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Wiring question when replacing power supply
Question from Guy: Hello, You guys are Great! I love viewing your instructional videos! I have a Zaxxon Machine that is not working. The marquee lights up but nothing else. I have a new power supply and after watching your video on changing them I decided that I could do it. My problem is that the labeling does not line up and I wanted to make sure I wire it properly.
The original power supply has the following wires connected:
AC2, AC1, FG (no wires here), NC (no wires here), -5V 1A, -12V 0.5A, +12V 2A, COM2, COM1, +5V 6A
The new power supply has the following connections:
AC2, AC1, FG, -5V 1A, +12V 4A, GND, GND, +5V 16A
The GND has a symbol showing the two are together. I am assuming that the ones that have the same labeling between the two power supplies would be the same but the others I am not sure about. For example, is COM1 & COM2 the same as the GND? The new one does not have -5V or -12V. Please help, as I want to get this game going again! Thanks in advance, Guy
1 answer
Response from Jonathan: Guy,
Sounds like your new switching power supply is a bit different from your old one. Yes, COM1 & COM2 (i.e. common) and GND (i.e. ground) are the same thing. You will need to hook the wires going to the COM1 & COM2 terminals to the GND terminals on your new power supply.
Based on your connection listing, it looks like your new power supply has -5 VDC but not -12 VDC. This does present a bit of a problem for the wires currently going to the -12 VDC terminal on your old power supply. In the past, we have hooked the -12 VDC wires up to the -5 VDC terminal whenever the -12 VDC terminal was not present. It should be noted that we have only tried this on Taito games (such as Zoo Keeper, Qix, etc.) and not on Sega games such as Zaxxon.
With all of that said, we would probably use a different power supply such as this one from Suzo/Happ: 150W UL, TUV Power Supply. Even though it probably looks a little bit different than the power supplies you are currently using, it does have both the -5 VDC and -12 VDC lines that your game needs. Here are the wire colors for your reference: +5 VDC (Red), +12 VDC (Yellow), -5 VDC (White), -12 VDC (Blue), GND or COM (Black). You might check out our post on Installing A Multicade Upgrade Kit (For Pac Man Cabinets) if you want to see how you can get AC power to this power supply in your cabinet.
Hope that helps. Thank you for your question and good luck with your repair.
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