Arcade Projects
Wizard of Wor blown resistor
Made the effort to get down to Menuir Electronics tonight to get some replacement parts for my Wizard of Wor board, A084-90708-A961. I needed at least a resistor that had broken at one leg, and I thought I would try to find a replacement for the axial diode, or capacitor, or whatever the component is that blew up on my Wizard of Wor PCB.
I had printed out the schematics, but they appeared to be hand written, and weren’t a lot of help. I knew the resistor was a 2.7K, but that was about it. She couldn’t help me with the capacitors, but she did have a connection like the red one on the board that got melted with the long fingers.
I replaced the resistor and connector when I got home, and removed the blown up diode. I then got on the horn with another collector here in the area that has a working Wizard of Wor to see if he could help compare to help me fix what I needed. I sent him some photos. Then I emailed some other contacts to see if they could help me identify the parts I needed to replace the diodes.
Thinking about selling the R-Type
Well, it’s sad to think about, but I have been thinking more and more lately about selling this game. I get more and more games all the time, and from what I read on the boards I get the impression that this is a common realization with collectors. They get a good amount of games, and then have neither the space or the time to have them all. Well, in this case, it worked from day one, it was all about the space. I love the game, it pains me that I will give it up and then want it back. But, I don’t play it much right now, I know that it doesn’t have a lot of value because it is a later on game, and even if I did beat it, that would just make me want it less probably.
I have had a ton of fun playing R-Type at some of my drinking parties. Wes seemed to like the game a good deal, and with the Nintendo style cabinet with the flat top, it makes a great place top put the drinks.
Who knows, maybe I will change my mind, but I doubt it.
Listed Dig Dug (Second machine) on ebay
Well, even though I hadn’t mentioned it here because it is a different machine, I thought it made sense to now. I listed my other, nicer Dig Dug machine on ebay last week. Well, it didn’t turn on. So after a lot of stress and troubleshooting I figured out why. I knew the game board was not getting power, but I was sure that the main power supply was fine. Maybe the audio / power supply went bad. I swapped the audio board I had for this project into the now non working Dig Dug inside. Well, a resistor caught fire, what a fun little surprise.
Come to find out with some major help from a friend, that a bad connection can put too much stress on the resistors on that board and cause them to burn up. Sure enough, my main PCB looks great, except one finger on the main connector is fried over half way down. This probably caused the issue, I don’t know yet. I just know I took the working PCB and Audio board from this project, put it into the cab in the house and everything works fine.
So, now, I am back to a non working game in the garage. What I am going to have to do is buy a new edge connector from Bob Roberts and solder it on. I want to finish this up still, but it probably won’t be this next week. We shall see. Bums me out, but I had to sell the other Dig Dug game and I think this all worked out how it was supposed to.
Pengo cabinet inside has a fun design
Got in back of the cab last night and tried to figure out how to get at the Sound Control. I want to be able to take it off so I can work on it, take photos as needed, but I can’t figure out how. It feels as though it is riveted to the back of the coin box inside, so I thought I might be able to get at it in back.
I loosed the four bolts holding the huge particle board “L” that contains the Power Supply and PCB. I pulled it out a little bit to see that there is still a board in my way of getting at it through there unless I remove that little board. Doesn’t seem like it has much of a purpose, but I hate to go ripping apart the game if I don’t have to.
Identifying Well Gardner Monitor
Dug around in the bottom of the cabinet tonight a little more, found some more trash, but found a lot of labels including one that I hope goes to this monitor. I knew it was a Wells Gardner, but the label says 19K4635. I emailed Bob Roberts to see if he could help me identify the monitor and make sure that is correct.
Pengo sound controls inside coin door.
After talking to Rick the other night, I decided to just send him my Pengo PCB to have his tech friend take a look at it. I think Rick is really smart and knowledgeable and really trust him and anyone in his network. So, hopefully he can easily figure out what it is, if it is a RAM or processor issue or what. Hopefully it is an easy fix and I can get it working really soon with that high score save kit.
But since the Pengo PCB is now in the mail, I thought it might be time to look also into getting the volume pot replaced. Thinking I might need to place an order this week with Bob Roberts, might as well combine it all. Here are some photos of the front and a crappy one of the back of the pot I think I need to replace.
(Around page 37 of the Pengo operator’s manual it says I need a 10K pot Car Pnlmt, part no. 475-0007. I don’t know what “Car Pnlmt” means, but I think all Bob needs is the 10k portion. I don’t actually know what part in this assembly is the pot, I will have to take it out and take a closer look I guess. It looks like from the manual that the gold piece on the right is a little AMP, so the pot must be back in that wiring somewhere.)
I think I have mentioned it here, but from talking with Tim in MI, who also has this same problem, and Bob it sounds like all of the static we are getting from moving the coin door is from a bad Pot on the sound. I also turn the knob when I played the game and it wouldn’t adjust anything, just leaving the sound at the deafening high level it was at.
Visually Damaged Components
Figured out which pads I need, just basically those green scrubby pads that you can buy any off brand for. Supposedly they are great for these edge connectors, I tried it briefly last night and my jury is still out. Seems like it would be damaging, but everyone says “it seems it would be bad, but it isn’t”. What do I know?
I figured out how to get the little door open at the base of the front of the machine last night. I took out the first board I saw and lo and behold, there were some things going on. Looks like one small capacitor is blown, one resistor has a broken leg, and it almost looks like one resistor was purposefully clipped off, but should be there.
I looked at the schematic, not nearly as nice as Dig Dug from Atari, with a parts list. I don’t know yet how to identify what exact parts I need from the schematic. I am debating on just taking the board into the electronics store and having them loook and tell me based on similar looking parts on the board. But that seems like a best guess scenario.
