Archive for January, 2009
Parts ordered
Posted by BP in Partially working on January 28th, 2009
I ordered some replacement parts from Bob Roberts (see the link to his web site on my Robotron 2084 links page), I will be trying to undertake the replacement of the 5114 CMOS RAM chip, which I suspect is shot on the CPU board in the machine now.
Also, in my 10 minute Robotron challenge, I just scored 905,875 points and reached wave 30. Yeah, I know, I my skills are still super rusty.
Battery clip transferred, no effect
Posted by BP in Partially working on January 17th, 2009
I took the battery clip off the non-working CPU board and put it on the working CPU board, and installed fresh AA batteries in the hopes that the adjustment failure message would go away. Alas, it did not, so I will need to search for a new angle to try and get this game working 100% again.
Just for fun, I decided to try and see how many points and waves I could accumulate in 10 minutes time. So, I got a timer, set it for 10 minutes, started the timer, and then pressed the 1 player start button. The instant the timer started beeping, I let go of the joysticks. In 10 minutes, I had scored 760,625 points and reached wave 29. Boy, am I out of practice…
The machine lives, but is still sick
Posted by BP in Partially working on January 4th, 2009
On a lark, I took a spare CPU board that I got off of eBay, popped one of the RAM chips off the CPU board in the machine, put it in the empty socket on the spare board, wired the spare board in the machine, and flipped on the power:
OK, so the machine seems to boot up now, but it is still not without problems. There are three things I need to address:
- The spare CPU board does not have the 3 AA battery clips, it has been modified. I suspect this could be why I get the message “Adjustment failure, restore factory settings by opening front door and turning game off and on”.
- The one player start button does not seem to work.
- The monitor has some interference at the top and on the right side.
But all in all, I am happy that for the first time in about 10 years, Robotron sounds can be heard throughout the household.
Power PCB connections resoldered, no effect
Posted by BP in No rug pattern on January 4th, 2009
I went and tried to reflow the solder on the connections between the 4 wiring harnesses and the power PCB board, and just for good measure I tried to reflow the solder on the bridge rectifier. There was no effect in getting the machine to work correctly, it just does the same things as before.
However, one interesting thing I noticed is now, when I try to test continuity over the F2 fuse clips after removing the fuse, it no longer shows it as continuous.