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Arcade Game Tech Tips and Troubleshooting

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Pictures is always the best teacher.

On this page I'll include some of my tips and tricks I've learned while doing my hobby. I'll try include steps or pictures to help clarify my explanations.

If there is something that I dont cover on this page, write me and I'll add that tip or info to here!

TIP#1 grounding grounding grounding makes all the difference in the world!! Dont overlook it of you will be wasting your time. Its such a simple thing to do but oh so crucial.

Cap Kits

A typical cap kit, just a few new capacitors, this is from Bob Roberts

This is a common question out there if your new to this. Basically, you are replacing bad capacitors and transistors on the pcb. It could be a monitor chassis pcb or a audio pcb. A chassis is the seperate metal tray that holds the electronics needed to make a monitor tube work. When the caps go bad, the screen can have wavy lines, a darker area on the screen, low brightnes and lack of detail or might be missing a color or have an occasional twitch. When there is burn-in, that is when there is a image burned into the phosphor coating on the screen, nothing can fix that excpet a well placed pc. of smoke plexi. That is usually why most arcade fames come with smoked plexi. On audio boards, a cap kit solves mostly low volume and distorted sound. And sometimes a humm. Doing a cap kit ALWAYS brings positive results!

eddiesarcadefix.jpg

The picture above is a 13" GO7 type monitor chassis. Notice the suction cup on the tube, CAUTION! Its called a anode...NEVER touch this when it is turned on or off until you discharge it, it can KILL! Looks below to see what discharging looks like.

eddiesarcadefix.jpg

Discharging the monitor is easy but needs to be done in a safe manner. The idea is to relieve the several thousand volts still stored in the tube. The tube acts like a big ass capacitor. Bob Roberst sells this device, a Standback discharger. Its basically a long long screw driver with a ground wire and squeeze clamp attached. Clamp the clip to the metal on the monitor, and with one hand in your pocket( so you dont grab something metal incase it bites back) shove the end of the screw driver under the suction cup till you hear a snap or even see a big or small spark. Keep poking it around gently(the tube is made of glass) till you hear some sort of pop. After you hear it, it is safe to remove the anode and you can start doing your cap kit :-) Just remember after your finished, dont forget to reconnect that anode, or all your work will have been done in vain!

If you want to get a good idea of how effective a cap kit is, look at the Kickman page, the monitor was never capped and it was the best result I have ever seen! Big improvment!

This will take you to Bob Roberts parts page. He is extremely fast and has great prices. I get all my parts from him!

Future List of Tips and Explainations

Degaussing monitors
What is JAMMA
What else? You tell me

What I need help with......
Go to the "Whats new" page, I have a problem with my beloved Vectrex that maybe you might have the answer too??  HELP!!!!