My monitor just went haywire in my cabinet!

mikehaggar · Post by **mikehaggar** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 9:55 am

Hey everybody.

I'll start this question off by first stating that the arcade cabinet that I own is really beat up on the inside. The wiring is horrible, some exposed, etc. So yes, when I got it a few weeks ago, it has worked, but the whole scenario feels very delicate.

Anyhow, today I was in the middle of a game, and after doing poorly, I reached inside my cabinet to hit the service switch so I could restart as fast as possible. On my way to the service button, my hand lightly brushed against some wires that were there, and all of a sudden the colors in the monitor display turned into crap. Now the game looks terrible, the colors and contrast are all wrong, and I've tried rebooting with no luck.

I will again stress that my hand lightly grazed some wires, and I did NOT undo anything or do anything significant. What I think it going on is that a very faulty connection somewhere or faulty wiring is causing this. What I'm hoping is that maybe from the looks of the picture, somebody can tell me what the problem resembles, and maybe we can go from there.

Thanks everybody!

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 10:03 am

I'd hazard a guess that you knocked out wire that controls the brightness. Does your cab have potentiometers controlling R G B Sync, Contrast and Brightness. Check those lines.

Screen looks discolored which says to me it needs degaussing.

regards,

Richard.

mikehaggar · Post by **mikehaggar** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 11:46 am

Degaussing worked, sorry for not trying this earlier. Still don't know what caused the problem, but I'm glad it's fixed nontheless!

jonny5 · Post by **jonny5** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 11:57 am

he bear me to it....that looked like it needed degaussing.....glad it worked out for ya

scary tho that just touching wires caused the screen to need to be degaussed....

mikehaggar · Post by **mikehaggar** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 12:45 pm

Yes, it is quite scary. This cabinet badly needs to be rewired. I wish I knew somebody that could do it for me.

dpful · Post by **dpful** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 5:22 pm

Yeah, touching wires shouldn't and I don't think could cause a "gausse"-ing problem. I'd trace the video wires from the jamma harness to where they connect with the monitor. Any of those loose, especially the ground, would cause color and brightness glitches, plus they hang right there where you'd touch them. I'd give those little tugs.

I've got a monitor with brightness glitches that I'm sure is a cold solder joint where those wires connect.

Also, you should investigate rewiring the cab yourself- the jamma stuff is very easy to trace and sort out (just harnes to- power supply/speakers/coins mechs/monitor/test switches), and the extra cab stuff (lights, coin counter, power conditioning, isolation transformer for monitor, any power switches and stuff) can be kept seperate and cleaned up even if it's hard to understand.

Every bundle in there is impossible to comprehend as a bundle, but very easy to understand one wire at a time.

mikehaggar · Post by **mikehaggar** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 5:22 pm

I have no knowledge about electronics, hell, I don't even know what a ground wire is. I just play the games!! Everything looks very intimidating about the inside of this cabinet, and all of the wires seem very hard to even get to. Even with all the doors open, they seem to trail in places that are unreachable. I wouldn't fear digging deeper if I had any idea what I was doing, but at this point it just seems hopeless, unless somebody could physically show me in person what is to be done.

dpful · Post by **dpful** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 4:49 am

That makes sense. I felt the exactly same way for a very long time. I could rewire a cab now no sweat, but I just it's just because I know what each component is suposed to do.
If you ever study up, know that there's not that many part, and it is all one wire at a time.

Post here if you ever need any help.