Red HV: It's Alive...

This is sort of an odd story so I figured I would post it here...

about 10 years ago I was given about 7 Amplifone HV units that were all
non-working. At the time, I put each one in my SW to see if I had HV out
of any of them... alas, all 7 were dead.. they all had original REDs on
them so that made sense. So, I threw them into a crate and they sat
outside in my garage for the last 10 years.

Today, I decided I was going to try Simon's 6100 Transformer hack on my
Alpha 1 cabinet (My SW cockpit is currently using the HV unit from the
Alpha 1 with a Wintron in it). Both HV units are in the SW which is at
my friends house so I had to go find the box of 7 HV units and pick one
to use as the test unit. I sorted through them all and found a nice Blue
PCB HV unit that was burn free and complete as far as I could tell and
brought that one in the house. I cleaned it up and while doing so
spotted cracked solder connections on all the 24V regulator pins. I also
found that it was missing it's MC1. After snagging another MC1 from
another unit, I threw it in the game and turned it on so I could measure
the +/- 24V and make sure all looked good for the conversion...
Everything measured okay. I powered it down and started checking the
BU406D, it was shorted at 28 ohms between all pins. I dug around and
found my spares, upon removing the old BU406D, I found the screw holding
it to the heatsink, very very loose. I replaced it, gave it a little
silicone grease, tightened it up and was ready to pull out the HV
transformer. At this point, after finding all these problems, I figured
it was worth the time to see if it ran as with all these other issues
being cleared up... well, to make a long story not quite as long, it
worked... so I now have my Alpha 1 up and running with an original red
in place. since I don't turn the game on very much maybe it will last a
year. :-)

It has been running about 30 minutes so far... I will send an update
when it fails which may be later today. :-)

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Received on Sun Mar 26 16:43:48 2006