This episode of the podcast was broadcast live on Thursday, February 2, 2012. For more information on our podcast, please visit our iTunes page at http://itunes.arcaderepairtips.com. All of our past episodes can be found there as well as a review section where you can leave us a comment on how we’re doing. On this episode, Tim and I answered your questions regarding…

• A Space Fever cocktail that will not boot up
• A X’s & O’s pinball machine with a tilt error
• A Ms. Pac Man with a screen that wobbles
• An Asteroids cocktail with no ship or asteroids
• A Mortal Kombat 4 with squiggly lines on the screen
• A Lil’ Hustler that comes up with crazy screens
• A Space Panic cocktail with intermittent issues
• A Mars bill acceptor that will not accept bills
• An arcade game that will not coin up
• A Total Carnage with a green-tinted, dark, flickering screen
• A Wells Gardner K7901 monitor with static on the screen
• A Punchout that will not power on
• A Playchoice 10 where the power will not work
• A Wells Gardner K7000 monitor with horizontal size issues
• A Wells Gardner K4600 monitor that needs a cap kit
• And some general monitor repair questions.

We also give an update on Stan’s USPS Dragon’s Lair board fiasco and discuss different items that can cause interference with your arcade game. Please feel free to leave any comments, questions or suggestions below. As always, you can contact us when we are off the air by email at questions@arcaderepairtips.com or by calling our voicemail line at (972) 8AR-TIPS or (972) 827-8477. Enjoy!

Show Links:

• Asteroids Troubleshooting Encyclopedia –
  http://www.ionpool.net/arcade/asteroidtech/asteroidsrepair.html
• Monitor Tech Information from 8liners.com –
  http://www.8liners.com/datatech/monitor.html
• Arcade Monitor Chassis and Yoke –
  http://www.arcademonitor.com/Arcade-Monitor-Parts/chassis.php
• MCM Electronics – http://www.mcmelectronics.com/
• MikesArcade.com (Nintendo Parts) – http://www.mikesarcade.com/
• Arcadeshop Amusements – http://www.arcadeshop.com/
• P&L Video Games (Monitor Repair) – 1-800-992-6588 / (626) 337-9782
• American Amusement Auctions –
  http://www.americanamusementauctions.com/
• Louisville Arcade Expo 2012 – http://www.louisvillearcade.com/
• Ohio Pinball & Gameroom Festival 2012 –
  http://www.ohiopinballshow.com/
• Midwest Gaming Classic 2012 – http://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/
• Texas Pinball Festival 2012 – http://www.texaspinball.com/

Special thanks goes to David Vaughan for composing all of the great chiptunes music that we use in our content and Nathan Knight for providing our excellent voiceovers. Please check out their websites for information on the services they provide.

This episode of the podcast was recorded on Thursday, January 19, 2012. For more information on our podcast, please visit our iTunes page at http://itunes.arcaderepairtips.com. All of our past episodes can be found there as well as a review section where you can leave us a comment on how we’re doing. On this episode, Tim and I answered your questions regarding…

• A Kangaroo with green horizontal lines on the screen
• A Billabs monitor that’s missing the color green
• A Star Wars with static sound and no picture
• An Arcade Legends with a broken trackball
• A War Final Assault that will not turn on
• A WWF Superstars with bad screen burn
• A Neo Geo with a white and blue square on the screen
• A Donkey Kong monitor that is closing in from the left side
• A Mortal Kombat with an overstretched image
• A Star Wars Racer with a vertically and horizontally stretched picture
• An Astro Blaster with no sound or speech
• A Dig Dug with invisible characters
• A X-Men vs Street Fighter with a bad monitor
• An Arkanoid with no picture or sound
• An Eygo monitor with a white line in the center
• A Mortal Kombat with a horizontally rolling screen
• A Mortal Kombat with a darker image on one side of the monitor
• A Wells Gardner D9200 monitor with bad colors
• A 1943: Battle Of Midway with a barely visible monitor
• A Silverball Mania pinball machine without general illumination
• A Playchoice 10 with no monitor or sound
• A Street Fighter 2 with horizontal position issues
• An Area 51 with a missing monitor
• A Space Firebird cocktail with strange and ghosted sprites
• A Mortal Kombat 2 with a stretched out screen
• A Golden Tee 2005 with distorted colors
• A Mortal Kombat 2 with some wiring issues
• An Area 51 with lines at the top of the screen
• A Rapid Fire with non-working guns
• A Tron with video output issues
• And some general monitor repair questions.

We also give an update on Stan’s USPS Dragon’s Lair board fiasco and get a Facebook community update from our community manager Mark. Please feel free to leave any comments, questions or suggestions below. As always, you can contact us when we are off the air by email at questions@arcaderepairtips.com or by calling our voicemail line at (972) 8AR-TIPS or (972) 827-8477. Enjoy!

Show Links:

• Elektron Forge Video Game Repair – http://www.elektronforge.com/
• Eldorado Games (Board & Monitor Repair) –
  http://www.eldoradogames.com/
• What’s My Monitor by Bob Roberts –
  http://www.therealbobroberts.net/monitor.html
• HobbyRoms Programming Services – http://www.hobbyroms.com/
• The Killer List Of Videogames – http://www.klov.com/
• Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum – http://www.marvin3m.com/
• Play It Amusements (Formerly Sega Amusements) – (847) 364-9787
• American Amusement Auctions –
  http://www.americanamusementauctions.com/
• Louisville Arcade Expo 2012 – http://www.louisvillearcade.com/
• Midwest Gaming Classic 2012 – http://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/
• Texas Pinball Festival 2012 – http://www.texaspinball.com/

Special thanks goes to David Vaughan for composing all of the great chiptunes music that we use in our content and Nathan Knight for providing our excellent voiceovers. Please check out their websites for information on the services they provide.

This episode of the podcast was recorded on Thursday, December 8, 2011. For more information on our podcast, please visit our iTunes page at http://itunes.arcaderepairtips.com. All of our past episodes can be found there as well as a review section where you can leave us a comment on how we’re doing. On this episode, Tim, Stan and I answered your questions regarding…

• A Joust with the colors slightly out of convergence
• A MX 5000 with no indication of it working
• A Centipede with monitor issues
• A Mortal Kombat 2 power supply wiring problems
• A Mortal Kombat 4 with a slight screen interference
• A Galaga with a steady audio thumping sound
• A Big Casino pinball where nothing but the lights seem to work
• A Ship-Mates pinball with tilt issues
• A Neo Geo with monitor display problems
• A Pac Man/Galaga Class of 81 with a blank monitor
• A Beach Head 2000 with a rotated monitor image
• An Arkanoid with monitor collapse issues
• An Aliens converted to a 60-in-1 multicade
• A Superman with graphics glitches
• An Area 51 with really quiet sound
• A X-Men where the audio has stopped working
• An Area 51 with a crazy monitor screen
• A Mortal Kombat power supply installation issue
• A Millipede marquee light installation issue
• A World Cup Italia 90 with 4 images on the screen
• A Donkey Kong with a slight jitter on the screen
• A Gunsmoke where the sound doesn’t work
• A Playchoice 10 with a missing ground prong on the plug
• A Draw Poker that doesn’t show the game screen
• A Knights Of The Round with an address error
• A Drift where the screen goes black after 5 minutes
• A MAME with 3 scrolling images on the screen
• A Time Crisis with a whited out image
• A Space Invaders Deluxe cocktail with jumbled characters on the screen
• A Centipede with solid player start lights
• A Frogger that needs some restoration
• A Pac Man with blue flickering on the screen
• A F-15 Strike Eagle with a MAC FAIL error
• And some general JAMMA questions.

We also give an update on Stan’s Dragon’s Lair restoration and discuss the story of his first arcade game. Please feel free to leave any comments, questions or suggestions below. As always, you can contact us when we are off the air by email at questions@arcaderepairtips.com or by calling our voicemail line at (972) 8AR-TIPS or (972) 827-8477. Enjoy!

Show Links:

• Setup Adjustments For CRT Color Monitors –
  http://personalpages.tds.net/~rcarlsen/cbm/converge.txt
• JAMMA Wiring Diagram – http://www.arcaderepairtips.com/jamma.html
• I Want To Build A Game! by Bob Roberts –
  http://www.therealbobroberts.net/buildit.html
• The Wiretap Arcade Game Collector’s Archive –
  http://www.cityofberwyn.com/
• HobbyRoms Programming Services – http://www.hobbyroms.com/
• F-15 Strike Eagle Manual –
  http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Arcade//Manual/formated/F-15_Strike_Eagle_-_1991_-_Microprose_Games_Inc..pdf
• Lawnmowerman’s Pacman Page – http://lawnmowerman.rotheblog.com/
• American Amusement Auctions –
  http://www.americanamusementauctions.com/
• Texas Pinball Festival 2012 – http://www.texaspinball.com/

Special thanks goes to David Vaughan for composing all of the great chiptunes music that we use in our content and Nathan Knight for providing our excellent voiceovers. Please check out their websites for information on the services they provide.

This special episode of the podcast was recorded on Thursday, November 17 to discuss the Houston Area Arcade Group (HAAG) Expo in Houston, Texas. For more information on our podcast, please visit our iTunes page at http://itunes.arcaderepairtips.com. All of our past episodes can be found there as well as a review section where you can leave us a comment on how we’re doing. On this episode, Tim, Stan and I discussed the games that were at the expo as well as the seminars given by Ken Graham (Former Williams Programmer), John Costa (EM Pinball Repair Guru) and Joe Crookham (of Classic Arcade Works).

Show Links:

• LaserCon (Shaun) – http://wood1st.com/LaserCon/
• Pac-Man Battle Royale (BMI Gaming) –
  http://www.bmigaming.com/pacman-mspacman-galaga-commercial.htm
• Ken Graham (YellowDog on KLOV Forums) –
  http://forums.arcade-museum.com/member.php?u=38753
• John Costa (Costa on HAAG Forums) – http://www.arcadecenter.com/haagmsgboard/pop_profile.asp?mode=display&id=305
• Classic Arcade Works (Joe) – http://www.classicarcadeworks.com/

Please feel free to leave any comments, questions or suggestions below. As always, you can contact us when we are off the air by email at questions@arcaderepairtips.com or by calling our voicemail line at (972) 8AR-TIPS or (972) 827-8477. Enjoy!

Special thanks goes to David Vaughan for composing all of the great chiptunes music that we use in our content and Nathan Knight for providing our excellent voiceovers. Please check out their websites for information on the services they provide.

This episode of the podcast was recorded on Friday, November 4, 2011. For more information on our podcast, please visit our iTunes page at http://itunes.arcaderepairtips.com. All of our past episodes can be found there as well as a review section where you can leave us a comment on how we’re doing. On this episode, Tim and I answered your questions regarding…

• A X-Men vs Street Fighter with a green screen
• A Cruis’n Exotica without a power cord
• A Ms. Pac Man with no sound or picture
• A Mortal Kombat with neck glow but no picture
• A Super Street Fighter 2 that needs a monitor replacement
• A Street Fighter II Championship Edition with non-working kick buttons
• A Golden Tee 2K that’s playing blind
• A Defender with some video issues
• A Ms. Pan Man with a hum coming from the speaker
• A Roadblasters with some monitor and/or board issues
• A Ms. Pac Man/Galaga Class of 81 with stretched characters
• A Star Wars Trilogy with a bad 50″ rear projection monitor
• A Galaga where the right side of the monitor is black
• A Smash TV with garbage color lines coming down the screen
• A Track and Field with a non-working player 1 jump button
• A Crane Machine that will not drop the claw
• A Virtual Striker 4 with vertical monitor problems
• A Street Fighter II monitor replacement issue
• A Varth with monitor convergence and stretching issues
• A JAMMA arcade cabinet that needs to be adjusted
• A Street fighter 3 3rd Strike with board and power issues
• A NBA Jam with a scrolling screen
• An Ironman Ivan Stewart’s Super Off Road with audio issues
• A NBA Jam conversion to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• A Centipede cocktail with a two inch wide screen
• A Mortal Kombat 2 with a bad switching power supply
• A Knuckleheads with a shadowy dark roll on the screen
• A Playchoice 10 with two very dim monitors
• A Frogger with thick red and green bars on the screen
• A Kung Fu Master that’s missing the top half of the screen
• A Karate Champ with a distored and barley legable screen
• A NBA Jam Tournament Edition with a green screen and no sound
• A Space Invaders monitor replacement issue
• A Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 with discoloration in the mid-left corner
• A 60-In-1 board that doesn’t save the settings
• A Mortal Kombat 2 with a monitor that won’t light up
• A Simpsons with some relocation issues
• An Astro Blaster with a malfunctioning fire button
• A Street Fighter II that needs to be put on free play
• A Big Buck Hunter that doesn’t register the gunshots
• A Bosconian with no picture, sound or control response
• A Killer Instinct that freezes after 20 seconds
• A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that needs sideart installed
• A Donkey Kong with some power supply issues
• A Mr. Do cocktail with a jittery screen
• A Crystal Castles with some trackball issues
• And some explanations as to where we’ve been.

We also go over some listener progress updates and discuss some good tips to follow when moving arcade games upstairs. Please feel free to leave any comments, questions or suggestions below. As always, you can contact us when we are off the air by email at questions@arcaderepairtips.com or by calling our voicemail line at (972) 8AR-TIPS or (972) 827-8477. Enjoy!

Show Links:

• CPS-2 Shock (Suicide Page) –
  http://cps2shock.emu-france.info/suicide.html
• Lawnmowerman’s Pacman Page – http://lawnmowerman.rotheblog.com/
• What’s My Monitor by Bob Roberts –
  http://www.therealbobroberts.net/monitor.html
• Hum Bar Fix by Bob Roberts –
  http://www.therealbobroberts.net/hum.html
• BNC to VGA Adapter (Star Wars Trilogy) –
  Coming Soon
• Isolation Transfomers by Bob Roberts –
  http://www.therealbobroberts.net/xformer.html
• Arcadeshop Galaga Repair Info –
  http://www.arcadeshop.com/galaga/galaga.htm
• Discharging Monitor Tubes by John –
  http://www.flippers.com/vid-tips.html#discharge
• Play It Amusements (Formerly Sega Amusements) – (847) 364-9787
• Houston Area Arcade Group (HAAG) Expo –
  http://www.arcadecenter.com/
• American Amusement Auctions –
  http://www.americanamusementauctions.com/

Special thanks goes to David Vaughan for composing all of the great chiptunes music that we use in our content and Nathan Knight for providing our excellent voiceovers. Please check out their websites for information on the services they provide.

When troubleshooting an arcade game, you might get to a point where you start to suspect that your board has issues. Swapping in a tested, working board in JAMMA wired cabinets is an easy way to find out if it’s your current board or the cabinet that’s causing your issues. In this post, we will discuss how to swap boards in a JAMMA cabinet for testing and conversion purposes.

Swapping Boards In A JAMMA Cabinet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eSUe5FrkC8

As mentioned in the introduction, we highly recommend keeping extra JAMMA boards around for testing purposes. Some good candidates for test boards include 8 liners boards (such as cherry master) or older JAMMA games from the late 80s and early 90s. You can purchase these types of boards pretty cheap at arcade auctions or even off of eBay. It’s OK if the board that you use for testing is not 100% working. We use an old Street Fighter 2 board that has some graphical glitches but it works well enough to tell if our cabinet is working properly.

Before we begin the process of swapping out our JAMMA boards, we recommend checking the power supply to make sure it’s working properly. Keep in mind that the board expects a certain voltage to be connected to specific pins on the JAMMA harness. Board damage or malfunction can result from incorrect voltages being sent to these pins from the power supply. Please review our post on Checking And Replacing A Power Supply for more information on checking the voltages coming from your power supply.

Once we’ve checked our power supply, we can begin the process of swapping out our JAMMA boards. Begin by opening up your cabinet and locating the board that is currently connected to the harness. Slowly remove the JAMMA harness from the board. Make sure you note the location of pin 7 (known as the key) on your main harness as you remove the board. The key helps you identify how to plug the new board into your harness. Many JAMMA harnesses have a plastic placeholder in this spot which prevents you from plugging the board into your harness incorrectly. Keep in mind that plugging the board in backwards might cause damage to your board. You might notice an additional harness (known as a kick harness) inside of your cabinet. If your cabinet has a kick harness, remove it from the board after the main JAMMA harness. At this point, you can either remove the board from the cabinet or find a partition (such as a piece of cardboard) that will prevent the current board from touching the new board.

With the harness removed from the current board, we can proceed with connecting our new board. Locate the harness coming from the cabinet. Make sure that the key on your harness matches up with the key on your new JAMMA board. Place the harness on the JAMMA connector in the correct position. You should now be able to turn your cabinet on and get a picture on the monitor. Please note that you might have some problems with your control panel especially if your new board requires a kick harness. Unless the original board and the new board use the same system, you will probably need to hook up a different kick harness to your cabinet to get all of your controls working. If you are only using the new board as a test board, plugging up the main JAMMA harness should be enough to tell if your power supply and cabinet wiring are working.

Whether you’re trying to track down problems with a game or installing an entirely new board, swapping boards in a JAMMA cabinet is a valuable skill to have. Please leave any questions or suggestions you have in the comments section below.

When an individual button or joystick direction stops working properly, we tend to blame the problem on bad wiring or a faulty switch. When several buttons and/or joysticks stop responding, the problem can usually be traced back to faulty ground wiring between these parts. In this post, we will discuss how to connect (or reconnect) the ground wires from your harness or power supply to the various parts on your control panel.

Connecting Ground Wires On A Control Panel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TFo7bFhm74

In our post on Getting Familiar With The JAMMA Standard, we talk about a technique of connecting ground wires called daisy chaining. Daisy chaining is a wiring scheme that consists of jumpering a wire off of each connector so that the ground signal will carry over to the next connector. Some harnesses that you can buy will already have the ground wires daisy chained together which make it very easy to connect the ground wires to your control panel parts. For those of you who do not have this luxury, you will have to daisy chain the ground wires together yourself. This will be our main focus for the rest of the post.

Before we can begin daisy chaining our ground wires, we first have to identify the source of our initial ground wire. Most harnesses (including your standard JAMMA harnesses) have ground wires attached to them that should work for your control panel. Make sure that you look up the pinouts for your specific harness to help you locate the ground wires. DO NOT try to locate the ground wires by the wire color as these colors can vary greatly between harnesses. If you are having trouble locating a ground wire on the harness, you also have the option of connecting a wire to the ground screw or pin on your power supply. Most power supplies (like the one in our video) use the letters GND to indicate which pins or screws are a ground output. It’s a good idea to crimp a terminal on the wire you are going to use as your ground if you are using the power supply as your ground source. We prefer the U-shaped fork terminals over the O-shaped ring terminals as they are easier to remove without having to completely remove the screw from the power supply. Make sure you also invest in a good crimper (preferably ratcheting) so that the wire will not come loose from the terminal. You will need this crimper later when we’re crimping our quick disconnect terminals for our switch wires.

Buy 3M Vinyl #6 Size Fork Terminal 16-14 Gauge Blue from Amazon.com now!

Buy a Titan 55477 Ratcheting Wire Terminal Crimper from Amazon.com now!

In order to complete the daisy chaining process, we will need some extra wire (preferably the same color as your ground wire) and some female quick disconnect terminals. Quick disconnect terminals come in various colors which usually indicate the gauge of wire that they can hold. The two main colors that we tend to focus on are red (22-18 gauge) and blue (16-14 gauge). We recommend using the blue terminals when wiring a daisy chain as it gives you more room to put both wires in the terminal. Quick disconnect terminals also have a tab width which indicates how large the tab is that you’re trying to connect to. Most arcade game related Cherry switches come in one of two different tab widths: .187 and .250. Make sure that the tab width on the quick disconnect terminals you order matches the tab width on your Cherry switches. It is important to note that you can daisy chain wires together without these terminals by using a soldering iron, however, it makes replacing parts in the future a bit more inconvenient.

Buy 3M Vinyl .187″ Female Quick Disconnect Terminals 22-18 Gauge Red
from Amazon.com now!

Buy 3M Vinyl .187 Female Quick Disconnect Terminals 16-14 Gauge Blue
from Amazon.com now!

Once you have all of the parts that we have discussed, we can begin the daisy chaining process. We like to start this process by beginning with the player one start button; however, the start position does not matter so you can start at a different position if you wish. Take the ground wire coming from your harness (or power supply) and the extra wire that we discussed earlier and strip the ends of the two wires. Place both wires side by side and twist them together. Take the twisted wires and place the stripped ends into one of your female quick disconnect terminals. Using the crimper, firmly crimp the wires so that they will not come loose from the quick disconnect terminal. With the wires crimped, connect the quick disconnect terminal to the proper Cherry switch tab. If you’re not sure which tab is the ground tab on your Cherry switch, it’s usually the one that’s off by itself on the side of the switch. With the first quick disconnect terminal attached, take the extra wire and run it to the closest button to your current position. Measure about an inch or two past this point and then cut the wire at this position. Strip both ends of the wire and then twist the wires together as we did on the first wires in our chain. Place a quick disconnect terminal on to the ends of the wires and crimp it. Now repeat this process until you get to the last button in your chain at which point you will only have one wire crimped inside this quick disconnect terminal.

We receive a lot of questions about control panel parts that all of the sudden have stopped working. Now that you knowing how to connect ground wires properly, you should be able to troubleshoot these types of control panel issues in a more effective and efficient manner. Please leave any questions or suggestions you have in the comments section below.

This episode of the podcast was recorded on Saturday, April 23, 2011. For more information on our podcast, please visit our iTunes page at http://itunes.arcaderepairtips.com. All of our past episodes can be found there as well as a review section where you can leave us a comment on how we’re doing. On this episode, Tim and I answered your questions regarding…

• A Donkey Kong Jr. board that only plays levels 1 & 4
• A Track And Field with no picture or sound
• A Mortal Kombat 2 that’s playing blind
• A Sunset Riders with blurring and bending near the top of the screen
• A Ms. Pac Man cocktail with sound but a blank monitor
• An Outrun with scrambled video and no sound
• A Street Fighter II with a jittery monitor
• A Donkey Kong that needs some cabinet refurbishment
• A Neo Geo with no red showing on the monitor
• A Pac Man with a mirroring effect on the screen
• A Killer Instinct that will restart or shut down at random
• An Area 51 that won’t allow you to shoot the bottom of the screen
• An Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 with sparking issues
• A Centipede with nothing on the screen
• A CPS-2 game that tends to reset a lot
• A Crusin’ USA that’s missing a steering wheel motor
• A Sega Super GT/Scud Race Twin with washed out colors
• A Pac Man cocktail that’s playing blind
• A Galaga cocktail flickering “game over” on the screen
• A Pac Man cocktail with sound but monitor is black
• A Super Mario Bros with a ROM hack
• A Silent Scope 2 with the main screen not working
• A Golden Tee 4 with a wavy, washed out screen
• A NBA Jam TE missing the color red on screen
• A Mortal Kombat with a dog chewed harness
• A Mortal Kombat 2 missing coin door lights
• A Gorf with a scrolling sideways screen
• A Killer Instinct that needs to be set up for coin play
• A Street Fighter II Hyper Fighter that needs a new joystick
• And our thoughts on what certain arcade games are worth.

We also go over some listener progress updates and discuss some good tips to follow when transporting arcade games. Please feel free to leave any comments, questions or suggestions below. As always, you can contact us when we are off the air by email at questions@arcaderepairtips.com or by calling our voicemail line at (972) 8AR-TIPS or (972) 827-8477. Enjoy!

Show Links:

• Arcade Components (Raymond) – http://www.arcadecomponents.com/
• Arcade Cup (Chad) – http://www.arcadecup.com/
• Flippers.com (John) – http://www.flippers.com/
• JammaParts.net (Nick) – http://www.jammaparts.net/
• HobbyRoms Programming Services – http://www.hobbyroms.com/
• Zanen Electronics (BYOAC Information Page) –
  http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Zanen_Electronics
• Arcadeshop Galaga Repair Info –
  http://www.arcadeshop.com/galaga/galaga.htm
• The Real Bob Roberts (Mortal Kombat Sound Board) –
  http://www.therealbobroberts.net/
• Steering Timing Belt (For Crusin’ USA) –
  http://www.happcontrols.com/driving/50404190.htm
• PSOne LCD in PC –
  http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2004/07/07/psone_lcd/1
• CGA/EGA/YUV to VGA Board Installing Video –
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX8YMFZykXc
• American Amusement Auctions –
  http://www.americanamusementauctions.com/

Special thanks goes to David Vaughan for composing all of the great chiptunes music that we use in our content and Nathan Knight for providing our excellent voiceovers. Please check out their websites for information on the services they provide.

If you’ve worked with arcade games for any length of time, you’ve probably come across your fair share of monitor issues. One of the more common problems we see with arcade monitors is known as screen collapse. In this post, we will discuss how to repair monitors that are experiencing screen collapse issues.

Repairing Monitor Collapse Issues

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz28ATC-PE8

Let’s start our troubleshooting by determining what kind of collapse we have. It’s important to note that screen collapse can happen in varying degrees. You could have a partial collapse where you can still see some of the screen or a complete collapse where the entire screen has been condensed into one thin line. Monitors can collapse either vertically or horizontally. The orientation of the collapse is based on where the anode (or suction cup) is located on the tube in relation to the collapse. If the collapse runs parallel with the anode, you are experiencing a vertical collapse. Otherwise you are probably experiencing a horizontal collapse.

Many people tend to mistake vertical collapse for horizontal and vice versa. In order to help you identify the difference between the two, we have posted the picture below. This picture illustrates vertical collapse on both a horizontally mounted monitor and a vertically mounted monitor. Also, keep in mind that Installing A Cap Kit first might solve your problem if you’re only experiencing partial collapse.

Click Image To See A Larger Version

Once you have identified the type of collapse you are experiencing, you can begin the process of repairing your monitor. We will mainly focus on vertical collapse since it is more common of the two types. Vertical collapse usually occurs when the parts in the vertical section of your monitor chassis fail. One of the primary parts that’s located in this section is the vertical IC (or Integrated Circuit) chip. This chip is usually attached to a heat sink which looks like metal railing protruding from the monitor chassis. If you’re having trouble locating the vertical IC chip or the vertical section as a whole, you can follow the yellow and green yoke wires to where they connect on the chassis. Keep in mind that sometimes the yellow and green wires will come into one part of the chassis and will have traces that connect them to the vertical section.

Click Image To See A Larger Version

Before you suspect your vertical IC chip of being bad, you might take a look at the rest of the parts in the vertical section. Often times manufacturers will assign similar numbers to parts that are in the same section. An example of this would be the Electrohome G07 monitor chassis which labels all of the parts in the vertical section starting with the number 400. Look for broken or cracked solder joints around the parts in this section. You can also check these parts with your multimeter to make sure they are working. These are some good steps to take before suspecting the vertical IC chip of being bad.

If you check the parts around your vertical section and your monitor is still not working properly then you probably need to replace the vertical IC chip itself. These chips come in several different configurations. The most common style of chip in arcade monitors is the “small” style which looks like a standard transistor with more legs. If you need help identifying which chip to order, you can use the NTE Electronics Cross Reference page to put in the number that’s currently on the chip and get the NTE part number of the chip that you will need to order as a replacement.

This special episode of the podcast was recorded live on Sunday, March 27 to discuss the Texas Pinball Festival in Grapevine, Texas. For more information on our podcast, please visit our iTunes page at http://itunes.arcaderepairtips.com. All of our past episodes can be found there as well as a review section where you can leave us a comment on how we’re doing. On this episode, Tim and I discussed the games that were at the festival as well as the seminars given by Steve Richie, Gary Stern (of Stern Pinball) and Jack Guarnieri (of Jersey Jack Pinball).

Show Links:

• The Internet Pinball Machine Database – http://www.ipdb.org/
• Stern Pinball (Gary) – http://www.sternpinball.com/
• Jersey Jack Pinball (Jack) – http://www.jerseyjackpinball.com/
• Planetary Pinball – http://www.planetarypinball.com/
• Fat Wallet – http://www.fatwallet.com/

Please feel free to leave any comments, questions or suggestions below. As always, you can contact us when we are off the air by email at questions@arcaderepairtips.com or by calling our voicemail line at (972) 8AR-TIPS or (972) 827-8477. Enjoy!

Special thanks goes to David Vaughan for composing all of the great chiptunes music that we use in our content and Nathan Knight for providing our excellent voiceovers. Please check out their websites for information on the services they provide.