Wizard of Wor Capacitor Problem
I got a tremendous reply about my Wizard of Wor capacitor problem. A number of the collectors emailed me back and said they could provide me with photos. Another one went one step further and helped me identify from the schematic that it was indeed a capacitor I needed and what it is called.
On the schematic (Page 166 in the PDF online document) within the shape of the component there is a hand written .1. That means squat to me. I didn’t see a corresponding components “shopping” list with the diagram, only a list of the IC’s and other chips. Well, this collector let me know that usually .1 means that it is a “.1 microfarad ceramic cap”. That doesn’t give me a voltage, but that was specific enough.
Component C21 is what was burnt up and exploded.
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.
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.
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.
Wizard of Wor Resetting
Wanted to try the game again tonight to see if I had any problems with it resetting. Well, after turning it on, that is all it did, every second it reset and the game just kept flashing, so there is something wrong with it. Some information is turning up on the Google Groups, it may not be too complicated to get working again.
I also spoke with Rick tonight, and he was fairly familiar with the hardware in these Wizard of Wor machines. Made by Midway / Bally, the hardware is very similar (which I already read) to Gorf, and apparently Professor Pac-man. He said it sounded like a Z-80 processor possibly going bad since there is already a switching power supply installed. He said it can never hurt to clean the edge connectors, all sorts of weird problems can happen there. As I had read before, and he suggested again, to use Scotch Brite pads. I have to figure out which ones. I have heard about using the magic eraser ones, but apparently that isn’t what you use for edge connectors.
Picking up the Wizard of Wor
I went today, on what ended up being a hot day, to get the game. I took a look at it briefly when I got there. The previous owner showed me that the game had problems with resetting. He started to play his game, was a minute into it, and the game reset. When I took a look at the back of the game, I noticed that the back door was loose. The top wood had splintered, so it didn’t really sit in place. So my thought is, maybe the movement of the game play moves that door just enough to hit the switch in back and reset the game occasionally.
I played the game when I got home, and it didn’t reset on me at all. I had taken the back door off and pulled out the switch, so I thought my theory seemed to be valid. There are still lines through the screen, and I am having problems locating the monitor model. It is some sort of Wells Gardener with an RCA tube. I have a number, but it doesn’t look right. It will need a cap kit, and that is an easy fix if that is all I need to do. The chassis is just caked with dust, so although whoever restored this game with a brand new control panel didn’t do much to the monitor. He did put in a switching power supply to switch out the linear one in the game.
