TGM1 troubleshooting help

Thread in 'Hardware' started by Philip Novak, 22 Sep 2019.

  1. ESSENTIALLY: I am getting a blank (?) video signal and seemingly no audio from TGM1. I think it's a problem with either the TGM or ZN2 board. How do I troubleshoot further?

    Background:
    Hello, I'm new here and hope someone can help me out. I bought TGM1 with the ZN2 board from Sophia Corp a few months ago. By the time I got all the equipment necessary and became relatively confident that I was doing everything right, I realized that things were still not working properly. I have been messing with this on and off for a while now and I'm ready to reach out to the experts (y'all). I don't have any experience with JAMMA outside of my experiments shown here, so I'm afraid I may be making a very simple mistake, but I have narrowed things down a bit.

    Setup:
    TGM1
    Thermaltake RGB 650W
    Smallcab Supergun Delux 1.6
    Euroscart (male) to Euroscart (male) passive cable
    Euroscart (female) to Framemeister XRGB Mini passive adapter cable
    XRGB Mini Framemeister outputting via HDMI to an Asus VG248QE monitor
    Madcatz TE2 fightstick with Undamned USB - DB15
    Supergun to headphones directly (no amplifier)

    Observations:
    1) I have never successfully gotten any video from TGM1.
    2) This setup WORKS right now with a cheapo Pandora's Box I bought on Amazon. granted, I have to put pressure on the board/Supergun to get all the colors to come in (it seems that only one side of the jamma connector is connected otherwise), but it works. This leads me to believe it is a problem with one of the boards.
    3) When I turn on the power supply with TGM plugged in, the Framemeister reacts by switching to a black screen (NOT a "NO_INPUT" screen such as when the video signal is off). I get no audio even when I press all the buttons on my fightstick (which again, works with the pandora's box).

    Theories/things I've done:
    1) Video ruined? - WHOOPS! I used multiple different SCART cables and XRGB adapters before reading online that it can be very bad to do that. I don't even have good documentation or labels on these cables so I don't know their properties. They were leftovers from when I was messing around with various console RGB mods over the years. HOWEVER, I don't get audio which indicates it's not a video issue.
    2) Power spike? - WHOOPS! When I plugged in my first PSU (not shown above), I used an old one I had laying around. I made the mistake of not blowing dust out of it first. The PSU turned on, one or both (can't remember) of the lights on the Supergun turned on, but I got no video. After jiggling cables, I decided to reboot. The 2nd time I flipped the switch, the PSU was dead (no lights, no fan)! This leads me to believe I may have sent power with unknown properties to the Supergun for a few minutes. I see there are what seem to be fuse blocks on the TGM board, I have not tested these at this time.
    3) Electrostatic discharge at some point? (grasping for straws here as I am typically very careful about this)
    4) I visually inspected the ZN2 and TGM boards pretty closely (even unseated/reseated TGM to check the back side) and I don't see anything of note (burn marks, detached caps).

    Questions:
    1) Can I unplug TGM from the ZN2 board and just test that somehow? Does anything normally output from a bare ZN2 board?
    2) Is it known what exactly happens when the wrong SCART cables are used?
    3) Are there any schematics online that can help me verify anything about the board(s)?
    4) Is there anything obvious I'm missing?
     
  2. Something you potentially missed: the ZN-2 has a volume knob on the board for the (amplified mono) jamma audio. I'm not sure if they're all the same but if I put my board's volume knob in the same position as the one on your board, it would be completely off. Turn it up (I'd avoid more than a quarter turn at first) and mash the credit and start buttons to test it. Try the port on the smallcab if you haven't already, I know from the setup nightmare of SGDQ 2017 that it works when you plug in headphones with the audio from TGM1.
     
    Oliver likes this.
  3. If any of the adapters you used were wired for JP21, you almost 100% certainly fried the video input (possibly more) on the Framemeister. As JBroms mentioned, the volume pot is also likely at zero so check for audio once you change that.
     

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