Re: Star Wars, Amplifone Works :-)

Well, I just had to tell everyone, My Amplifone came to life tonight and I
played my first game of Star Wars in years. Thanks to the Amplifone HV Guide
1.1 and all the help from the Vectorlist, past and present, Thanks to Google.
And also to WinTron for making the replacement transformer even though the
installation papers they send with it was almost no help. One sheet was just
a spec sheet that did have the pin to color code but the other sheet was a
very bad copy of the HV board schematic. I replaced the + & - 24Volt
regulators and tested everything else. I had 3 new BU-406D I got from Bob
Roberts but I tested the old one and it tested good with an OHM meter as
compared with a new one so I decided to leave it in. I tested the + & -
30volts from the deflection board and it was correct. The spot killer LED was
off and it sounded like I could hear deflection chatter so I was ready to try
the HV board.
I fired it up and no picture :-( even with the brightness turned all the way
up and the overvoltage LED was off. What really concerned me was no filament
glow in the tube neck. I checked the + & - 24volt regulators and both had the
correct voltages. I have a scope but did not want to drag it out to the
garage so I got my logic probe out to see if I had a pulse on the 555 timer
and I did. By now I started seeing smoke :-O and turned the game off. The
heat sink on the BU-406D was red hot. I took the board out and back to the
work bench and replaced the BU-406D with a new one. I installed the HV board
again and with the brightness turned all the way down I fired it up. I was
happy to see the neck begin to glow but no picture but no LED's on either. I
turned up the brightness a little and looked at the screen and I thought I
saw YES I could see stars, very faint but their were stars. I cranked up the
brightness a little more and this time the picture looked great :-). Talk
about being happy WOW. I have the game crammed in my garage with little space
and the front of the game is right up next to a Star's pinball game that's
standing on it's back so I couldn't get to the coin door so I had to reach in
from the back to coin up a game wile the HV board is setting on the bottom
lip of the cabinet on the big heat sink as I have to make a new top wood
mounting rail as somehow someone broke it off. I played my first game with
one hand standing on the side of the cabinet and I had a blast. Managed to
make it to and blow up the Death Star on the first try and the monitor was
rock solid thought the explosion. I supose sence the BU-406D was bad I guess
the red transformer was bad also but now I am not sure but I wont put it back
in to see. Now I got to make room in the game room and bring it inside. I
took pictures as I was installing the WinTron and hope to up date my Star
Wars web page soon. I'll let everyone know when I do. I just want to Thank
everyone for all the help.
The Force is alive and well, Hope it stays that way :-)
Sam
In Virginia
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Received on Sun Jan 6 19:35:58 2002