A Little More Defender Progress
Defender, Restorations July 2nd, 2007OK…nothing spectacular to report here. I got the marquee light and the coin lamps working.
The marquee light was easy…I just put a new bulb and starter in and it came right on. The coin lamps were a little trickier. They were disconnected.
The original power supply had been replaced with a switcher, and they never bothered to wire up the coin door lamps. After much debating and research, I went with Bob Roberts’ suggestion outlined here:
http://www.therealbobroberts.net/wmslamps.html
The transformer terminals that the coin door lamps used to be wired to were outputting about 9.8V. The lamps need 6.3V. I got some advice saying hook them up to the +12V on the switcher and use 12V bulbs. I also got advice saying to hook them up to the +5V. Both may work OK, but I figured it would be better to keep them isolated so as to not cause problems with any of the 3 PCBs, and would be easy enough since the original transformer was in place.
The schematics call for a 2.0 ohm, 5W resistor to drop the voltage from 9.1V to 6.3V. I bought a 2.2 and a 1.8, figuring I would use whichever one made the voltage closest to 6.3V. I tried the 2.2 ohm resistor, and it dropped the voltage to about 7.5. I tried both of them in series and it dropped it to 6V, so that’s how I wired it up.
I cut the original connector off. You can see the yellow and yellow/white wires from it on the left of the pic above. Power goes from transformer tap labeled 13 into a 5A fuse. From there, it goes into the 2 resistors, and then to the coin lamp circuit via the yellow/white wire. It comes back on the yellow wire, which connects to the transformer tap labeled 14. I used some heat shrink tubing to cover the exposed wire after I soldered it.
The game is almost 100% operational. I have a joystick rebuild kit on order which should make it game room ready.
I would like to refinish and repaint it, and clean the coin door up:
The plastic coin label thingies are cracked and horrible looking…I’m going to try to repro those. I also need to clean off all the crud on the outside and see if I can make it look like new. Here is a close up of those crud laden, cracked coin slots in all their glory!
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July 3rd, 2007 at 3:03 pm
You’re really becoming an expert on this stuff in no time. Once you get a few more fixed and put in your game room, you’ll have to take some more pics so we can see how you have everything arranged in there…
July 3rd, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Thanks! I do feel like a newbie still though.
This October will mark 1 year of insanity for me with this stuff. We are going to be doing a major rearranging of stuff in our game room/living room. The half that currently has a couch, loveseat, and big TV is going to become part of the game room. We are going to replace the big TV with a smaller one mounted on the wall, and put a bigger one upstairs with a single couch. It’s going to be a pain because the main TV we have in the game room is probably going to have to go, because it won’t fit well upstairs. I’ll have to get a flat screen to replace it, so it may be awhile before we do all that due to lack of $.
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:49 pm
hello I recently got a defender cabinet CLASSIC! loved this game growing up i am a MAJOR newbie but eagerly trying to learn… unfortonaly the game doesnt work.. i hit the power few like laser sounds start and the monitor never turns on.. off the top of your head any idea what could be going wrong? i checked the 5 fuses and 4 and 5 seem to not be getting any voltage…. anyways ANY help or any place to get help would be great i got 5 free dead cabinet and i want to get them all working:) ( return of the jedi,defender,aquajack,poleposition,and streetfighter 2
hope to hear back and thanks!
September 17th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Hey David,
If you have sound, that’s a good thing because at least the game boards might be OK (or partially OK). While I would definitely check the fuses in the bottom of the cabinet to make sure they are the correct values/types(fast vs slow blow) and are not blown, a blown fuse in the bottom of the cabinet shouldn’t cause the monitor to be completely dead – especially when you know the game is booting up.
I’d recommend checking for AC voltage with a multimeter at the power connector that feeds the monitor to see if its getting power. If it is, see if the neck on the tube has any glow. I’m guessing it probably doesn’t. If you have AC power and no neck glow, the next thing I would do is check the fuses on the monitor chassis themselves using the continuity setting on your meter (with the game powered off). Most monitors have 2 fuses soldered onto the chassis. If you have blown fuses, replace them and see what happens. If they are OK, I’d say the next step would be to do a cap kit, replace the HOT, and the flyback. That will probably bring the monitor back to life. If you’ve never done a cap kit let me know, I can point you to some resources.