Posted by Drew Rudman on Apr 5, 2019

Tempest Power Up Troubleshooting

So, as part of a maintenance visit to our Palm Springs Midmod vacation rental property, I was prepared to troubleshoot the Frogger system that was reportedly no longer working. After determining that the Frogger system would need a new switching power supply, I decided I should make sure the other systems at the house were operational. Unfortunately, I would only end up batting .250 as 3 of the 4 systems would not even power on. Ugh.

Fortunately, Defender was a fairly straightforward and quick fix, but Tempest would be more of the problem child she has become. First thing to always check when troubleshooting power on issues are the fuses in the linear power supply of these older units. Sure enough, two of the slow blow fuses were blown.

After a quick trip to Ace Hardware in South Palm Springs to pick up and replace a 7 amp fuse 1 and a 4 amp fuse 5, the system did power on but made an awful hissing noise that I can only assume to be high voltage arcing. The fuses held long enough for me to determine that the game play sounds were emanating from the machine but the vector monitor, which has been repaired twice by Area Amusements, was once again kaput.

Decisions, decisions. Do I drag this thing back to Area Amusements and make them fix what is slowly becoming a money pit for both them and me or try my hand at troubleshooting a flyback on a vector monitor? Fuck it, it’s going back to AA for them to deal with. This time, their going to fix it for good.

So, I loaded it up in the trusty family truckster for the trip home with a brief stop at Area Amusements.

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