Nice, I just bought a tabletop version of Defender that's fantastic and even has the authentic control setup. It's only a couple hundred clams, it sounds and plays just like the real thing but it doesn't take up much space. It's made by a company called Arcade 1 Up and if you love Defender but can't afford a real arcade game the 1 Up is a great way to get to play that game again after decades off.
wondras yeah, they all seem too short. Someone needs to make a quality probe that has a proper ground connection or better still the ground is back at the scope so you don't have a mess of tangled wires on the bench
Do you know what causes the issue where it goes to rug pattern then second pattern black screen reset back to rug pattern when it gets to black screen all leds go on and off
little late, I wound up using the Defender later series cocktail scan for a PDF version of the manual as that's way better than the upright one. the rom board PIA handles the error LEDs, sound calls, and the coin door inputs. so when they fail it's a thing to see flashing or stuck LEDs, stuck inputs on the audit/adjustment screen, or to completely lose sound. (different symptom from sound board PIA failure where it plays wrong sounds, that I've seen) I have some pretty interesting broken Defenders in my collection, just a matter of getting around to looking at them.
Loved this :) thanks for sharing. I have collected the board set from the USA only minor things went wrong by the time it got to me but all working fine on a switcher to power the boards and a pc power supply sorting the scart volts to my 19" sony crt to auto switch to rgb ect. I'm making the cabinet when the nice weather returns in the uk! put a video of my son helping me to show it all working :) I'm in the meantime looking for the correct monitor instead of using the 19" crt tv but does work and looks like it should do but just not found one as of yet. I have seen some kind of touch screen 19" crt can get that without the touch part just not sure. Now going through your videos as love all the information gained. Thanks with a sub ;)
What do you typically charge for a repair? I'm in need of a repair on a recent pickup, but it's on the back burner to be fixed since I never have time.
Nothing to remind you that you're still young, like that high-pitched CRT noise. My compliments to microphone circuit manufacturer, cheap ones just don't catch high frequencies that good.
Do you repair 2 player offroad boards I have 2 sets one locks up the other has garbage. There are a lot of people trying to find out someone to repair these
Hello, thanks for doing this video. sounds like you put a lot of time into this board. How do you charge the customer? sounded like you had at least 3 days on the repair
Some of them can be lengthy for sure, we operate a no-fix, no-fee for most boards and a fairly flat rate labour fee plus parts scheme. Rates vary depending on the board type and number of boards involved in a set, example, if you have to work on CPU, ROM and sound boards like in this set then the rate is slightly higher than just fixing say a RAM issue on the CPU board. We give everyone a best and worst case labour scenario before they mail anything in to us. This one was longer because I hadn't done a sound board before for one of these and the ROM board PIA chip removal took longer than expected (I wasn't sure if the chip was dead or not so didn't want to just cut it out of the board).
Love your video. I am the original owner of a Defender Cocktail version. Boards are in great condition, but video not working. I live in the US. Any advice on getting it fixed?
Hey great repair vid.. I'm new to arcade repair and wondering how you wired the video to your commodore monitor? is it direct or did you change the sync signal?
Hi Calvin, I made a very small sync combiner circuit out of an XOR gate to give me a stable sync signal at the 1084's input. You can do similar by twisting the two wires together but some monitors don't like it. I used a 74LS86 if I remember correctly, you can also invert the signal through this if needed.
Hi, I have an original upright Williams Defender and lately it keeps rebooting while playing the game. Can you do repairs for this or have any advice for a remedy? Thanks in advance
Hi, please always contact us direct via the website for repairs as we are always behind on monitoring comments on TH-cam. Go to: www.retrogamesparty.co.uk/contact for repair enquiries. UK Based, about 6 weeks turnaround time.
Andy's super good, I follow him on facebook. I've been handling Williams repairs at KLOV for the last 4 years. little paranoid about shipping now though with the way things are in America with the post office and FedEx lost something I shipped recently.
Thanks for the great video! I'm in the process of repairing my own Defender (I acquired it non-working). Getting close... Feel free to view it on my channel, I'd love to hear your opinion on it and if I'm heading in the right direction repair-wise.
I hang out on UKVaC and a few Facebook groups, if I have time, i'm happy to answer questions there publicly, if you want the board repairing I can do that but I don't have time to direct one-to-one correspondence unfortunately. There can be so many problems on Defender boards that it can be almost impossible to remote diagnose it.
Already been done but in FPGA with a real 6809E but where's the learning exercise. From a player's point of view I completely get where you're coming from but that's not what this channel is ultimately about - the loss of knowledge due to convenience is something that will stifle industry eventually because nobody will know how to actually do anything without being dependent on someone else's thing.
Have you stopped making videos now? Please come back, a lot us need channels like yours to watch!
Nice, I just bought a tabletop version of Defender that's fantastic and even has the authentic control setup. It's only a couple hundred clams, it sounds and plays just like the real thing but it doesn't take up much space. It's made by a company called Arcade 1 Up and if you love Defender but can't afford a real arcade game the 1 Up is a great way to get to play that game again after decades off.
James, very glad you are back! Looking forward to seeing more Williams PCBs for repair on your bench. Cheers.
Potentially at least one more - a sinistar at the moment.
Fantastic! That was a challenging repair! Hope you get around to doing some more videos soon!
GadgetUK164 cheers, haven't seen anything from you in a bit either.
thank you sir for your contribution to keeping this old game alive best game ever made you are brilliant
Nice job. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who clips an alligator lead onto the way-too-short ground leads of Rigol probes. :)
wondras yeah, they all seem too short. Someone needs to make a quality probe that has a proper ground connection or better still the ground is back at the scope so you don't have a mess of tangled wires on the bench
Ah Defender! I've got a big pile of them to go through soon. Always interesting to see the various issues on these boards :-)
If you need any help, just holler!
Do you know what causes the issue where it goes to rug pattern then second pattern black screen reset back to rug pattern when it gets to black screen all leds go on and off
top work James
Wait! You finally closed a video properly. Thanks for this great video.
Closed properly? Not sure what you mean there.
Awesome knowledge, like a kid in a candy store when I see a new one especially a Defender.
little late, I wound up using the Defender later series cocktail scan for a PDF version of the manual as that's way better than the upright one. the rom board PIA handles the error LEDs, sound calls, and the coin door inputs. so when they fail it's a thing to see flashing or stuck LEDs, stuck inputs on the audit/adjustment screen, or to completely lose sound. (different symptom from sound board PIA failure where it plays wrong sounds, that I've seen) I have some pretty interesting broken Defenders in my collection, just a matter of getting around to looking at them.
hi James great repair I like the way you explain things properly
Hey Gaz so you are still alive :) ain't seen you in ages! Hope you're well.
Great video. Hope to see more of you on the tubes :-)
Jman working on quite a big update vid
Loved this :) thanks for sharing. I have collected the board set from the USA only minor things went wrong by the time it got to me but all working fine on a switcher to power the boards and a pc power supply sorting the scart volts to my 19" sony crt to auto switch to rgb ect. I'm making the cabinet when the nice weather returns in the uk! put a video of my son helping me to show it all working :) I'm in the meantime looking for the correct monitor instead of using the 19" crt tv but does work and looks like it should do but just not found one as of yet. I have seen some kind of touch screen 19" crt can get that without the touch part just not sure. Now going through your videos as love all the information gained. Thanks with a sub ;)
Love these repair vids, nice job!
What do you typically charge for a repair? I'm in need of a repair on a recent pickup, but it's on the back burner to be fixed since I never have time.
Nothing to remind you that you're still young, like that high-pitched CRT noise. My compliments to microphone circuit manufacturer, cheap ones just don't catch high frequencies that good.
Do you repair 2 player offroad boards I have 2 sets one locks up the other has garbage. There are a lot of people trying to find out someone to repair these
Something i'm working on at the moment, I will be doing them soon, they are just an awkward board to physically work on.
Hello, thanks for doing this video. sounds like you put a lot of time into this board. How do you charge the customer? sounded like you had at least 3 days on the repair
Some of them can be lengthy for sure, we operate a no-fix, no-fee for most boards and a fairly flat rate labour fee plus parts scheme. Rates vary depending on the board type and number of boards involved in a set, example, if you have to work on CPU, ROM and sound boards like in this set then the rate is slightly higher than just fixing say a RAM issue on the CPU board. We give everyone a best and worst case labour scenario before they mail anything in to us.
This one was longer because I hadn't done a sound board before for one of these and the ROM board PIA chip removal took longer than expected (I wasn't sure if the chip was dead or not so didn't want to just cut it out of the board).
Love your video. I am the original owner of a Defender Cocktail version. Boards are in great condition, but video not working. I live in the US. Any advice on getting it fixed?
Dead monitor? Look up arcade buffet.
good vid very informative
Hey great repair vid.. I'm new to arcade repair and wondering how you wired the video to your commodore monitor? is it direct or did you change the sync signal?
Hi Calvin, I made a very small sync combiner circuit out of an XOR gate to give me a stable sync signal at the 1084's input. You can do similar by twisting the two wires together but some monitors don't like it. I used a 74LS86 if I remember correctly, you can also invert the signal through this if needed.
Hi, I have an original upright Williams Defender and lately it keeps rebooting while playing the game. Can you do repairs for this or have any advice for a remedy? Thanks in advance
Hi, please always contact us direct via the website for repairs as we are always behind on monitoring comments on TH-cam.
Go to: www.retrogamesparty.co.uk/contact for repair enquiries. UK Based, about 6 weeks turnaround time.
Great video.. you know anyone in the US that repairs boards?
Look up Andrew Welburn - his facebook page is called "Andy's Arcade" - he's located in California.
Andy's super good, I follow him on facebook. I've been handling Williams repairs at KLOV for the last 4 years. little paranoid about shipping now though with the way things are in America with the post office and FedEx lost something I shipped recently.
James, would you be able to help me with a Defender repair?
Hi, I've sent you a message on the vac, need some board repairs pole position,
Thanks for the great video! I'm in the process of repairing my own Defender (I acquired it non-working). Getting close... Feel free to view it on my channel, I'd love to hear your opinion on it and if I'm heading in the right direction repair-wise.
I hang out on UKVaC and a few Facebook groups, if I have time, i'm happy to answer questions there publicly, if you want the board repairing I can do that but I don't have time to direct one-to-one correspondence unfortunately. There can be so many problems on Defender boards that it can be almost impossible to remote diagnose it.
Love it when you yell at people. ;D
Can't these big dumb boards be replaced with a SoC
Already been done but in FPGA with a real 6809E but where's the learning exercise. From a player's point of view I completely get where you're coming from but that's not what this channel is ultimately about - the loss of knowledge due to convenience is something that will stifle industry eventually because nobody will know how to actually do anything without being dependent on someone else's thing.
Of course he was crossed eyed ... : D