Arcade Resources
Worked on Ms. Pac-man separations
Got through miscellaneous pieces of the seps. I started on the large ghost, I worked on the middle ghost at the bottom, and I also worked on the little Ms. Pac at the top. I also deleted some of the extra layers and separates out the easy patterns.
Space Invaders Boards Out
Have to figure if Alex Yeckley at Elektronforge needs the angled pcb supports or not, but the Space Invaders Deluxe game boards and the power supply are one step closer to being in the mail to be tested together and hopefully finally fixed for good.
Removed Diodes from G07
Figured out during the day today what I need to replace them, and the part number.
Will call or stop at Meunier tomorrow hopefully to see if they have replacements, along with the fuse. I did notice that the diodes symbol points different directions on the bottom of the chassis. You can tell how much I know. That is good that I noticed that, so they are directional. But the D401-404 are all the same so that makes it easy.
Jr. Pac-man delivery progress
Well, as I thought, things started late and slow, but finally some progress has been made. The truck is moving through Missouri tonight and probably stopping there somewhere. The loop is pretty grand, I would have to doubt that the truck would make it to our place by next weekend, but still, whenever it happens, it is an awesome deal.
Here is the progress the guy who is orchestrating the trip posted tonight.
Finally time to sell the R-Type
I think it is time to sell the R-Type. With the possibility of getting the Jr. Pac-man late next week, I will need the monitor from the R-Type, and I think it just feels like time to sell it. I can put it on the Mame machine. I can move the Pac Mame machine out, put a monitor in it and get all of the parts inside and maybe finally finish that project up.
I looked in back of the machine tonight and…no isolation transformer. I emailed Bob Roberts, he confirmed this. So, I will need to put one in. There is also a switching Power Supply already inside, but it doesn’t have the screw tops, but a molex system instead that I have not the foggiest how to hook up power to the monitor.
So, yet another issue to deal with, and I would like to have the game gone before next weekend. Either I would have to do an abridged auction on ebay, or wait longer.
Some days I hate arcade games
The Pengo board came today in the mail. I double checked my voltages, I was getting 5.12 V and 11.98 V from the Power Supply, and 5.01 V and 11.89 V on the traces on the board after the edge connector is attached.
I got in one game….sort of. The sound seems to be bearable, it doesn’t seem to be as loud so I may have fixed that. But putting it a whole bunch of coin ups will reset the game, and half way through my game when I lined up the diamond blocks, the game reset. I also noticed that I had unlimited guys in the lower left, but I did really only have three lives. Then once the game reset, I noticed some of the characters were messed up.
I thought I saw a ROM 1 error flash on the screen briefly. After I turned the game on and off again, I was getting garbage on the screen. So, sweet. Now what? Am I getting wrong voltages? The ones I read, are those wrong? I don’t think so.
I was toying with the idea to buy a brand new monitor to get rid of the old crappy G07 that is in there now, and getting rid of the isolation transformer in the Pengo machine too. Then I could easily put in a switcher for the Power Supply and see where that leaves me.
I am going to try to research what ROM 1 is in terms of Pengo and go from there. But, basically, the game still isn’t working and is taking up space in my basement.
Pengo board arriving today.
I am pretty pumped, I hope everything works just fine.
I took the time last night to do some more cleaning that somehow I missed when I brought it into the house. There was still some dry junk inside the coin door area up front that I vacuumed out. I also took a look back at previous emails with Bob Roberts about what to do about the sound issue.
He said it was probably just a bad connection, that the pot doesn’t usually go bad. Just check the wires back to the board. Well, it is a short trace, the connection goes right to the harness behind the separating board. I looked at the molex connector, and noticed that some of the pins were sunk back a little more.
I took a screwdriver and pushed the pins down so they should make a better connection. I also took that same small gauge screwdriver, and pushed it around in a circular fashion inside each of the female pin connections. This widened them just a little, not enough to make a bad connection, to make the molex connectors fit better and easier. I had such a problem with a tight fit with those Pengo molex connectors, and I felt like this was the best way to loosen them up.
I really hope that fixes my sound issue, and if my sale goes through this weekend on another machine as planned, I am going to immediately order that kit from Prok. I am so pumped to think about having Pengo working perfectly.
