We Tried To Fix A Sega AFTERBURNER Arcade Machine And couldn't! PCB Repair, Custom Chips Schematics

[@wirikidor]

This was my AfterBurner. Here's some fun facts: 1) This was a Frankenstein from 3 different trashed ones that I gathered over the years and finally put this one together in 2015. 2) Out of all 3 units none of the amps worked (or even had them), so what's in it came out of an OutRun (pretty sure they're the same). I have video of all the sound working after I put the amp in here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nJuch6Seg6d6adE 3) The thumb button micro switch was NOS and I'm still cursing at how much I paid for it to this day. 4) The grip was in such terrible shape I had a local guy who restores classic cars refinish it, that's why it looks so good. Before: imgur.com/a/O7Toq After: imgur.com/a/rXwGx 5) The side art was the worst I'd ever gotten for a game it was constantly curling. I never bought from them again. And yes I used solvent on the plastic like an idiot, but the other shrouds were physically broken and that one was the best. I had always intended to paint the shroud and replace all the art. 6) The sound issues started happening slowly over time, it wasn't like half the sounds were suddenly gone.

[@TheBigExclusive]

Despite what is shown in the video, I want to say I respect that you salvaged 1 working Afterburner cabinet from 3 destroyed Afterburner cabinets. Most people would have tossed out all 3 cabinets. So thank you for saving a piece of arcade gaming history. May I ask why you got rid or sold this Afterburner cabinet? It seems like something you put a lot of work into.

[@SpaceCop]

@@TheBigExclusive I'm guessing from the number of Ron's Sighs-Per-Minute (SPM), that wirikidor sold it (rid themself of it) so that they could begin to live again.

[@wirikidor]

@@TheBigExclusive I had a huge house with 1500 sq ft of dedicated arcade space with 52 machines. I let go of the majority of the collection and downsized to a much smaller home. Some of the pieces went to Joe. Here's a video of what it looked like: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aqSUdqWpi6mGmaM

[@wirikidor]

@@SpaceCop You're not entirely wrong. As much as I love the hobby about once a month when I'd go into the basement and flipped the switches on... something would pop, you'd either hear it or smell it.

[@TheBigExclusive]

@@wirikidor - That is a great collection. Thank you for sharing. You have really good taste in game choices. A Neo Geo, Marvel Vs Capcom, Silent Scope, TMNT, Simpsons, 6 player X-men, and a photobooth (must be great at parties) really caught my eye. I know you said you downsized, but please tell me you kept the 6 player X-men cabinet? That thing is a real show piece. Even if your arcade is now half the size it was in that video, I would still be happy to play in it, and enjoy those old classic games.

[@michaelosmon]

Ron is it? I found you yesterday. This is some great content. I heard ground noise in the testing part of the video. I'd be checking the grounds are all intact and no corrosion, maybe isolate the sound board ground. My old man had a ton of games and was friends with a couple guys like you so I was always in the repair shop testing stuff. Man these videos brought back some good memories. I thank you for that. Since then I've gained the skills to do almost all of these repairs. Its so interesting to me too, and I'm in between jobs doing odd stuff to get by. Your videos made me curious enough look around my area. Turns out there's a place nearby looking for a full time tester....going in the morning to speak with them. I appreciate you

[@MRJWC2332]

Hi Ron. You are on the right track, the tamtanuim caps replace them the none for shorts and there is a resistor r39 its a votage dropper for the caps. Now the two chips are your bi-amps left & right, so all the sound from sega and narmal sound both singals go in to them. Take a good look at the schematic again and you will see from the sound chips split into each of the channels. From the bi-amps they go to the capcitors you replaced in they make up the signal higher , that then gose to the output socket : it is sheilded coax cable. its not your proccesors just caps. if it was there be nothing, as you said its not the driver amp as you changed it, so the signal is there but week at first and when you changed those caps it better correct? changed them in that section and that dropper. good day sir.🙂

[@pezjohnson]

Nuts. I guess you can't save them all. But you're still a super star for all the ones that you do fix and share with us. Thanks for doing the video!

[@TheBigExclusive]

It's not over yet. They can still fix it.

[@bretthibbs6083]

This was a fun game to play I remember taking my walkman to the arcade place when I was a kid and played top gun songs while playing it. I think they made 2 versions of this game I think they had this one and the other one was a sit down one and it moved whenever you moved the joystick.

[@equid0x]

Yes! One arcade near where I grew up had one of these you sat inside and the whole machine moved when you played it. It was my favorite!

[@LuvADuc]

Thanks for this flashback to my childhood Ron!

[@johnyetman3179]

Love your videos. I can't get enough

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you John, we're glad you're hanging out with us!

[@jeffreyshier9021]

It’s nice to see which units to steer clear of.

[@atranfanatic]

Bummer on the Afterburner man, but great job on the details and such. Can't save them all but great effort anyway. And I'm going to use the Amazon link to buy coffee, a drill chuck and a test scanner tool for an OBD II car. lol

[@tvr34448]

After burner was one of my favorite arcade games when I was little

[@luckyddubber2]

i like your video's Joe. it's amazing how you can fix all thee old arcade machines, thumbs up!

[@andysodyssey8174]

Galloping ghost arcade has a department for creating the stuff your missing . Try calling them in Chicago and you might have a working afterburner . Hope this is helpful

[@SiaVids]

I was lucky with the afterburner II machine I repaired, it was the custom sound chip that was intermittent and I happened to obtain another board cheap to swap the part over from. The machine was the cockpit version and all of the other problems lay with potentiometers and switches. luckily the in built diagnostics help a lot with diagnosing all of that.

[@geeteoh1]

Making progress... I like how you have the confidence to dive into the board level repair. I need to get a logic probe. I should get the same one using your Amazon link! ;)

[@oldguy9051]

Thanks for filming this - could be useful for other repairs! Have a Like, too! ;-) What a pity, though: These Sega sprite scaler games were sensational back then and are still awesome today!

[@olias2k979]

From my days in an Arcade, This particular game came in two flavours, a moving cabinet (see Terminator 2 Judgement day, John Conner was playing it in the arcade during the film) The standalone ones werent available till later because of the amount of room needed for the sit in cab, the standalones were often trash.

[@iowaphotos9107]

used to work on these all the time.I bet you have a lot more decoupling caps bad than you realize. some of this amps use + and - voltage and that can effect working properly.. good luck. I miss working on coin op stuff..

[@waynegram8907]

The oscilloscope will show the buzzing signal when measuring on the preamp input stage of the sound amp or the buzzing is coming out of the custom sound chips output pins when the oscilloscope will display this issue. You can also measure the +vcc voltage is any buzzing noises are riding on the voltage lines

[@PokemonMp3]

It's great to see after burner on the channel it's my favorite arcade games! You sould do a out run!

[@JohnKelly2]

A retro arcade by me had an Afterburner that would work great for a couple of days, then it would be down for a couple of weeks. Back for a couple of days, gone for a couple of weeks. He also had the motion cabinet. It didn't survive the first day. He finally just locked off the cockpit from moving so people could at least sit in it and play.

[@percival23]

Sega Afterburner ...the game John Connor was playing right before he ran into 2 Terminators. He was playing the deluxe version with the enclosure and moving seat.

[@vartaxe_1210]

Sound has issues dude,some PCM channels are miss up but great job,you are awesome repair arcades

[@davidg-m1768]

I think this is the first end of life video I’ve seen from you - and it’s still interesting.

[@Sidman723]

I could be wrong but I seem to remember the '-X' on some of those chips meant the response time in microseconds. So the '-10' would be the faster chip.

[@PlumGurly]

There are a couple of minor things folks run into, such as bad resistors, but I think that would help more with noise. Someone replaced the custom chip, and it didn't fix it at first. They did have one bad joint, and reflowing it helped. But they were missing a voltage too because 2 resistors were either missing or the wrong values. There are 2 pins that require half-voltage (so 2.5v in this case), and that is provided through the resistor voltage dividers circuits. They would be a pair of resistors with one to Vcc, one to ground, and the tap feeding the chip. I don't understand that big chip. I did find a link to fixing an Outrun.

[@Ritewy]

I would really recommend that you change the other preamp chip (LM324) It could be bad and could give you this kind of result..

[@musclesmouse]

I miss playing this game.

[@Vamptonius]

7:45 - "Where's the KABOOM? There was supposed to be an Earth shattering KABOOM."

[@yuwish6320]

Oh no! The sound is the best part! "Exprosion", lol. That's a common error when translating from Japanese to Engrish. They swap the L and R since there is no L in Japanese. Though some say they are interchangeable. Those schematics: "TOP SECRET". Sega was well known for being overly protective of their hardware. It's part of the reason they almost went under back in the late 90s. I'm really surprised Sega chose to use electrolytic caps instead of film caps for DC blocking in the audio line. Maybe they needed higher voltage rating than film caps could provide?

[@LyonsArcade]

Yup! If I ever get an Afterburner with the speech working, i'm going to FALL IN THE FLOOR

[@oldguy9051]

Some explosions really sound like "exprosions", though...

[@luckylukev]

Professional explosions!

[@andymouse]

LOL ! yeah that stuck out a mile !

[@jasonsteverson4609]

Hey Ron!! I have one of those!!

[@LyonsArcade]

It's a good one, if it's working!

[@RobSchofield]

Did you try swapping out the DAC? That's the single-point-of-failure chip that you can't do without - if the custom is still working, and the DAC1022 is dead = no sound.

[@Megalocade]

This is the the trouble with these old boards a lot of them are 30 to 40 years old now, I've stopped buying capcom cps1 boards now because of the problems with custom chips going bad and no replacements out there and if you spend a hefty sum on a classic board you expect it to work but one day soon it will fail for good and thats a lot of money wasted, it would seem sega boards suffer the same fate, such a shame there isn't someone out there who could clone working custom chips to save our old boards.

[@TheBigExclusive]

The problem with that is the factories that made these chips are either long gone, or they switched to making newer chips years ago. Someone on a forum was talking about getting their System 22 board (a board from the early 1990s) repaired at Namco. And Namco said they couldn't do it anymore because they don't even have the machines to diagnose what the problem is anymore. The diagnostic machine was scrapped 6 months before he sent in a request for repair. Namco ended up sending him one of the last System 22 boards they had leftover in their storage warehouse. Regarding your question, someone could probably make a cloned board, but it wouldn't be the same board. It would use newer technology and be much smaller. Same connectors, but much smaller. Unfortunately these boards weren't made to last this long. They were made to be used in entertainment machines for several years and then discarded. It's a miracle that the boards are running after 30 to 40 years.

[@cheeto4493]

It sounded like in the video the audio would start of good and then fade out over time. The effects ,that worked, were short enough sounds that this wasn't happening. Maybe some more capacitors that are bad? I've heard the mylar ones don't age well either.

[@naytch2003]

Don't recall ever seeing that in our arcades in the 80s in New Zealand, I do however remember seeing Firefox

[@gorillaau]

It was defintely in arcades in Australia. I'm surprised that some didn't jump the ditch to over there.

[@naytch2003]

@@gorillaau that's what I was thinking when I read your comment..I mean it probably was, but I don't remember seeing it

[@live_undead1933]

You just threw parts at it like a blind samurai... 🤣

[@MRNBricks]

I’ve watched tons of your videos. Still don’t know where the microfarad joke comes from. 😂

[@Bubbles612]

very good, good luck

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you for watching Bubbles!

[@douro20]

The DAC is the chip next to the 315-5218 PCM decoder- the MP7533.

[@ocsrc]

Sounds like a hiss, like a short in the ground shielding It is getting a signal into the circuit that it should not be getting and it sounds like it is coming from the outside, like an intermittent grounding of the line level output I don't know if maybe a chip is burnt up that is allowing the signal in or causing it to ground when there should be no ground. It seems like it is causing it to short the sound to ground so you don't hear it, but the chip is getting the sound but not going out or going out and shorting out like if you touch the line level out tip to the ring on a plug like you have on headphones. I saw this in a scanner before and in a CB handheld that it had WX and when you switch to WX it should have audio but it just has a low hiss. But the CB part works fine and I don't know what is bad that the CB part puts out sound fine, but the WX part it has no sound. The part that sends the WX in to the amp is either not sending the signal or the chip or a transistor or cap or something else burnt out, cutting the WX audio. It's not worth the cost of having it fixed. I wish I could diagnose the problem and fix it I have an RCI-1000 2 channel crystal VHF handheld 1 watt handheld radio and I have 3 of them. I bought new batteries and made the battery pack that was custom built to bring them back to life. 2 if them work great 1 has a constant transmission but there is no audio from the mic I am sure it is a simple part that went bad. Maybe a transistor that is holding on the transmitter but it won't take any mic input. And there are no manuals for these radios that I can find and the company went out of business years ago They actually built a lot of CBs and 10 meter ham radios In the late 80s or early 90s they started making these 2 channel crystal handheld 1 watt radios. They sold them almost exclusively through Walmart for 100 dollars each. The last thing they made that I remember was a 7100U or a 7100V and they were 16 channel and they were digitally controlled and programming through a serial cable and DOS software You could buy the VHF version or the UHF version and you would program all the frequencies and CTCSS tones for transmit and receive for each channel and the power output I think is 1 watt or 5 watt , high or low selected in the software. You would enter all the settings and then press the button on the computer and it would send the data in a stream to the radio and you had to program the whole radio each time, you could not just change one setting This was around 1994 they made this radio. I had that radio for a couple years and then a company called Standard that was bought out by another company a few years later, I don't remember the model number of the Standard radio, but it was VHF and ham radio that had receive from 136 to 174 MHz and I found there was a resistor that had 2 metal leads and if you cut the correct one it would allow transmit on the full band. I loved that radio because it was so small I wish I could remember what model it was. It was around 95 they came out The best thing was you could direct entry the settings for the keypad. It was great. The new quad band radios that you can buy for 50 dollars are much better but I have nostalgia for the radios that I used to own. I saw the 3 RCI-1000 listed on eBay as not working and I am happy I got 2 if them working but I would like to get the 3rd one working. I wish I could find a radio repair place that is to two-way radios what you are to video games, pinball machines and jukeboxes I need someone who is able to track the circuit board and figure out what is wrong. The cool thing about the RCI-1000 is it is a crystal radio and the board is the old brown circuit board You should keep the game to have parts and you should see if you can read all the data from it and save it. You might be able to replace the boards with an emulator and load the emulator and the Afterburner game software. And they have the interface boards that allows you to connect the OEM controls to the emulator. You should look into how hard it would be to install a raspberry pi with the 2000 games in one software on a memory card that you plug into the pi and hook the monitor up to the video output of the pi and make a joystick and buttons replacement control board for the front that hooks to the pi And hook the sound output to the speakers using one of the $10 amplifiers that you've used before Basically just use the case and leave everything that's in there for the day when it will be repairable but allow it to be used as an emulator in the meantime and either put it in your house or sell it to someone that is looking for one of these games but they would know what is wrong and they would have a usable arcade game while they wait for a time when it could be put back to the OEM afterburner. I'm the kind of guy that would do something like that in the old days where I'd repurpose something and leave it so it could be repaired when the ability came. There must be other people like me that would want that specific game and understand that it can't be repaired right now but with the advancements in technology 5 years from now they might have something that replaces the chips that you can't get. Just a thought

[@sside8]

I had an After Burner that had an audio problem too and I couldn't fix it either. I also couldn't find anyone that would work on the boards. Good try though.

[@chrisrhodes5464]

While you was testing the sound it sounded like a radio station that was not tuned in just right so try tuning it in a little better

[@VegasCyclingFreak]

Bummer. Stuff with proprietary IC chips are always a gamble to try to repair.

[@piratestation69]

This maybe a long shot but have you dumped the sound roms and compared the crc to mame roms? Also the orange caps may be shorted (cant remember the name of them). I have a robocop that has the same problem. Speech and music work but the gun and explosions dont. Ive replaced both dacs bodged a couple of traces. The rom board is fine the cpu board is the problem. Wanna take a crack at it? I noticed no note saying 'it's broke'...

[@naytch2003]

Ronnie has already fixed it and sold it..

[@piratestation69]

@@naytch2003 really... do you know how he fixed it?

[@naytch2003]

@@piratestation69 no but he usually films these videos in advance as he's quite often said in the past..

[@RobSchofield]

4066 ICs are a set of 4 analog switches in one, CMOS.

[@irieman442]

The gamed from that era were great. The technology moved so quickly during that time. I am glad I got to experience it. It's going to bug you non stop. That game will get fixed. LOL

[@AvengerII]

Afterburner is a tough game to play. I've played variations on it like the original Top Gun videogame for NES as well as a later Afterburner update by Sega that was released on the PlayStation 3. I still have that PS3 game. Most Top Gun games I've noticed are Afterburner clones. The F-14 is ALWAYS a choice for playing in Afterburner and Top Gun. I'm pretty sure Afterburner was influenced by the movie, Top Gun. The videogame came out a year after the movie.

[@lassitc]

Did you check the AC ripple on the DC? Also, something is over heating to cause that fading out.

[@michaelosmon]

25:52 lol that's awesome top secret game schematics

[@10100rsn]

Anytime I hear hum or noise in an audio circuit I move straight to any electrolytic bypass capacitors in the power lines of the circuit. Any electrolytic capacitor on the power rails to an op-amp in the pre-amp circuit or electrolytic in the power amp circuit or both.

[@jonathanmessore1907]

sega games were awesome but always problematic. sometimes you could just push all the chips back in and be all set...other times...no sale. pain in the ass to work on them, but made decent $$$

[@gp8126]

I am sure you already have?. You say you have many of those games, do you not have a working board to compare readings against that board, or even just the custom ic?.. Also could other caps on the board be bad as they have all done the same time?. You mentioned they are not leaking but didn't mention if you tested them?. Such a shame for a smallish fault to be the END OF LIFE for the game. Great video as usual...Thanks

[@theicebolt4361]

Space Harrier - where the dude flies around like the jet in afterburner - would the manufactured cabinet be similar / identical.

[@LyonsArcade]

Yes I think it is very similar!

[@VulpisFoxfire]

...Did you think of maybe replacing the ROMs?

[@MegaSpambox]

Nice try Ron thanx for showing this instead of trying to show perfect jobs every time 👍we all have our limits :)

[@draketungsten74]

"Just to recap... we replaced the capacitors." 😉

[@svhaze56]

If I recall there's a aftermarket board for all the same Era segas outrun ect

[@franktedeschi5331]

Can you show a screenshot of this hourglass for searching for particular videos that you speak of?

[@LatitudeSky]

Poor sick game. It will fly again. Do they all come with VF-1 side decals or was that from the previous owner maybe trying to reference a VF-1 Valkyrie?

[@AvengerII]

No, it's NOT a Macross reference. "VF-1" is a generic Navy reference. "VF" stands for fighter squadron. "VF-1" in particular was the Wolf Pack, a fighter squadron which along with VF-2 were the first frontline squadrons to deploy on board USS Enterprise/CVN-65 in fall 1974. They covered the evacuation of Saigon but did not engage any North Vietnamese MiGs. VF-1 The Wolf Pack was one of the F-14 Tomcat squadrons that disestablished in the mid-1990s. They disbanded after their home carrier, USS Ranger/CV-61, was decommissioned. The aircraft and personnel of VF-1 were reassigned to other active duty squadrons. There is no VF-1 or VFA-1 (strike fighter squadron) in active service; the number's been retired.

[@chrisingle5839]

Might be good for parts?

[@iamdkk]

worth replacing the op-amps?

[@RedMorgan79]

Ron how many Afterburners do you have stored? More than 3 would would you say?

[@LyonsArcade]

We have 5

[@RedMorgan79]

@@LyonsArcade Jeebus...

[@Robotron2084psn]

My all time fav arcade game.

[@LyonsArcade]

It's on another level!

[@airbornelocksmith]

Ron I send you an email. I know you're crazy busy. But I work on SMD all the time

[@ryanwolf7174]

Just put it on the back shelf for another day. Maybe one day you’ll get one like like it that’s broken that you can use the motherboard.

[@naytch2003]

Maybe he already fixed it and sold it?:)

[@carlstanland5333]

Could you fix the controls and sell it at a discount, or do you have too much $ into it for labor to do that?

[@viscountalpha]

You verified the eprom didn't go bad and the traces are ok?

[@naytch2003]

Ronnie knows what he's doing..he got this 👍

[@dennistowne457]

Could a sound rom(s)be bad?

[@zyxxy]

RIP Afterburner

[@jumpingeneral]

Where is the broken afterburner today ?😎

[@JESUSCHRYSLER5512]

**SO, WE SLEDGE HAMMERED IT!!**

[@fred_derf]

I have a memory of _Afterburner_ being used in a movie -- but I can't remember the movie. Does anyone know what movie I might be thinking about? Was it Terminator 2?

[@JendaLinda]

It should be possible to replace the sound board with something else. Perhaps somebody could take the audio part from an emulator and run it on Raspberry Pi Zero. People are sticking Raspberry Pis into their Amigas and other things.

[@andymouse]

I dunno, ya got the case and the screen cool flight stick and all that could you bung an emulator in there and run that ?....chers.

[@naytch2003]

I feel the need..the need for w I mean speed ✈ 😁..Just say no people come on now

[@Mrshoujo]

Don't give up on this machine. You just need the consult of someone who knows the machine well. Maybe that Voultar guy? Sounds like something in a sound chip is bad. If it was an amplifier, you'd always hear it. But you hear it only when an audio effect is activated.

[@MegaWimberly]

What an EXPROSIVE video lol

[@LyonsArcade]

Pow! Zing! Boom! WagaWaga!!!!

[@agentx7138]

*TOP SECRET* You have great sources! Maybe next time don't show the stamp.

[@LyonsArcade]

I dare 'em to do anything about it!!!! We got their paperwork and that's that!!!!

[@williamgreen5575]

The 3 ROMS for the voices look like they are the wrong ones. Too small, physically, and no stickers to confirm what's burned to them. Look like someone tried replacing them but got it wrong

[@LyonsArcade]

Unfortunately they're the correct roms, the sockets were just made larger to accomodate bigger chips if they used a different game in this same board. You see that from time to time...

[@retrogamestudios6688]

That's what I said exprosion

[@MrButtonpresser]

This game has had one too many EXPROSION!

[@joegrant3607]

Reflow custom chip?

[@ribbit876]

That's what I was thinking. Worth a shot.

[@equid0x]

I wonder if anyone has ever tried baking this board? Sometimes that seems to revive old ICs that have gone flakey.

[@joegrant3607]

Would be time consuming

[@lileveretteyoakumiii]

Hello Yodelayheehoo

[@RobSchofield]

@ 33:33 - the -10 means 100ns, -25 is 250ns, ie. it's slower. You really need -10s.

[@LyonsArcade]

Rob you say that very confidently, did you look either part number up? the reason I mentioned it in the video is because I've often looked these up, so I just looked it up again and you're wrong. The -10 is 100ns, the -25 is 25ns. They're completely different parts, the original ones put a -10 because nothing was 10ns back then, it stood for -100 but as it got faster they started labeling them -50 -25etc So I put the faster one in, and you told me I was wrong... actually you were wrong

[@rorymacleod8488]

Don't plug it UP plug it IN. !!

[@LyonsArcade]

We plug them up around here you crazy Canucks always get your wordz wrong

[@beast02180]

sounds like something is locking on the audio.

[@johnneilokowitz2682]

You tried so you know where to start next time

[@freeculture]

To me After Burner has to be the one that moves your seat, i did play with this type but it isn't the same, even though its exactly the same game.

[@VulpisFoxfire]

Heh...that and the G-Loc deluxe...

[@Michigan_Tactical]

SMT really isn't that hard to do.

[@LyonsArcade]

It's impossible to do if it's a custom chip that they haven't made since 1989... you get your tools together, you take the old one off, and boy that wasn't that hard to do, you'd do really good that far. Then, you'd realize it's a custom chip (like I said in the video 100 times) that you can't buy anywhere because Sega made it and stopped making it in 1989. Once you realize that, no amount of skill at SMT will help you :)

[@Michigan_Tactical]

@@LyonsArcade you said you stop when you get surface mount devices, not when you get to impossible to source components. There's a big difference.

[@Homeschoolsw6]

The AFTERBURNNER Cabinet you sit in pinches your legs.

[@demofilm]

aah capacitors,,, the influenza of the electronics. nice repair video again Ron. even if it is not the end we where hoping for. thank you for showing us . Even the ''secret'' papers :) very cool. i know making these videos cost a lot of time. i much apreciate it.

[@LyonsArcade]

Thank you demofilmpuntnl we appreciate you always hanging out with us!