4 ms·

Repairing a buggy board arcade machine

79 points by countrymile 3y ago

ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
This kind of component level repair always feels like magic to me. Great post.
voiceblue 3y ago
Nice work, when you write up a post like this it makes it look easy. The reality is often fraught with frustration, not in the least thanks to the excruciating wait for parts to arrive once you've painstakingly found the next fault in the chain. In the end though, I think it's all worth it, if only for the feeling of getting it done and over with. I've repaired a handful of such machines in the past and it's remarkable how available the schematics and parts tend to be, there are whole businesses dedicated to selling cap kits and parts for old arcades.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
countrymile 3y ago
This should totally read "buggy boy" not "buggy board", even though the buggy boy board is a buggy buggy boy board, apologies!
tanseydavid 3y ago
Loved this game. Never was quite sure what made it so much more attractive to me than other driving games at the time.
maicro 3y ago
As others have said, great write-up. Seeing as this post might draw some useful attention, I'm going to piggyback and ask - does anyone have any resources for finding manuals for arcade machines? Specifically I'm working with a 2004 Pro-Striker Bowling Machine Game - very similar to the one shown here: https://www.pinrepair.com/bowl/pstrike.htm https://www.pinrepair.com/bowl/pstrike.htm I've spent several hours in Google and haven't come up with anything useful... I'd be willing to pay for a copy of the manual, especially if I could post it somewhere others could find it.
- rolph 3y ago
  https://arcadeblogger.com/arcade-manual-archives/ https://arcadeblogger.com/arcade-manual-archives/
  - maicro 3y ago
    That was an amazingly relevant link - thank you! Unfortunately the machine I'm dealing with isn't on any of those pages that I saw, though I'm going to go through again looking for different keywords... I'm afraid this might not be a common machine, due to the size of it mostly (I'm working on the smallest version, which is still 11' long and over 400lbs - probably takes up as much space as four regular cabinets, so I'd guess most hobbyists would go for those...).
doublerabbit 3y ago
Are there suggestions on any guides or what I could read to understand chips and graphics? I've never worked electronics or electrical engineering for that matter but have always been curious how an enlarged lego block with metal spikes can hold graphics; produce sound. What's inside the casing of one, I know its something to do with transistors but what are those and what's inside them. All cool, none the less.
- jeffwass 3y ago
  “Getting Started In Electronics” by Forrest Mims. Start from there. http://www.forrestmims.org/publications.html http://www.forrestmims.org/publications.html
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  From Nand to Tetris explains the principles. https://www.nand2tetris.org/course https://www.nand2tetris.org/course If you want more detail about how transistors and logic gates work, the Art of Electronics is pretty definitive. https://artofelectronics.net/ https://artofelectronics.net/
- Dwedit 3y ago
  Let's say you have an old VGA monitor, it needs 4 things: Red, Green, Blue, Sync And you need to deliver them at a steady pixel clock rate. Horizontal sync is between each scanline, and Vertical sync is between each frame. There are official standards to follow here, with things defined such as voltage ranges for RGB, voltage levels for Sync, "Front Porch" and "Back Porch" (how much blank space you have before and after Sync), horizontal frequency, vertical frequency (refresh rate), etc, etc. Look for a video on Youtube called "The world's worst video card" for an example of constructing such a circuit.
- easygenes 3y ago
  To see literally what's inside electronics, the book "Open Circuits" is enlightening. Many pictures of electronics carefully sliced open with explanations of the internals: https://www.opencircuitsbook.com/ https://www.opencircuitsbook.com/
sowbug 3y ago
Off-topic but adjacent: Craigslist geek missed-connections time. If you bought a stand-up Atari Gravitar machine from me about 22 years ago, I finally found the manual. Email me at mike @ my HN handle .com. Tell me where the transaction happened and how you got it home so I know it's really you, and I'll arrange to send it to you. Sorry it took so long.
metadat 3y ago
How does one even figure out which chip has gone haywire? If a board breaks and I don't see a bad cap, a cluster of moths, or other obvious problem, I bin it. Last week I did resurrect my dualie 400GB DDR3 Supermicro beast.. it had been infested by moths. After cleaning them all out with tweezers, to my amazement, the thing works again. Thank you, X9DRi-LN4F+.

79 points by countrymile 3y ago

This kind of component level repair always feels like magic to me. Great post.

Nice work, when you write up a post like this it makes it look easy. The reality is often fraught with frustration, not in the least thanks to the excruciating wait for parts to arrive once you've painstakingly found the next fault in the chain. In the end though, I think it's all worth it, if only for the feeling of getting it done and over with. I've repaired a handful of such machines in the past and it's remarkable how available the schematics and parts tend to be, there are whole businesses dedicated to selling cap kits and parts for old arcades.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

countrymile 3y ago

This should totally read "buggy boy" not "buggy board", even though the buggy boy board is a buggy buggy boy board, apologies!

tanseydavid 3y ago

Loved this game. Never was quite sure what made it so much more attractive to me than other driving games at the time.

maicro 3y ago

As others have said, great write-up. Seeing as this post might draw some useful attention, I'm going to piggyback and ask - does anyone have any resources for finding manuals for arcade machines? Specifically I'm working with a 2004 Pro-Striker Bowling Machine Game - very similar to the one shown here: https://www.pinrepair.com/bowl/pstrike.htm https://www.pinrepair.com/bowl/pstrike.htm I've spent several hours in Google and haven't come up with anything useful... I'd be willing to pay for a copy of the manual, especially if I could post it somewhere others could find it.

rolph 3y ago
https://arcadeblogger.com/arcade-manual-archives/ https://arcadeblogger.com/arcade-manual-archives/
- maicro 3y ago
  That was an amazingly relevant link - thank you! Unfortunately the machine I'm dealing with isn't on any of those pages that I saw, though I'm going to go through again looking for different keywords... I'm afraid this might not be a common machine, due to the size of it mostly (I'm working on the smallest version, which is still 11' long and over 400lbs - probably takes up as much space as four regular cabinets, so I'd guess most hobbyists would go for those...).

doublerabbit 3y ago

Are there suggestions on any guides or what I could read to understand chips and graphics? I've never worked electronics or electrical engineering for that matter but have always been curious how an enlarged lego block with metal spikes can hold graphics; produce sound. What's inside the casing of one, I know its something to do with transistors but what are those and what's inside them. All cool, none the less.

jeffwass 3y ago
“Getting Started In Electronics” by Forrest Mims. Start from there. http://www.forrestmims.org/publications.html http://www.forrestmims.org/publications.html
TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
From Nand to Tetris explains the principles. https://www.nand2tetris.org/course https://www.nand2tetris.org/course If you want more detail about how transistors and logic gates work, the Art of Electronics is pretty definitive. https://artofelectronics.net/ https://artofelectronics.net/
Dwedit 3y ago
Let's say you have an old VGA monitor, it needs 4 things: Red, Green, Blue, Sync And you need to deliver them at a steady pixel clock rate. Horizontal sync is between each scanline, and Vertical sync is between each frame. There are official standards to follow here, with things defined such as voltage ranges for RGB, voltage levels for Sync, "Front Porch" and "Back Porch" (how much blank space you have before and after Sync), horizontal frequency, vertical frequency (refresh rate), etc, etc. Look for a video on Youtube called "The world's worst video card" for an example of constructing such a circuit.
easygenes 3y ago
To see literally what's inside electronics, the book "Open Circuits" is enlightening. Many pictures of electronics carefully sliced open with explanations of the internals: https://www.opencircuitsbook.com/ https://www.opencircuitsbook.com/

sowbug 3y ago

Off-topic but adjacent: Craigslist geek missed-connections time. If you bought a stand-up Atari Gravitar machine from me about 22 years ago, I finally found the manual. Email me at mike @ my HN handle .com. Tell me where the transaction happened and how you got it home so I know it's really you, and I'll arrange to send it to you. Sorry it took so long.

metadat 3y ago

How does one even figure out which chip has gone haywire? If a board breaks and I don't see a bad cap, a cluster of moths, or other obvious problem, I bin it. Last week I did resurrect my dualie 400GB DDR3 Supermicro beast.. it had been infested by moths. After cleaning them all out with tweezers, to my amazement, the thing works again. Thank you, X9DRi-LN4F+.