Today i decided to put the game together, and see if i could power this beast up and make her work, at least enough to see what other work i would have to do on her.
First thing i had to do was to check that the power supply worked. This power supply looks to have never had any work done on it.. very unusual me thinks!! it even still had the original main filter capacitor for the 5 volts (big blue one). When i powered it up (with no other boards plugged in of course), all voltages were there, except the -12volt. since it was only this voltage that was missing, i decided to use the Ni Wumph CPU to test the game, since this board doesnt need the -12volt output. The power supply will be fully rebuilt during the restore.
Next i had to repin some of the connectors that were obviously no good, ie corroded and/or broken pins, and as i powered up the boards and displays i found more and more! no surprise really considering the state of the rest of the game. One of the connectors was completely missing (last pic), the coin door switch connector, so once again i ratted thru my spare bits n pieces and luckily i had the correct connector housing. I then had to re-wire the connector with new pins... WITHOUT the proper game manual!! all i had to go off was my Buck Rogers coin door switch matrix, diagram, and some of the wire colours were different. so i had to trace the wires from the coin door switches, through the coin door connector (where the wires changed colour!!) and up to the switch diodes, using my multi meter as well checking for continuity between the switches and the diodes!! From the other side of the diodes the wire colours changed yet again! eventually i had the connector re-pinned and working, clocking up credits and games etc
The sound board had been butchered a bit, and of course didnt work. the regulator section was working and had the 12 volts there to run the ICs, but i worked out the amplifier IC was dead. Rather that muck around, i grabbed another sound board from my stash of parts that i remembered was there, and used that instead. I'll repair the original board another day.
