between Vcc and ground on both of these I get my 2.6v...Hmm...
There's a 10uf electrolytic capacitor sitting just above these. I'm wondering if this has shorted or failed in some other way. It doesn't look as if this is bulging but it doesn't look like it's ever been replaced either. It's getting up for being 35 years young so I'm thinking it would be a good idea to recap the board anyway.
I decided to probe around a little more before I lifted the cap off and had to potentially deal with lifted pads/damaged traces. I don't have any solder with any lead content in it so I always seem to struggle removing components. It's top of my shopping list.
The next chip I probed was the DAC.
It's got a nice healthy 5v on the Vcc.
If it isn't obvious enough at this point, I really don't know what I'm doing...
While I spent time looking for a problem, the game would randomly bark SFX at me and reset, sometimes watchdogging until powered down for a while. sometimes, bending the board and pressing on random areas would induce/halt the watchdog loop. I'm convinced I have a dry joint somewhere but the amount of stuff i can press on and notice a difference is massive and doesn't narrow it down at all.
I'm not convinced that pin 40 of the ym203C is Vcc however. When the game starts playing random SFX I still don't have 5v on pin 40.

A quick double check for the pinout of the YM2203C reveals 2 things:
1, I'm an idiot.
2, pin 1 is ground, pin 21 is vdd.
I must have been tired last night when I decided pins 20 and 40 were ground and volts...
I have a nice health 5v between pins 1 and 21.
I'm going to stop looking for the cause of a bad power rail now. I don't believe there is one.
I'm one step closer and I've spent enough time on this today, probing various chips, resistors etc that I haven't documented above.
Next time I'll be looking for a dry joint. I might just reflow as much of the audio circuit as I can but I really want to keep the board as neat as I can.
I know it's already a mess with the bodge wires and test switch which has been added to the board but even so, I don't want to make it look worse. I'd rather find and solve the fault rather than fire the solder shotgun at any pin that stays still for long enough.
One thing I did notice, on the boards silk screen It says copyright incredible technologies. I don't think this board is a bootleg, unless the bootleggers copied the silk screen.

Next time, Round 3, I'm determined to find a shitty solder joint.

 

[jonhughes]

Good luck with the repair. Have you tried removing those PLCCs in the square sockets? You need a special tool to remove those and they're often security chips for the board. I have found that the contacts between those chips and their sockets can deteriorate over time (usually with oxidation, dirt and other general gunk). Carefully remove the chips and remove any oxidation / grease on the contacts of the chip / socket (that may improve things). You need to be very careful on the socket contacts - they contain small thin flexible contact legs.

You’re in a minority along with me for people who like golf games. I have a stash of Major Title, Major Title 2 and Golfing Greats boards that have huge appeal to me since I played them down my local (where the landlord was a massive golfer).

I’ve collected them whenever I could (mainly before the conversion mania hit), except for Neo Turf Masters. I own one cart of it, which I bought to see if I would possibly change my mind on it. Although Neo was around everywhere when I grew up I just never saw the appeal with it and I don’t think I have ever finished 18 holes on it. I have played everything else to death practically but Neo just doesn’t do it for me.

Oh and I play a bit of the real thing too, this shot went over the back fence which the tracking system didn’t appreciate.

 

[SassMate]

I don't think that's a warning I'd ever see
I once went round the first 9 hoes of a municipal course in Sheffield in 104 shots. I decided there and then that IRL golf is not the game for me.
I'll take a look at those PLCs, I have a decent chip puller that should do the trick.
I'm going to investigate this first though, I found it on the back of the board in the audio section.
It doesn't have continuity to the surrounding traces but that doesn't mean it's not a high resistance joint.

It clearly deserves some attention.
I'm going to remove the solder and take a look at the pad underneath. I'm guessing it's going to need a repair and the possibility of a bad joint fits in well with the symptoms of the board.