October 13, 2009

I was leaving out a small, what I thought to be insignificant, fact to my BurgerTime story.  I mentiooned I used a power supply from my Super Pac-Man.  However, what I failed to mention was there were actually 2 power supply boards, one installed in the Super Pac-Man machine and a 2nd laying loose in the machine.

When I was testing the 2 boards for the -5v I was missing, I accidentally shorted a couple of pins.  After a small spark, there was nothing showing on the -5v pin.  So, I tossed it to the side, thinking I did some major damage to it.  I thought the power supply I ended up installing was the one installed in the Super Pac-Man, but apparently I was wrong.

While at work today, it hit me that I never bothered to check the fuses on the shorted board.  When I finally made it home, I checked the fuses and they were reading nearly the same on both boards.  But one of the fuses was just off enough that it caught my attention.  So I switched it out, hooked up the power, and wouldn’t you know it, I got my -5v.  I threw the board in the machine, hooekd up all my wires, flipped on the power and… no buzzing!  The picture came up fine and the sounds played loud and clear.  Now, I have a fully working BurgerTime that I picked up for a song.  I could probably easily quadruple my money, but this is one of the games I want in my game room.

There still is the problem of the buzzing.  I intend to hold onto the spare boards and figure out what’s causing the problem on at least one of them so I can have a backup.  Rebuild kits sell for $20 + shipping, so I might go that route and completely rebuild one to keep back just in case.

Now I just need to clean up the cabinet and find somewhere to put it.

October 12, 2009

I saw an ad for a non-working BurgerTime on Saturday and immediately sent an email.  After a little back and forth, I got a phone number.  Unfortunately, I was about to head out for an evening to a concert.  I was worried someone might swoop in and take my deal.  I called the first thing the next morning and thankfully the people were expecting me to call.  They held the game for me.

The person I spoke with had a few reservations about letting it go for so little without having someone look at it first.  Apparently, they had played it one day, wanted to play it another day, but it didn’t power on.  They were thinking it might be something as easy as a blown fuse but had no idea how to work on the machine.

Fortunately for me, they wanted it gone.  So I agreed to their asking price and made the 2 hour drive Sunday morning to pick it up.  The cabinet was in excellent shape with only a few dings and scratches, mostly on the front.  I think it’s probably in good enough condition to just clean up and leave it as-is.

Turns out it wasn’t as simple as a blown fuse, but it was a pretty easy fix to get it to 90% working condition.  I first tested the monitor, but it checked out ok.  I checked the voltages coming from the power supply since I had a similar problem with my Centipede.  Ah ha, I wasn’t getting -5v to the board.  Fortunately, I had a spare power supply from my Super Pac-Man conversion.  They were exactly the same, so all I had to do was switch them out.

The game came up and played fine.  All the controls and buttons are respnsive and springy.  However, I do have one more problem to overcome.  For some reason, there is a loud buzzing coming from the speaker but I can hear the game sounds underneath.  I unplugged the marquee light, the monitor, hooked up a different speaker, and did the built-in spund tests, but nothing solved or indicated what the problem might be.  I can turn the volume on the sound board all the way down and the buzz will go away, but so will the game sounds.  So, I still have to determine what’s going on there.  But, it’s still playable in the mean time.