TMNT: Turtles in Time PCB Sound Isssue

Gamester

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Hey guys,

I just got a TMNT: Turtles in Time PCB and for some reason, the volume of the sound from this board is very low and can be barely heard at all even on amplified speakers. I have other PCBs with stereo audio that sound plenty loud. Is there some trick to get the volume to increase on this board or something, or does it sound like something is damaged? Both left and right channel volume adjustments are all the way up and have been tried at different levels with no change. Also, the adjustment knobs on this board seem to have a lot less resistance when turned compared to my other boards.

Thanks,
Gamester
 
Neo Alec

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I have the game and the sound works fine. It sounds like it's broken I'm afraid.
 
Gamester

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Surely there is something I can try. I don't really want to unsolder anything off of the board, but is there anyway to bypass the switch to full volume to test it? These boards are not too easy to find.
 
Xian Xi

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Check the caps, you might need to replace some.
 
norton9478

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If you don't want to do it yourself, Channelmanic repairs boards.
 
Gamester

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Ok, how exactly do I check the capacitors and which ones do I need to check. It has been a long time since electronics class, lol...

1061189256.jpg


(Picture off of Google, not my actual board, but same PCB)
 
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Gamester

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Yea, I know what caps are and what they look like, but how can you actually test them? Also, do the audio adjustment switches, variable resistors, commonly fail on PCBs?
 
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Xian Xi

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From my limited experience I have only had 1 pot go bad but whenever I need to change caps I jut replace all of them so I don't have to do it twice.

As far as checking it I dont know if you would understand this but, you need to first discharge the cap by shorting the 2 leads. Then with your multimeter connect the leads and set it to the range needed. As soon as you connect the cap to the meter you will see it rocket up then back down then back up, this is because the cap is being charged by the meter.

If the cap stays at zero then it's shorted. If it has no reading then it's open.

Does that make sense?
 
Gamester

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Yep, that makes perfect sense ;)

So, are these caps and pots common enough to be picked up at Radio Shack, or should I order them from Digikey or somewhere else? I am guessing they are probably fairly cheap.
 
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Xian Xi

Xian Xi

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I'm not sure as I haven't gone to RS in a very long time. I would order them from Digikey or mouser as I'm pretty sure RS doesn't carry all of them.
 
Gamester

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Ok, I will look into it. If it is cheap enough I might just order all capacitors and the two pots. Kind of shotgunning the problem, but if it will be cheap than it will be worth a try.

Thanks,
Gamester
 
Gamester

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Hey guys,

I was just talking to some guys on KLOV and they brought to my attention that this PCB outputs stereo through a separate pinout on the board, not the JAMMA connector. However, it does seem that you can set different sound settings in the test menu of the board to output mono through the JAMMA connector. They mentioned the Konami X-Men board is the same way also.

I wonder if it would hurt anything if I wire the stereo output from the separate pinout to the stereo output pins on to the JAMMA pins on the board? Then maybe it would send the stereo through the JAMMA connector like normal.

What do you guys think?
 
Neo Alec

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One of the two pots should control the mono output on the jamma connector (I think it's the left one). Since you're apparently just using the jamma output, you should test the stereo connector by just touching some speaker wires to it to see if that's messed up as well. I'm guessing it won't work any better than your jamma output, but it's worth testing. I do not under any circumstances recommend attempting to rewire the board. You're more than likely just going to mess it up more. If you want stereo sound, you should get a proper connector for these boards.
 
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