What was one of my favorite games in the ‘cade broke down on me – my Megatouch 7. Yes this thing is so old it has a CGA monitor, but its been a solid performer for years.
The game itself was still ok; it was playing blind, and in this case it actually died WHILE I was playing it.
Inside is a Wells-Gardner 19K7201 monitor. Some people may mistakenly think this is a “K7000” monitor, but its actually a newer model with a very different chassis. Cap kits, flybacks and other parts are available online, but again don’t mistake this for a K7000!
Symptoms were, well, it died! No high voltage or neck glow. After checking the fuse and a few bits I determined the power supply was still OK as the B+ voltage was there. Thanks to the Randy Fromm flow chart, I narrowed it down to R89, a 3.9K 5 watt ceramic resistor that went open.
Ironically I went digging in the garage and found that the “real” K7000 chassis has the same value/wattage resistor, but in a horizontal form with heavier legs. I figured I could still make it work with some heavy legs from an old fuse…
For the record, yes I managed to cut my thumb pretty good on the chassis, which is making typing this on my phone kinda interesting, but I’m powering through.
Long story short the monitor works again, but I’ll likely get a proper resistor and a cap kit for it in the near future.
As a side note, Randy Fromm is still around teaching classes on electronics and monitor repair yet in CA. You can find him at https://www.randyfromm.com. His books and flowcharts on monitor repair are invaluable in quickly bringing monitors back to life!
I’ve been getting the itch to start working on arcade stuff again, but my box of small engine parts just arrived, so back to getting greasy for now!