First off, we recommend checking the connection between the board and the monitor. We would specifically look at the red wire to make sure that it is making a good connection to the pin on the chassis. Also, check to make sure that the pin itself is making a good connection to the monitor chassis. These pins have been known to come loose after several years of disconnecting and reconnecting the connector. If the connection is good, we would then start to suspect the red adjustment pots on the monitor. You might try refreshing the solder to make sure they are also making a good connection to the monitor chassis. You can also check the tube like we talk about in our post on Checking A Monitor Tube to see if the red is working.

As for your second question, the majority of game reset issues are usually related to the power supply. Get a multimeter and make sure that your power supply is putting out the correct voltage to the game board. See our post on Checking And Replacing A Power Supply for more information.

Thank you for your question and good luck with your repairs.

This is a very strange problem that we don’t see very often. It could be a problem with some of the logic chips on the board. You could get a logic probe and go through these chips to see if any of them are not putting out the proper signals. It’s also very possible that your board is a bootleg board. A bootleg board is an unauthorized copy of an original game board. While these boards are copies, they tend to have some differences from the original. This level issue that you’re experiencing could possibly fall into this category.

We have also featured your question on episode 24 of our Q&A podcast. Please listen to it for more of our thoughts on your question. Thank you for your question and good luck with your repair.

Game plays then resets during the game and have to start over again.

If you can help it would be appreciated.

The dip switches are little switches on the board that control things such as amount of coins per play and difficulty. It sounds like you’ll need to change your dip switches in order to take it out of free play mode. According to MikesArcade.com, you will need to switch the first four switches on the second set of dip switches in order to change the amount of coins per play. Please see our post on Adjusting Dip Switch Settings On A Board for more information.

We have also featured your question on episode 23 of our Q&A podcast. Please listen to it for more of our thoughts on your question. Thank you for your question and good luck with your repair.

Defender has an input board that all of the controls are wired to. It could be that this board is bad and needs replacement. Here’s a neat article about how you can build your own: JROK’s Defender IO Widget Board. You should also check your ground wires going to your controls to make sure they are making a good connection. These wires are usually daisy chained which means that one disconnect in this wire could cause all of your controls to stop working.

We have also featured your question on episode 19 of our Q&A podcast. Please listen to it for more of our thoughts on your question. Thank you for your question and keep us updated on your progress.

Let’s take your questions one at a time.

First off, there is really no good way to remove screen burn from a tube. We usually recommend just replacing your old tube with a new tube. That being said, however, you can hide the screen burn by using a piece of dark plexiglass over the screen. We use this trick a lot of times on old Pac Man machines as they usually have a lot of screen burn.

Second, the curl or bend that your experiencing can be related to the adjustments or could be a capacitor issue. Check out our post on Adjusting An Arcade Monitor for more information on the adjustments. If the adjustments don’t help then you probably need to do a cap kit to solve the problem. See our post on Installing A Cap Kit for more information.

Third, it could be that your Carrier Air Wings board is set to free play while your Bionic Commando board is not. You might try coining up the game to see if it will allow you to play. You can do this by pushing the thin wire down on the back of your coin mechanism. This will simulate putting a quarter in the machine. After you coin it you should be able to start the game.

We have also featured your question on episode 19 of our Q&A podcast. Please listen to it for more of our thoughts on your question. Thank you for your question and keep us updated on your progress.

Your Super Pac Man sounds issue could be caused by a couple of problems. We recommend checking out the Lawnmowerman’s Pac-man Website at http://lawnmowerman.rotheblog.com/#verticalHum. We would recommend starting with the vertical hum section that we link to and then moving down to the Sound Problems section. This site should give you some great ideas about how to fix your sound issues.

We have also featured your question on episode 18 of our Q&A podcast. Please listen to it for more of our thoughts on your question. Thank you for your question and keep us updated on your progress.