Jolt Country

Finsternis wrote: Wed May 27, 2020 3:54 pm I'm glad you're doing this. I always loved Bosconian. I wish I had the money for a cabinet. But I may fire up the old enulator.

Hey thanks! Yeah it is very doubtful I would be working on this thing if I did not acquire it for free. I really enjoy the game as well but prices these days for everything are stupid.

Last night I did the 1-hour "burn-in" on the monitor and made the slight V-hold adjustment after everything was warmed up to address the rolling screen. By this weekend I should pull the PCB back out and replace any small capacitors on it and clean all chip legs.. hopefully that will clear up that free play error I have.

Jizaboz wrote: Thu May 28, 2020 11:22 am Last night I did the 1-hour "burn-in" on the monitor and made the slight V-hold adjustment after everything was warmed up to address the rolling screen. By this weekend I should pull the PCB back out and replace any small capacitors on it and clean all chip legs.. hopefully that will clear up that free play error I have.

Heh. Just because I applaud your project doesn't mean I understand what you say about it. I mean, I know what the words mean, but why you would take such actions is beyond me. ;-)

My friend Chris came over yesterday and managed to get the pin out of the molex connector to the broken wire in the wiring harness to the control panel. After my replacement female pins come in the mail, I can crimp that on to our back in the connector.. at that point I should be able to turn left.

Pulling chips to clean the legs and replacing all capacitors on the PCB logic board this week.

Adventures in chip-pulling!

The other night I decide to try out my new fancy chip puller tool to remove an IC chip from the PCB. I can tell instantly it won’t budge, so I just eyeball the board a few hours to look for any other problems.

Today I made another attempt.. on a spare Pac-Man PCB on rough shape I got from an auction for about 20$. Figured better safe than sorry so I got to use the tool and even after loosening the chip with a small screw driver, it pops out with all the legs bent on one side. Ok, fuck that tool for this.

Then, I attempt another test. I find the most corroded looking chip and try to gently remove it as slowly as possible. One leg instantly just crumbled on the first small lift. 2 others fell off as the chip lifted more.

After learning the absolute worst thing that can happen with these old Bally / Midway PCBs, I am a bit leery of re-socketing all of the chips on the Bosco PCB.

And I just got left working again on the joystick! First crimp with new tool on female molex pin was a success. Man, if only my luck with human females had been better when I was younger..

At this point the game and I can clear stages without the game resetting or the monitor going into a seizure. Calling this project DONE for now and slapping the aesthetics back onto the outside of the cab.

If the PCB gets worse then I will attempt surgery on it once I have a replacement PCB or all of the custom chips needed for one.

I played it tonight! My friend and I played it for about 30-45 mins. I have the dip switches set to what the manual says is “default settings”

- 5 lives per quarter
- Extra lives starting at 20k pointS (I think)
- Medium difficultly

No pics tonight but I scored a bit over 70k. Hard, but extremely fun game with nice sounds and graphics.

Bosconian is one of my favorites. I wish I could go back to Time Out and re-discover the game for the first time again

THE
BLAST OFF!
AARDVARK

I am currently dealing with a pot (potentiometer) in the k4600 monitor of all things as far as just showing this game off. My friend with the basement arcade containing nearly 100 games came over to play Bosconian. During game 2 surprise! The screen starts vertically rolling.

Not like he cared. He was stoked to come over to my place for the first time despite be knowing him for like 5 years now and playing a Bosco in probably more time than that. Also acknowledged this is a bitch of a monitor to work on. Being an OCD arcade guy, I am working on trying to fix the pot without replacing it at 3:43 on a fucking Tuesday (edit: wednesday am now). You think you know madness, RR?! I WILL SHOW YOU MADNESS.

Got crazy with the knobs. Read that 1/4 of a turn on the the "high voltage" pot is what Pac-Man and Galaga people use. My shit was already at that. So I set as low as it will go and wow yeah, after that and cleaning out the v-hold pot with contact-cleaner, I seem to be getting more of a steady picture! If this is wishful thinking, tomorrow I will order replacement pot(s).

Later Wells Gardner models had the "hv" labeled as the "flyback transformer" which had a "screen" knob (brightness) and a "focus" knob attached to the chassis. k4600 has this "transformer" mounted completely outside of the chassis PCBS.. and that transformer has no known replacements from Ireland or China. Thank fuck I have read they are bullet proof. We shall see..

The real test will be if I flip this thing on tomorrow and the image does not get straight after 20 mins max warming up. I've heard many arcade guys say "I love working on games except monitors" but man, I love working on these old CRT monitors. I've been considering making my own custom CRT TV/monitor testing station for arcade monitor PCBs and watching old TV shows.. there is something to be said for that magical glow that only came from high-voltage, x-rays, and the possibility of imploding glass.

Update: So yeah, the random jittering never went away. From what I have gathered, there are still 2 more parts related to this that should be replaced and were not in the capkit. Got around to ordering the parts today.

Not exactly looking forward to taking the monitor out and taking everything apart again.

Jizaboz wrote: Sat May 23, 2020 10:50 pm Slipped my hand back and turned to him and said "Dude, I just started to get electrocuted.. IN THE AIR." [DELETED] Disclaimer: My shit is grounded at least 3 ways so don't even go there with "maybe there is a problem."

"I can feel it, comin' in the air tonight. Oh lord."
- Phil Collins

Jizaboz wrote: Wed Jul 08, 2020 12:44 am I am currently dealing with a pot (potentiometer) in the k4600 monitor of all things as far as just showing this game off.

Hmm, "potentiometer', is that what they're calling it now? Well, I'm sure its potent, but wouldn't "potentakiio" be a better name? Come on Jiz, just admit you found a new place to stash your weed!

I'm kidding, I knew what you actually meant. One time I was in a class in school and we were asked for words for something, can't remember if it was train related, or slang, or objects, or nouns. So, of course I knew of it's double meaning, i raised my hand and when called, I said "reefer," which caused the whole class to break out in laughter.

The other meaning for "reefer" is railroad slang for "refrigerated boxcar."

Jizaboz wrote: Wed Jul 08, 2020 12:44 am acknowledged this is a bitch of a monitor to work on.

And so, when you get it back working you can sing, "I'm a bitch, I'm a bitch, oh the bitch is back!"

Jizaboz wrote: Wed Jul 08, 2020 12:44 am I am working on trying to fix the pot without replacing it

I have yet to find anyone who has ever done that.

Jizaboz wrote: Wed Jul 08, 2020 12:44 am at 3:43 on a fucking Tuesday (edit: wednesday am now). You think you know madness, RR?! I WILL SHOW YOU MADNESS.

Well, that's probably less maddening than if you had started 8 or 9 minutes earlier:
"Staring blindly into space
Getting up to splash my face
Wanting just to stay awake
Wondering how much I can take
Should have tried to do some more
25 or 6 to 4"
- Chicago

Hahaha I had no a refrigerated box car is also called a reefer. Learn something new every day around here!

Update:

Monitor was fixed last month after replacing those couple of parts. Fired everything up and saw sprite glitching after 5 minutes.

- PCB edge connector replaced and re-wired. Got that done over a few hours yesterday and today. (That was a bitch, but not as bad as Ms. Pac-Man was)
- Removed game PCB stack (2 boards; logic and video) again to diagnose and hopefully repair.
- Ordered a new ribbon cable and a Galaga/Bosco/etc to JAMMA adapter.

I already have a capacitor kit for this PCB, so I will go ahead and get that installed while I wait on the cable and adapter. When those arrive I can hook up the PCB to my apparatus that looks like a home-made bomb (test bench kit). Then I can tap into it with my logic probe and oscilloscope to identify any faults while following schematics.

The reason I am doing this is because with game boards I don't believe in just shot-gunning everything. Some people take these old Midway boards and just swap all the chip sockets before even looking for actual faults. While it may ultimately need that, I don't want to bone the PCB due to something stupid..

Just barely got it done before 2021!

No work to PCB was even needed. New edge connector cleared up the sprite issue and a dip switch setting finally removed the 0000 F3 message from the screen.

All that remains on this one is check the B+ voltage on the k4600 monitor I rebuilt after turning it on again for a while to make sure I am in the proper range (too low and shit doesn't work work. Too high and shit will eventually burn up), screw the new power supply down for safety, and replace the back door lock so that I can put the back door on.