Getting spot killer - any ideas
So I have a Star Wars machine with a WG 6101. When I bought it, the monitor wouldn’t turn on. I tried the Alan 1 deflection board and transistor kit - worked great for about a week! Then I got the spot killer light and now nothing on the monitor.
I actually assumed it was the board, so I sent my spare Star Wars pcb that I knew was broke to Eldorado - so then I knew I had a worked board. Tried it out and same thing. So I have two pcbs both showing the spot killer. Any ideas :/ can’t figure out what to troubleshoot :/
thx again / appreciate the great products Alan 1 makes!
adam
Adam:
If the spot killer is on, that means the deflection board is not seeing any X or Y deflection signals.
Problems like these are best traced one segment at a time, from the game PCB through the wiring harness through the monitor. Do you have a voltmeter, or even better, an oscilloscope?
I would start with the 15-pin connector from the monitor to the wiring harness. Do you get deflection signals at the X and Y pins there? You can usually sneak the tip of a probe into the back end of the connector and touch the crimp pins. Black/clip to ground, probe to X or Y.
If you have an oscilloscope, it'll be easy to see if you're getting X and Y signals. They should be several volts peak-to-peak. If you only have a voltmeter, you can probably get an idea by setting it to AC VOLTS and selecting a low range, like 30. You should see a few volts AC any time there is a picture on screen.
If you don't, then the signal isn't even getting to the monitor, and you need to start tracing back towards the game PCBs to figure out where the deflection signals are getting lost. (Next stop is probably the pins on the edge connector. Be very careful not to short two of them together when probing those.)
If you do, then try the same probe on the other side of the connector -- the deflection PCB end -- and make sure the signal is getting through the connector. (You'll have to remove it from the metal tab it's mounted to in order to get to the backside.) If it is, then something's wrong with the deflection board.
Please let me know what you find out, and I'll work with you from there.