Atomiswave monitor likely dead

[pookycade]

So I have an Atomiswave that I rotated. Turned it back on and no picture but a buzzing sound. Looked around a little to see if anything had come loose and also to look at the yoke tube. Yoke tube was glowing, and I also found that the external VGA cord that connect straight to the yoke board had possibly come loose as it was disconnected from the white socket on that board it appears to plug in to. In order to get this connector back in place I had to gently remove the yoke board from the tube, being as careful as i could not to break the neck. Powered the thing back on and I get in the middle of the screen a single green dot which lasts maybe 30 seconds, and then shuts off. Ever since then I just get chassis clicking (not especially loud but noticeable) and the yoke tube no longer glows. Doesn't appear to be a loose connection between yoke board and yoke tube.

I'm assuming "its dead jim". Any gurus want to chime in on whether I would need to replace the tube, the chassis, or the whole thing ? If the answer is "the whole thing" I'll probably just chuck it unless I can fit in a wells gardner 9200 I have sitting around. Not sure it will fit though. I assume this is a Weiya chassis, though the monitor tube says Samsung on it.

It is possible that this screwing around with it wasn't what actually killed it. When the unit shipped it arrived with the monitor brackets bent beyond belief and the entire monitor shifted inferiorly by 2 inches ! Surprisingly the monitor still worked, but I got the company to shift a blast city as a free replacement. So this was an extra piece. We were able to rebend the brackets to reshift the monitor but could have trashed it somehow in the process (which is pretty much what I thought would happen).

Thanks in advance.

[grantspain]

the dot is showing you have no horizontal or vertical deflection-normally means yoke is not plugged in
if you removed the board on the yoke you probably broke some wires

[thechop]

Remember when I first rotated mine the wires were cable tied up and there was definitely not enough 'slack' to rotate without it pulling the wires as the chassis stays where it is(it's not in the frame) and only the tube rotates, even with the wires cut free there's not much room for rotation so may be the case.
Get the back open and look for disconnected wires, with power off of course.

[pookycade]

Checked the pins on the yolk connector and I can't see any that are broken. The neck board is pushed snug against the tube. Can't see any broken or loose wires anywhere. Still clicking. Some of the solder traces surrounding the yolk connector look a little brown. In the first photo you can see the connector I found unoccupied and the female end from the VGA cord that was floating above it.

Still clicking.

Any suggestions. I'm thinking that even if there is no visible pins broken that internally that socket is not making a connection to the tube.

[grantspain]

the neck card connector is video signal,you should check that your remote control pcb cable has not detached

[pookycade]

Remote control cables not detached.

However in poking around I found a few things. Even trying to discharge monitor after turning it on recently, I get no discharge pop whatsoever. Fuse to the chassis is fine and the chassis is making the click so at least some power is getting to it, but obviously none to the monitor itself (as indicated by the lack of glow)

I was checking the cables and just happened to knock against the large capacitor in the attached photo (the one with the blue OK sticker on it on the back left of the Wei Ya board). The darn thing can be lifted up about 1/4 inch off the board with NO RESISTANCE. Its still soldered somehow to the board since I can only freely move it up and down so far, but not pull it out entirely. This is also not a case of the lead on the caps being a little too long. In my former life I was a EE so I know what a too long lead is supposed to feel like. Going to have to wait a day or so, but appears the solder joints for this cap broke free from the solder pad on the chassis PC board. Since I have no idea what exactly that cap is, would that explain perhaps the click .... click .... click and lack of firing the monitor. Seems a red herring since the monitor stopped glowing after I removed the neck board, but since I can't see any obvious damage and I was very careful about that, the possibility that another failed component is leading to this is certainly there.

[pookycade]

Closer and in focus view of the suspect cap

[grantspain]

best check for bad solder joints on the entire chassis and in particular that cap

[Hewitson]

I wouldn't bother checking the cap out, the sticker says it's OK!

[pookycade]

So, I have returned ..... and I just flamed another $175 : (

The story: Resoldered the suspect cap, checked the rest of the board, fired it back up and .... wait for it ..... click, click, click goes the chassis. Damn !

The solution: Chuck the whole chassis and go buy a new Weiya from Alva

The outcome: NOT GOOD ! Got finished swapping out the entire chassis, fired it up and ..... no click click click, but otherwise NADA. Turned off the lights and checked the tube - yep thats glowing a nice orange. Scratch my head for a few minutes until I realize that being the idiot I am, I connected the VGA cable from the old chassis to my Multicade board ... duh ! Ok, this time for sure. Connect the right VGA cable from the new chassis to the Multicade, fire it up, and ... single red dot in the middle of the screen (I suppose to complement the previous single green dot I had in the middle of the screen with the other chassis). 10 seconds goes by and screen goes blank again. Turn everything off, fire it back up and .... wait for it .... click, click, click from the new chassis. No more nice orange glow from the tube. Damn !

Anybody care to fill me in on what the hell just happened here ? I think the "I just blew-up the new chassis" is pretty self explanatory. The bigger question is how did my evil tube or signals from my VGA cable take the thing down. Multicade board is NOT the suspect - that works just fine on my Blast City and Astro City with a new Wells D9200 monitor in it. Unless anybody has a good idea about what I just blew up and where to go next, I'm just going to chuck the whole thing. Not worth investing one more dollar even if it is a nice cab. I've gotten alot more entertainment out of $200 than this episode.

[pookycade]

So hindsight is always 20/20 ain't it ?

Once I actually bothered to whip out the Weiya manual (kindly inserted with the new chassis) I learned a few things that perhaps would have been better learned beforehand.

1) Listen to Grantspain. He knows what he speaketh of. Those four dangling red, green, blue, and yellow wires that seem to lead to nowhere, are actually the deflection yoke plug that I pulled out when I rotated the AWSD. I thought they were some extraneous connector

2) If one would have actually read the manual, it would have been clear that this wonderful part should have been plugged into the new chassis before I decided to start it up. Single red dot in middle of screen now explained.

3) Further pulled out some red/black connector (I assume power of some sorts to the yoke) going to the CN7 plug on the Weiya chassis. Ditto for the degauss line.

So what is the moral of this story ? Well:

1) Don't screw with a functioning monitor thinking you can make it better if you just turned it 90 degrees

2) Don't screw with a functioning monitor unless you've identified every last connector and where it goes before rotating it.

3) Don't screw with a functioning monitor unless you actually know how to fix it when you stupidly break it by pulling out said wires and forget to put them back in the right place before turning on the monitor.

4) Click, click, click ... is a very bad sound for a monitor chassis to make.

5) When you put back said connectors after you've already reached click, click, click stage ... the jig is up .... click, click, click is not going away .... start over and pull out your checkbook.

6) An AWSD was never meant to be rotated, at least not by someone who has no idea what they are doing.

Ok, so we know how I blew it up .... is it actually fixable ? Want to hazard a guess as to what I actually killed on the chassis board ? I'm hoping its just an easily identified and desoldered amplifier IC or MOSFET. At this point I'm so all in, that I'm willing to put in a few hours replacing an IC if only to not look in the end like a complete moron that I feel like right now. 21 years of post high school education, a degree in electrical engineering, and I still make the same mistakes I made in high school. At least I didn't kill myself with 20,000 volts. My kids and wife wouldn't have been happy about that.

[Hewitson]

If a chassis is clicking it normally means that you've got a shorted HOT (horizontal output transistor). The clicking sound is the SMPS shutting itself off and on.

[pookycade]

Thanks for the reply. Would not having the yoke properly connected to the chassis likely explain a shorted HOT or am I likely also looking at a bad tube here ? Btw anyone know which is the HOT on this board (weiya 3129d I think). Manual includes no circuit diagram.

[Wurstkopp]

Don't know where the HOT on these chassis is located, but it sure sounds very strange killing two chassis just by not connecting the deflection wires. Must be something else. Maybe you let Craig check them?

[grantspain]

some chassis the HOT **** out with yoke disconnected
btw in the wiki there is a rodotron 666a schem-they are almost identical (except a few custom ic)
the HOT is a 2sc5144 at Q36,think some were built with phillips BU2527AW

[pookycade]

Awesome. Thanks for all the replies. Stay tuned . More to come. Off to find a new HOT

[grantspain]

read centre leg with a meter on ohms to heatshield-it should read open circuit

[Hewitson]

some chassis the HOT **** out with yoke disconnected

Yep. Most arcade monitor chassis were very poorly designed pieces of equipment.

[pookycade]

Collector (center pin) to chassis/ground measures 660 ohms. Based on the center pin test the HOT should still be ok right ? Where to go next ?

[pookycade]

Chassis number three (2nd new one) installed, all wires connected where they are supposed to be and ....... it works again.

So we can conclude from this that yoke deflection not properly connected to Weiya chassis = dead chassis.