Well, it was an educational experience, nonetheless, but I had to sideline the repair. Why? Follow my saga here.
I last started with getting the cabinet gutted so the main components were out.
Everything electronic was taken out here. The monitor, power supply, and main board was removed and put onto my work table.
The monitor had a bezel around it. It was pretty much construction paper feeling. That's something I may remake out of something sturdier or just get a plastic bezel made instead of using a paper one.
The paper bezel was stuck on with double sided foam tape. Being over 20 years old, the stuff was crusty. Most of the adhesive didn't come out well, so I used a razor scraper to remove the rest of the residue and cleaned the screen off with glass cleaner.
I have it all splayed out on my temporary work table. I had to resolder the plug part of the power supply since we cut it off to take it out of my friend's van a while back...I think...
The high score batteries were corroded. They had to be removed immediately.
So, after getting everything connected (minus the control panel), I powered it on. The monitor hum was a good sign, then I was greeted with this...
...Not sure if Blogger will show it, but basically, the monitor did show an image, but it'll blink...think NES consoles blinking. The image would also show up garbled. Kinda frustrating.
As far as I could tell with my limited time and patience (at the time), there was nothing wrong looking with the board itself.
I did notice that the harness had some cut wires on it. I initially though that this had something to do with the blinking problem, but it wasn't. It was for the cabs that had 2 monitors (standing and red tent cabinets). If I wanted to connect another game to the board, I'd have to get those connected properly.
Anyway, I did the usual searches for my particular problem. One that I came up to was a bad CPU. Looking online, a new CPU (RP2A03) wasn't gonna come cheap. I did even more deeper search and found that a CPU from an NES will work with the Vs board.
So, I asked my friend if he had a spare NES that we could raid the CPU from.
He did. I got my desoldering station heated up and got the CPU removed easily.
Here they are, side by side. The RP2A03E came from the NES.
Swapped the two ICs and powered up the system...same blinking screen.
I had too many projects going (more home project than electronics related), so I had to ask my friend to outsource the board work to someone else. I don't have the proper testing tools to work on it.
And for the curious of my home projects...
I'm working on getting some overhead shelving done in my garage. I was supposed to get it done over Memorial Day weekend, but I ran into hiccups getting it done. I still have one section to do, but I'll have to tackle that this next weekend.
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