Cabinet maintenance help! Expert (or knowledgeable novice) needed!

Tech Talk
#1

On the offchance that there are any cabinet gurus loafing around SRK, I need some assistance.

I picked up a busted cabinet yesterday for dirt cheap. It’s SF:The Movie (yeah I know) inside of a SF2:WW cabinet. Everything seems to be in okay shape, but when I boot it up the screen looks like this:

Fumbling with the horizontal settings gets me no-where, and there are these two really tempting knobs on the back of the monitor. I am afraid of touching anything in here because I don’t want to die in an electrical and fiery explosion. Here’s those knobs:

And lastly, on what I think is the JAMMA CPS there seems to be an unplugged set of cables. Should they be unplugged? I don’t know! Here they are:

And that’s all I’ve got to work with. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, SRK!

#2

Those two knots are normally* safe to adjust, but do not get your hands anywhere near it for this one without some multimeter checking for short first. and I suggest wearing safety glove and non-conductive material to grip the knot due to the age and condition of the machine, it could have a short which have the potential to cause this same issue on the screen. Those monitor store very high voltage and can kill you pretty much instantly. So be careful and avoid any risk at all cost, it is not worth the risk.

PS: Yes, I would adjust those knots to try sync up the monitor, it seem like frequency are slightly off which is what those knots are for

#3

Wellp, I suited up and adjusted the knobs. Seemed like one of them sharpened the image, and the other changed the brightness. So, on the bright side, the picture is better, and I’m not dead; but it’s still scrambled. Any ideas?

#4

All the video signal should be coming through over the jamma connector. That unplugged cable maybe for another board or or to some feature on the cabinet like a marquee or some other light possibly even speakers. Look to see if there is another connector coming from the top portion of the cab it may be tucked up somewhere. I’m not familiar with that PCB so Im not sure it may even connect to that but I doubt it. In the pic of the rear of the monitor there looks like a piece of cardboard that is tied, take a look under it for any adjustment knobs.

Not sure but the connector might be the capcom kick harness?

#5

http://fredgolden.net/mame/images/sf2_daughter_board_manual.gif

If adjusting those pots worked for you. You probably have a bad pot. Screw around with any ones dealing with the picture you can find, and which ever one seems to give a picture and take it away the most is most likely bad due to dirt and corrosion. If this is what happens, you are going to have to look up your monitor by model and figure out what pots you need there and replace them. There are great people at byoac.com and VAPS that can help.