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Wacko
Question from Zac: My girlfriend has an old Bally Wacko game. I’ve never worked on these before but I thought I could figure it out and surprise her for Christmas. When it boots the screen is half blue half black. The speakers hum but that’s it. I’ve checked monitor settings such as vertical hold and such but nothing changes except the brightness. I’ve looked around for burnt connections or loose wires and everything seems to be in order. It’s actually in pretty good shape. I tried reading the manual but it didn’t tell me much that I understood. Anyway I know it’s hard to trouble shoot without looking at it but I was hoping you could give me some direction. Zac
1 answer
Response from Jonathan: Zac,
We have a saying here at Arcade Repair Tips: ASAP (Always Start At Power). Start off this repair by making sure that the power supply is working properly. Use your multimeter and the manual for the game (the wiring diagram is probably the most helpful page) to make sure that the correct voltage is getting to all of the pins on each of the board. Check out our post on Checking A Classic Power Supply for more information.
Looks like this game uses a Midway MCR II power supply which are known to have issues over time. You will probably need to rebuild it. Here’s an FAQ about MCR games along with a MCR II troubleshooting guide that should help you out.
If the power supply is not currently working properly, it could have caused damage to the board when it started malfunctioning. It might be necessary to repair your board or get a new board to get your arcade game working. Of course, make sure your power supply is working properly and then test the board again to make sure this is the case. If it is indeed the case, you might try contacting some of the people we have listed on our Resources page under the Board (PCB) Repair & Component Sales section to see if they can help you out. We also have a post on Inspecting An Arcade Board that might be helpful as well.
Hope that helps. Thank you for your question and good luck with your repair.
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