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Power supply/transformer question
Question from Ryan: Hey guys I have been a fan of your videos for about a year now. They have been very informative and helpful when building my own mame arcade and now I have been venturing into buying used arcade games to fix up on my own.
I am writing today because I have encountered something I have never seen. I recently purchased a Rastan cab that had been converted into Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition. The price was low enough to take the chance.
When plugged in the game play works just fine. However, there is a slight burn smell coming from the back.
When looking at the wiring I have a few concerns. Someone has rigged up something back here and I am hoping you can tell me what I need to replace this junk.
I am including 2 pictures that will hopefully assist. In picture 1 there is a box on the left of the power supply. Picture 2 is the box open. This is what the power cord (no ground) is wired into. This box is what is confusing the heck out of me. There is a fuse in this box, one set a wires goes up to the marquee lamp, another set goes to the isolation transformer for the monitor, and another set that goes to nothing(?).
Based on what I’ve seen in other machines there should be another transformer that the power cord comes in to and everything goes from there.
Should I rip this mess out and put a transformer in? If so what kind of transformer should I be looking to get.
Any help is much appreciated! Please ask any questions if I haven’t explained anything properly. Thanks again for all you do!!
1 answer
Response from Jonathan: Ryan,
First off, thank you for the kind words and we’re glad that you have learned a lot from our videos. As for your question, it looks like they are using this box as their AC power center. This just means that they are using this box to distribute the AC power that’s coming from the wall to different parts of the cabinet (such as the switching power supply, marquee light, isolation transformer, etc.). Obviously this looks a little sloppy from our perspective and we would recommend rewiring the cabinet if you plan on keeping it.
We prefer to build something similar to the Bob Roberts Drop In AC Power Center for our cabinets which is probably what you’re more used to seeing in the bottom of a game. Good news is that you shouldn’t need another transformer and you can use some of the parts currently in your cabinet to build one. These transformers that typically see in some games are more for arcade boards that used AC voltages directly or had some sort of AC to DC conversion board in them. Street Fighter should only need an isolation transformer to the monitor. No other transformers should be required.
Hope that helps. Thank you for your question and good luck with your repair.
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