Category: Upgrades

Tempest monitor repair log – WG 6100 color vector monitor rebuild

Status: FIXED

Repair cost: About $50

KLOV Posthttp://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=98417

Symptom:  Monitor dead.  Original 6100, fireworks on deflection board, R100 burned through.

Diagnosis: Low voltage section of deflection board is toast.  Perform cap kit, install LV2000, concentrate on chassis transistors & power transistors on deflection board.

Fix:

  • 08/02/2009 – Installed cap kit + extra parts, LV2000.  F100 & F101 blow immediately after powerup.
  • 08/18/2009 – Replace diodes, transistors on LV2000.  Replace blown (underrated) D100-103 with 6A2 diodes.  Replace Q603/Q703 on frame.
  • 08/24/2009 – Learn, inspect work, double-check, triple check…smoke test tonight.  Deflection board fixed – we have monitor chatter, but only half a picture.
  • 09/17/2009 – F600 now blowing on powerup.  Replaced blown Q606.  Powers up and runs for about 5-6 seconds with vertical line before F600 blows again.
  • 06/25/2010 – Replaced all frame mounted transistor sockets with new ones.  Monitor now powering up.  Issue with Tempest boardset (link), monitor verified working with another color vector game.

Notes:

The frame-mounted transistor sockets were most likely causing intermittent/bad connections from the corroded and weakened leafs.  The intermittent connections were eventually leading to the transistors shorting out, causing a domino effect of other parts to fail, or a fuse to blow.  Every time a fuse would blow, the proper thing to do would have been to test all the transistors (on the frame and deflection board) for shorts before continuing.  Replacing all 6 sockets eliminated this issue.

Eventually, the culprit parts were the MPSU07/57 power transistors on the deflection board.  These parts are very expensive and/or hard to find, but I bit the bullet and replaced them all, which fixed the problem.