Windy 2 dead screen and 'chirping' chassis?!

[ChrisBEANS]

So my WIndy 2 has gone kaput, for no discernible reason. Seems a conspicuous fault, so hopefully someone can give me an idea of quite how bad it is...

It's been playing perfectly fine, I've had a Mistercade in it for the past few days, zero issue.

I turned it on remotely this evening (smart plug app) so I wasn't in the room when the cabs were switched on. However, nothing had been changed, touched, moved, bumped since it was working perfectly fine yesterday.
The Windy 2 and the U4 both run from the same 2 socket step down (Airlink), and the U4 is on and working fine.

I came into the room a few minutes after the cabs had been switched on and the windy marquee light was on, I could hear the fans spinning, but the screen was blank. I opened the front and could see that there was power to the MiSTercade. I could also hear a 'chirping' sound coming from the chassis.

I turned it off, double checked the connections, all seemed fine. Turned it back on, there is power but the screen is completely black and the chassis still chirps.

I pulled it out to have a better look, and changed the PCB. Same issue, power, lights, dead screen and chirping.

I obviously know bugger all about what does what on a chassis, so I've taken a brief video and you can hear that the chirping seems to be coming from an area on the chassis towards the front of the cab.

Any ideas?




Edit: basic googling suggests it's a switching power supply issue. Likely a high voltage capacitor?! That's good, right? As in, fairly easily rectified??
Edit 2: Or the hot, or the flyback. I'm giving up on trying to self diagnose. Even if I do stumble across the right answer I still won't be able to do anything about it

[thomj]

Hard to tell on the video but

1) be careful where you're waving your arm around back there is you don't know what not to touch..
2) work out if it's the monitor or the PSU. Is the monitor totally black? All lights off in the room. Is there zero light coming from the screen? No neck glow? No static when you wave your hand in front of the screen? If so wait for Grant to reply. If the monitor has faint glow in a black room then good it's just displaying a blank screen. In that case it's probably the PSU which is a much easier swap / fix. Put in something that should be playing sounds, attract mode or you know what to press to get into a game or whatnot, and check there is no sound, if there's no sound and screen is operational that will confirm it's PSU.

[geotrig]

Worth checking the fuses but I'm assuming since it making chirps noises it's probably not that.
What you do need to do is just work backwards to rule out any ways identifiable causes.and see what it is and isn't doing

[zak]

Same thing happened with one of my Cutes in the past. Grant recapped the PSU and the screen came back to life.

[o1s1n]

+1 on checking the PSU first.

I had the same issue with my Pony a couple of years ago. Knew it probably wasn't the chassis as I'd had it recapped not too long ago.

Stuck in a new PSU and the monitor fired right up.

[yosai]

I turned it on remotely this evening (smart plug app) so I wasn't in the room when the cabs were switched on.

That's generally a bad idea (the not being in the room, not the smart plug) if there is an issue with anything you want to switch if off asap.

Grant should be able to sort the chassis.

[ChrisBEANS]

I turned it on remotely this evening (smart plug app) so I wasn't in the room when the cabs were switched on.

That's generally a bad idea (the not being in the room, not the smart plug) if there is an issue with anything you want to switch if off asap.

Grant should be able to sort the chassis.

Yeah, fair comment! I won’t do that again!

I’ve spoken to Grant. He’s an idea of what it might be. Just needs some pics of the chassis and hopefully we’ll be able to go from there…

[wigsplitta]

Fingers crossed for ya. I had possibly the same issue on my Wndy 2, and Grant was able to resolve. Just checked my PM’s:

“Toshiba PB7534 - Clicking chassis”

I cleared a lot of my messages a while back so can’t see what he might’ve said the issue was. I think it was flyback related, and possibly other stuff. Cab is still working nicely though to this day

[ChrisBEANS]

I’ve spoken to the man himself… super hoping he’ll have a look at it

[ChrisBEANS]

Just in case it’s useful information for future searches…

Apparently the flyback was bad, which in turn shorted the horizontal output transistor…

I’ve ordered a new flyback, and I’ll update here once Grant has it and can establish if there are any other issues.

[ChrisBEANS]

In news that will surprise none of you… Grant is the man!!

So, apparently the flyback was bad, and that knocked the horizontal transistor out… that was the main issue.

He’s also replaced some caps, the HOT and some pots on the remote.

IMG_8610.jpeg

IMG_8589.jpeg

You can’t really see all four of the colour bars at once because of the refresh rate, but they’re pretty good.

The whole thing needs a lot of calibration, but to get it to where it is now took about an hour and I’ve had enough for the day.

Brilliant stuff. I’m super pleased.

Thanks again @grantspain (flexing arm emoji)

[o1s1n]

Result! Future proofed now for a while too.

Grant really is the savior of CRTs, the amount of chassis that he's fixed for folks I know over here in Ireland is crazy.

[Pete]

Good result we're lucky to have Grant in this community.

[ChrisBEANS]

This chassis is an absolute bitch to adjust! Especially in a Windy 2.

Pots in all sorts of random places, impossible to access in the cab, and the wiring/cables are too short to have it running outside of the cab.

In a weird masochistic kind of way I’m enjoying fighting with it.

[yosai]

Good result we're lucky to have Grant in this community.

QFT.

Good to hear you got it fixed.

[zak]

Good result we're lucky to have Grant in this community.

This^ all my chassis have his DNA on them. If he retires, I'll quit the hobby or use that DNA to clone him.

[Pete]

I think Tony from Deith Leisure has retired now as not seen him about in quite some time.