RE: 6100 LV issues

Agreed..., going by the logic of keeping things "original" then if the
manufacturer recommended any modifications, or if upgrades (factory or
otherwise) were performed after the item was produced, do we then reverse
the unit back to the condition it came from the factory? Hmmmm. I don't
think so!

We have been recommending a minor wiring upgrade for a brand of pinball
that gave nothing but trouble and with the simple jumper wire 90% of the
problems go away...Same with SEGA Vector games, fixing the ground
connection problems will protect the GO-8 monitor, as will that same ground
upgrade cover the Atari Vector monitor failures in many cases.

The problem is if the common (ground) connection deteriorates between the
power supply, game board and monitor you can get different ground reference
voltages that will offset the bias on the output transistors, causing them
to heat up and burn out. Make VERY sure that the common leads are solidly
connected to avoid this problem.

On Atari games make certain the green common wires are bolted to the
monitor, board and power supply common tie points, and the nuts are TIGHT!

Sega games require a separate ground wire from the power supply (solder it
on to the common trace right at the main filter caps), and run it to the
monitor and logic board and either bolt or solder it to these.

Factory equipment is NEVER perfect, there are many instances of technicians
catching design errors and it is up to us to incorporate them in or risk
the peril of the game dying...

John :-#)#

At 06:51 AM 08/02/2002 -0800, Rosenzweig, Joel B wrote:
>I'm a little confused by the argument. If the claim is: "I want to keep my
>monitor original, as designed. Therefore I don't want to put in the LV2000
>board" then you cannot replace Q100/101 or it's related circuitry with any
>upgrade component or subsystem modification. Which means that all you have
>allowed yourself to do is to replace any part that fails with the same type
>part. If you open yourself to "modifying the board for better performance"
>then there is no intrinsic difference between cutting a trace and/or using
>beefier transistors than there is to making a daughter card that plugs in to
>the deflection board that simply replaces a few components and similarly
>provides increased longevity.
>
>I think the reality is that the design of the low voltage power supply for
>the WG6100, the HV transformer on the Amplifone, and _fires_ from G08's were
>the root cause of vector monitors having such a bad reputation in the
>amusement community. These items required constant attention relative to
>their raster monitor brothers. Keeping them in their original state is
>certainly not impossible - just time consuming. You can certainly continue
>to replace the failed components with the originals if that is your goal.
>Some people enjoy the maintenance, but enjoy playing the games even more.
>Somewhere you will find that balance that describes your interest in the
>hobby, and that will help you decide what to do. If you'll look forward to
>the next time you power up your Tempest and have a dead screen (and be happy
>about it because of the repair job you now have) then going with original
>parts is great. If you have that sinking feeling in your stomach every time
>you power it up wondering "will this be the big one?" :-) then you probably
>want to go with upgrading the parts. I'm not making a value judgement here
>- I love the repair work. It gives me a good reason to have all sorts of
>cool parts and diagnostic electronic equipment in my workshop. Maybe it
>even gives meaning to my existence! But - I'm not looking for doing the
>_same_ repairs over and over again, so I opt for the upgrade. I just wish
>there was a cure all for my Black Knight pinball, then my machines would all
>work in harmony. (There is some law that at least one machine must be hosed
>at any time. It's usually BK) I've found that by fixing the monitors with
>excellent components the first time keeps them running and minimizes repeat
>repair efforts. That let's me _play_ Star Wars for 5 minutes in an
>otherwise busy day. :-)
>
>Good luck figuring out what you'd like to do.
>
>Regards,
>Joel-
>
> > >
> > > Again, I'm interested to see what everyone has to say about the
>recurring
> > > Q100/101 faulure in a 6100.
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > > -Brian
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Received on Fri Feb 8 09:59:47 2002