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Ms pacman blowing fuses
Question from Craig: Hey guys, love the podcast. It has helped me learn about quite a lot scenarios to look out for. I have a Ms. Pac Man I got non working and it keeps blowing the bottom 2 7 volt 5 amp fuses almost instantly when turned on. I checked the voltage and it is 7 volts. I would assume the power supply is producing more than 5 amps causing them to blow, but not sure how to safely check that without possibly frying my meter. I checked the other voltages and I have no 12 volts coming out of either of the other wires. When I first checked voltages I could’ve sworn I had the 12 but could be mistaken. I want to turn it into a multicade for a friend but obviously need to get the power supply issue corrected first. Is it just simply a bad power supply? Please help. Thank you for your time and knowledge. Craig
1 answer
Response from Jonathan: Craig,
Yes, it could be a bad power supply but we need to check the voltage just to make sure. Even if the fuses are blown, you should be able to check the input voltage coming into those fuses without frying your meter. Since Ms. Pac Man cabinets run off of AC voltage, make sure that you set your multimeter to the AC setting (might need to set it to AC < 20 depending on if you have an auto ranging multimeter or not). Instead of checking it at the fuse, try checking the voltage off of the power supply transformer directly. There should be a label on the transformer that indicates which prongs are which values. Remember that 0 V is your ground. Check out our post on Checking A Classic Power Supply for more information.
Once you’ve checked the power supply transformer, you might try replacing the fuses and unplugging the board from the harness and see if the fuses still blow. If they don’t, then you might have a problem with the power supply section of your board. At this point, you might check out the Lawnmowerman’s Pac Man Page if you haven’t already. It has some great information for troubleshooting problems with Pac Man machines. Of course, feel free to contact us again if you have additional questions.
Hope that helps. Thank you for your question and good luck with your repair.
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