RE: tempest help

At 12:35 12/13/97, Christopher V. Moore wrote:
>At 11:12 PM 12/12/97 -0500, you wrote:
>>At 8:34 12/10/97, Ozdemir, Steve wrote:
>>>G'day folks,
>>>
>>>Along similar lines, I have some bad Tempest spinners. I'm assuming
>>>that the LED that shines through the wheel has gone bad. Does anyone
>>>know of a replacement part (or better yet a number that I could bring to
>>>my electronic's parts store)? Thanks!
>>
>>I'll swap a working one for your bad one + $25. However ANY (and I do mean
>>ANY) Infra-red transmitter/detector pair will work. There are 2 pairs and
>>you can tell which is which by the markings on the underside of the PCB.
>>It is virtually IMPOSSIBLE (although I have done it once) to remove the
>>LEDs from the curved black enclosures but as long as your game is inside a
>>cabinet (i.e. dark and with constant interior temp), you don't need the
>>casing. Replace 1 pair (in a casing) and test. If it doesn't work,
>>replace the other (actually you can test them but it really isn't worth the
>>time). B.G. Micro sells a pair that will work for ~ 50 cents.
>
>Now I'm curious. Is it the led or the phototransistor that usually fails?

In my experience it is the detector that fails but you're not hearing what
I'm saying. It doesn't matter since the individual parts cannot be removed
from the casing that joins a pair (xmit/rec) together so 1 good part and 1
bad part must be removed anyways so there really isn't any good reason to
test it! It isn't even worth the extra time to use a dremel and cut the
casing apart.
Received on Sun Dec 14 14:14:05 1997