Galuda 2 PCB problem

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 7:44 pm

Just got a Galuda 2 kit from Excellent today, only problem is the game isn't working. When I have it connected, the screen just blips like there's no signal and a light on the board flashes on and off. I unhooked it and put ESP Ra.De. back in and it works fine, so I don't know that it's anything with the cab. Any thoughts?

bay · Post by **bay** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 8:15 pm

Acid King wrote:Just got a Galuda 2 kit from Excellent today, only problem is the game isn't working. When I have it connected, the screen just blips like there's no signal and a light on the board flashes on and off. I unhooked it and put ESP Ra.De. back in and it works fine, so I don't know that it's anything with the cab. Any thoughts?

the bootup on esp2 takes a little while, the screen should eventually flash with whatever was stuck in the video memory (my guess), then go into the mem test mode, eventually booting up.

the leds on the board indicate where it is in the sequence, that plus errors (my guess again since i can't read japanese)

i guess my first check would be to make sure none of the jumpers are in weird positions? as i got my board all jumpers on both jumper blocks are clicked to "on"

i myself have been trying to get into test mode on the board, i was gonna try again after a couple PMs between myself and the other esp2 owners i've found.

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 9:07 pm

When you turn it on, a red LED should light up (no blinking!) towards the middle of the board, then after a few seconds this should go out and a red LED near the JAMMA connector should light up and stay lighted until you turn off the game. Same thing as the Ibara board. If this isn't happening, and your board is connected properly, then I would be concerned. When you turn on the board the screen should show some 'video garbage' for a second or two, then switch to a white grid on a black background while the ROM check is shown. Then the game starts.

To get to the test menu press and hold the small black test button for 4+ seconds. This switch is located to the upper center-right of the JAMMA connector on the board. It's very tiny. There is a diagram showing it on the instruction sheet included. If you still can't find it I could post a picture of the board with the test button circled for you.

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 9:43 pm

With mine, the light towards the center of the board is blinking in time with a light on the inside of the cab and there's a heartbeat like rythmic noise coming from the speakers. Not really garbage on the screen, not like a scrambled image or whatever. It's like a grey band that pops up across the screen. Is that the little diagram with the button and the rounded arrows pointing either direction the one you're talking about?

bay · Post by **bay** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 9:49 pm

Acid King wrote:the light towards the center of the board is blinking in time with a light on the inside of the cab

that doesn't sound healthy at all, what light is on in the cab that is going on and off? maybe it's a power issue and the cab keeps resetting? (thats not kosher...)

Acid King wrote:Is that the little diagram with the button and the rounded arrows pointing either direction the one you're talking about?

the rounded arrows you refer to i think is for the pot (potentiometer), tho i have no idea what that is for.. at least it _looks_ like a pot.

twe probably knows.

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 10:09 pm

bay wrote:
that doesn't sound healthy at all, what light is on in the cab that is going on and off? maybe it's a power issue and the cab keeps resetting? (thats not kosher...)

I wouldn't think the cab was resetting since it still runs Ra.De. fine but I don't know anything about the technical aspects of this stuff. Here's some pics for reference. It's a new astro city cab.

LED on board
LED on inside

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 10:09 pm

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 10:30 pm

Ahh, thanks, twe. The board's not responding to the test button.... ::single tear::

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 10:31 pm

Your board sounds like it's defective. Send it back to Excellent and they'll give you a new one.

bay · Post by **bay** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 10:31 pm

twe wrote:Anyway, press and hold that little black button circled in YELLOW until you enter the test menu

ok now i've heard of the japanese having smaller hands and fingers but that's damn near rediculous.

Post by **Dave_K.** » Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:17 pm

Acid King wrote: Just got it today, too bad I can't play it til I make a board for it. When I tried connecting it to my cab it was like the connector was too tight for the board and I kept feeling like I was about to break the thing. Also, that is one small PCB. Compared to my two others that shit is tiny.

From reading your response on the other thread (copied above) you may want to make sure the jamma connector is lining up correctly with the edge teeth on the PCB.

The blinking led on the power supply sounds like +5 is grounding out or something.

Those Astro City Jamma harnesses usually crack at the edges, making it real easy to misalign the jamma harness to the PCB.

I know its a longshot, but check this out carefully, and make sure the jamma connector pins line up with the PCB teeth properly. Also if you do not have the PCB mounted, make sure its not making contact with any other metal in the cab (under the PCB).

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 1:22 am

Dave_K. wrote:
From reading your response on the other thread (copied above) you may want to make sure the jamma connector is lining up correctly with the edge teeth on the PCB.

The blinking led on the power supply sounds like +5 is grounding out or something.

Those Astro City Jamma harnesses usually crack at the edges, making it real easy to misalign the jamma harness to the PCB.

I know its a longshot, but check this out carefully, and make sure the jamma connector pins line up with the PCB teeth properly. Also if you do not have the PCB mounted, make sure its not making contact with any other metal in the cab (under the PCB).

Yeah, I have it mounted. Thats why I waited to hook it up. I was having trouble sliding the connector on so I mounted it before hooking it up proper. I pulled it off and tried it without the mounting and it still does it. Mounted, unmounted, not touching metal... nothing works. Also, it looks like the pins are lining up perfectly with the edge connector. It's not cracked or anything either so I dunno.

bay · Post by **bay** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 2:38 am

bay wrote:
twe wrote:Anyway, press and hold that little black button circled in YELLOW until you enter the test menu
ok now i've heard of the japanese having smaller hands and fingers but that's damn near rediculous.

reporting in : the test button works on my board. yay freeplay!

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Wed Nov 08, 2006 9:12 am

One thing to try is to measure the 5V supply.

Also the connector alignment is very important, if the PSU is flashing it means it's short circuiting somewhere. The blinking on your PCB just corresponds to the restart of the PSU.

rtw

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 2:54 pm

Arright, the I fiddled with the connectors for awhile and no matter how perfectly it's aligned it doesn't work. I can get a voltmeter from my dad to check the voltage going to the board. Where do I place it on the board to measure and if it's not doing 5v how do I change the voltage? I assume thats what the pot is for? If this doesn't work, I'm emailing excellentcom and shipping it back.

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 4:41 pm

Acid King wrote:Arright, the I fiddled with the connectors for awhile and no matter how perfectly it's aligned it doesn't work. I can get a voltmeter from my dad to check the voltage going to the board. Where do I place it on the board to measure and if it's not doing 5v how do I change the voltage? I assume thats what the pot is for? If this doesn't work, I'm emailing excellentcom and shipping it back.

Here is a JAMMA pinout:

http://www.jammajup.co.uk/pinouts/jamma_pinout.gif

So measure between pin 1 & 3 starting from the left. It should be 5V. If not adjust the PSU in your cab until it is.

rtw

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 9:29 pm

So I ran the voltmeter on the board and it was fluctuating between 2 and 3. I popped Ra.De in and it was getting a little over five. So I tried cranking up my PSU and no dice. I turned it as far as it would go and it still registers less than 4 on the Galuda 2 board.

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 10:34 pm

Acid King wrote:So I ran the voltmeter on the board and it was fluctuating between 2 and 3. I popped Ra.De in and it was getting a little over five. So I tried cranking up my PSU and no dice. I turned it as far as it would go and it still registers less than 4 on the Galuda 2 board.

This could indicate two things:

. Your PCB is faulty and shorting the PSU.
. Your PSU is faulty or current limited

Do you have a friend near by where you can test your Galuda PCB ? Just to make sure, before you spend money and effort on sending it back ?

Do you have any other PCB's you could try with ?

rtw

Post by **Dave_K.** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 1:11 am

Also make sure you turn the PSU +5 adjustment back down to previous setting before you put any other board in there!

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 4:54 am

Unfortunately, I don't know anybody in the area with a cab to try and test it in, unless someone on here lives around me and I just don't realize it (Bucks county Pennsylvania) or lives in or near Philadelphia. I ran my two other boards, ESP Ra.De. and Battle Bakraid with the current setting, and both Ra.De. and Bakraid show the same voltage (4.72) that stays stable alternating between 72 and 71 while the Galuda 2 board fluctuates between like 3.08-3.09 to 3.63-3.65.

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 5:04 am

I'd send that board back to excellent ASAP and get a replacement. Sounds messed up.

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 5:31 am

Yeah I think I'll email them tomorrow when I'm sober. I don't understand why it would draw less than the others. My dad thought maybe the power supply is too weak and the board is trying to draw too much power and is continually resetting but 5 volts is 5 volts is 5 volts. If it needs 5v to run, it's not going to draw more than needed. Thanks to everbody for the input. I thought maybe I was getting in a bit deep when I bought the cab since I know nothing about them, but thankfully this board has plenty of good people willing to help. Thanks again.

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 9:44 am

Acid King wrote:Yeah I think I'll email them tomorrow when I'm sober. I don't understand why it would draw less than the others. My dad thought maybe the power supply is too weak and the board is trying to draw too much power and is continually resetting but 5 volts is 5 volts is 5 volts.

Actually your dad is correct, if a board requires 5V and 5A to work but your supply is rated to 5V & 3A, the voltage will drop. This is why I am advocating that you get a comparison done.

Alternately have a look at the PSU in your cab and see if it has any ratings on it. It should say 12V at 5A, 5A at 10A and suchlikes. Also could you take a picture of your JAMMA loom I just want to check if all the 4 5V connection points are wired up.

Does anyone here know the current requirement of these new SH-4 based boards ? I have uploaded a scan of the Mushihimesama PCB to my site just in case someone who reads Japanese can give any input.

http://www.world-of-arcades.net/mushi.jpg

The manuals for ESP.ra.De can also be found on the same site. The current requirement for Bakraid is very low. From the manual it's 5V at 2A and 12V at 1A. Whereas for Gradius III it's 5V at 5A.

rtw

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 7:12 pm

My power supply says...

+5v 7A
+12v 1.5A
-5v 0.1A

Here's some pictures for you
Connector with Ra.De.
Parts
Solder

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 11:10 am

Acid King wrote:My power supply says...

+5v 7A
+12v 1.5A
-5v 0.1A

Here's some pictures for you
Connector with Ra.De.
Parts
Solder

Connectors look OK. 7A should be enough, I cannot believe that the PCB would draw more than that as an inrush current. I don't have any equipment to measure the inrush current here at home.

Maybe someone here who has a SH-3 type board and the necessary equipment could measure the inrush current ?

Barring that I think you should contact Excellentcom and explain the issue.

rtw

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 4:40 pm

Arright so I emailed excellent and explained what happened and Fannie said it needs 5 volts, not the 3-4 it was getting, which I already knew and to check the 1p 1,2,3,4 pins which look fine. I cranked the PSU to the max and it will hit 5.07 but it still bounces around between 3 and 5. Does that pretty much confirm that it's not the power supply or connectors since it is capable of hitting 5 volts?

chtimi-CLA · Post by **chtimi-CLA** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 9:35 pm

the voltage should remain fix because it is supposed to be determined by your power supply, unlike the amperage which is determined by the board (unless the PCB needs more than the source can output).

does your supply have wires to ALL of the PCB's ground and +5 board pins? sometimes wiring only a small amout of GND and +5 pins can have similar effects to what you're describing.

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:43 pm

So it's not the board. I took it to a local arcade distributer and he plugged it into a Galaga cab they were converting and it worked right away. Now the fun part begins...

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:48 pm

Acid King wrote:So it's not the board. I took it to a local arcade distributer and he plugged it into a Galaga cab they were converting and it worked right away. Now the fun part begins...

Most likely your PSU. It might be slightly broken, and not delivering the goods. You can pick up a new PSU at cosmicco for 10-15USD.

http://home.netvigator.com/~cosmicco/partslist.htm

rtw

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 10:36 pm

That's not so bad. I'll probably put an order through in a day or so for a 15a one. If that doesn't work... ::single tear::

shmups.system11.org

Galuda 2 PCB problem

Galuda 2 PCB problem

Re: Galuda 2 PCB problem