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Rave Racer Restoration Project.


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A few moons ago i got hold of a Namco System 22 board from Gav. The board had been taken out of a gutted RR cab that was subsequently sacrificed to the arcade gods is a ritualistic cab burning.

 

Small mamals who dwelt within the cab during its twilight years had caused some minor damage to the mainboard -which i am hoping to repair.

 

After some screwing around with the board i found out that it is indeed a Rave Racer board. Only trouble is that nearly all of the wiring harness was missing and what was left was pretty crappy.

 

Thus begins part 1 of my restoration process, building a wiring harness to test with. The System 22 cab is made of of 6 individual PCB's that come in at about 7-8KG in total. With the steel cage that houses them it is more like 15KG's. So pretty big boards.

 

The four main boards are connected to each other using board interconnects. However, the EMI board has to be connected to the IO board via a series of cables, all of which connected through various IDC connectors.

 

IO

EMI

PCB1

PCB2

 

So, at the moment i am going by schematics for Ridge Racer 2 in the hopes that i'll at least be able to get an image out of the board to assess whether our vermin friends have done ir-repairable damage to the board.

 

RR2 Manual

 

 

To Do...

 

PART#1

Build a harness from EMI PCB to IO

Wire up a Jamma adapter to test the video output.

Wire up a PC power supply to the mainboard and IO

 

...and eventually,

 

Get all of the input peripherals including 6 speed geard box and set this all up in a cab.

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Okey Dokey...

 

Seems that using IDC connectors is proving to be rather futile. First they are way too small to be soldering too and secondly they are way too weak for this application.

 

Here is a pic of the original AMP type connector that was left on the board...

AMP

 

After a bit of ringing around I have found a Brisbane supplier of the parts. They got a $20 MOQ, so might need to buy more then i need. These amp connectors only come in 50pin configuration. The sales rep said to simply hack-saw it down to size. :unsure

 

It amp Part #5-925367-0

DATA SHEET

 

Uses three different types of connectors

#0-166310-2 High Pressure

#0-141603-3 Standard

#0-141603-4 Gold

 

Time to do some shopping and throw out what i have done with the IDC connectors.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Another update,

 

I managed to make a "ghetto" harness using some spare IDC connectors and ribbon cables that i had. The AMP connectors are going to cost me a small fortune so i figured that i may as well see if it was worth continuing with.

 

This first pic is off the harness that i made that goes inbetween the IO and the EMI board. I put quick disconnects on it to make trouble shooting easier (wish i hadnt though).

 

IMAGE

 

I also made a "ghetto" power cable for the EMI board using a pre-existing wire harness, some clamps and an old ATX psu which i think i will use for this project anyway as the manual says that it requires 5V at 30 amps!!:cry

 

I bought the wrong friggin type of video lead so i wasnt able to test the video output, but upon powering up just the mainboard a whole bunch of LED's came to life. There are 8 LED's in 2 rows of 4 set up near the back of the CPU board. All four LED's on the farthest row from the EMI board lit up, but just a little whilst the closest row of LED's to EMI board just alternated between bulbs 2 and 4.

 

I dont know what this means as there is now info on the net about this, but i assume it is complianing about something.

 

IMAGE

 

I figured it had something to do with the fact that the IO board was not connected. So i hooked it up using my craptacular wiring abd ran power to it using equally craptacular methods and the LED's did the same thing. On the brightside though, the two LED's on the IO were lit up like xmas trees. (i presume this is good?)

 

IMAGE

 

Anyway, hopefully George will be able to shed some light on this soon as he has got a fulyl functional System 22 board.

 

Its off to Dick Smith's in the mornign to grab the right plug for my Amiga monitor!!

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Another update,

 

I managed to make a "ghetto" harness using some spare IDC connectors and ribbon cables that i had. The AMP connectors are going to cost me a small fortune so i figured that i may as well see if it was worth continuing with.

 

This first pic is off the harness that i made that goes inbetween the IO and the EMI board. I put quick disconnects on it to make trouble shooting easier (wish i hadnt though).

 

IMAGE

 

I also made a "ghetto" power cable for the EMI board using a pre-existing wire harness, some clamps and an old ATX psu which i think i will use for this project anyway as the manual says that it requires 5V at 30 amps!!:cry

 

I bought the wrong friggin type of video lead so i wasnt able to test the video output, but upon powering up just the mainboard a whole bunch of LED's came to life. There are 8 LED's in 2 rows of 4 set up near the back of the CPU board. All four LED's on the farthest row from the EMI board lit up, but just a little whilst the closest row of LED's to EMI board just alternated between bulbs 2 and 4.

 

I dont know what this means as there is now info on the net about this, but i assume it is complianing about something.

 

IMAGE

 

I figured it had something to do with the fact that the IO board was not connected. So i hooked it up using my craptacular wiring abd ran power to it using equally craptacular methods and the LED's did the same thing. On the brightside though, the two LED's on the IO were lit up like xmas trees. (i presume this is good?)

 

IMAGE

 

Anyway, hopefully George will be able to shed some light on this soon as he has got a fulyl functional System 22 board.

 

Its off to Dick Smith's in the mornign to grab the right plug for my Amiga monitor!!

Hi Luke.

I have the pcb here with me.

Here are some pictures of the ace driver pcb and the i/o section.

Pm me for more info.I then give you my phone number and we can sort out the problem you have with your Ridge Rider.

Regards George.

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Made myself an RGB cable to go from the EMI board to the Amiga 1084 Monitor. Results aren't looking good atm

 

IMAGE

 

When i fire the board up, i can hear a hi-pitched noise coming from the monitor and this garbage flickering all over the screen. If i unplug the AMP connector from the EMI board, the monitor stops making the noise. Im still getting the same LED activity as before. Im going to try and contact Namco but i doubt i will get any response.

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Breakthrough today!

 

Went round to trav's and hooked the baord up to his Nanao and got a picture! Colors were a bits screwed so i wired the RGB to an edge connector and bingo, got perfect video!

 

Pic1

Pic2

Pic3

 

Pics dont do it justice. Everything is there, nice and smooth with graphical glitches whatsoever. We ran the board for a good hour and bit and it worked perfectly the whole time.

 

I also re-wired the power supply today too and gave each ground and 5V line its own unique power line from the PSU. That managed to get rid of the flickering LED problem that i had before.

 

The second bank of LED's still continue to alternate blinking. It was mentioned in that news groups post that i put up earlier that it may be a result of low 5v. I can verify now that the error code means that the main board cannot find the IO board.

 

After the debacle with the video output, i wont be surprised if i find out that the IO problem is a result of my ghetto wiring. Nevertheless, George was kind enough to send up bits and pieces of his System 22 board so i could trouble shoot mine. So i should have a definitive answer on IO shortly.

 

Amongst other things, this pic shows the IO error message, plus some boobies too.

 

Big thanks to Trav and George so far for their help. :sm1:

 

To do list...

 

Check the wiring to the IO

Get some sound happening

Build new harness

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George's IO and wiring harness arrived today. Tested my IO board out using George's harness and still got the IO error. The i tested out my board with his IO and harness but still the same result. Finally i used Georges EMI board, IO and wiring harness but still no luck.

 

This has got me thinking that maybe it needs to be hooked up to the whole shit show to work, buttons etc. Tommorow ill wire some micro switches up to my ghetto harness to get test mode functioning properly.

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OKAY!!! BREAKTHROUGH!!!

 

Been talking to people all over Australia this morning on the phone. I came a across a rather helpful bloke in Melbourne through Zaxx. Name was George, and he was from "Leading Edge Electronics" in Melbourne also.

 

I described the fault to him and he knew the problem bang on and said it was a common fault. The IO error porblem is a result of a failed chip on the CPU board, not the IO board or EMI boards as i suspected.

 

He also mentioned that the game will run fine despite the failed chip, but you will not be able to start the game up.

 

The solution is too replace the CPU board which is actually quite easily done as all System 22 boards apart from Victory Lap are interchangeable.

 

He also mentioned that you can indeed swap games on System 22 board by changing the program and sound roms, and replacing the mask rom board on the CPU side with another game.

 

So to do list now...

 

Get another CPU board... DONE

Get yet another CPU board... DONE

Follow the traces back from the EMI baord through the CPU board to identify the faulty chip...

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well i got another tow system 22 board today, now i have Ace Driver, Ridge Racer 2 and Rave Racer, but no matter what combination of CPU/IO/EMI board i try i still get an IO error. One iteresting thing though is that when i fired up the ace driver board, i got another sort of IO error, even though the IO and CPU boards seem to be fine? This has me thinking that maybe the boards need to detect steering wheels etc to get a valid signal.

 

Im stumped. Im almost ready to give up on the whole thing.

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Alrighty then,

 

I have come to the conclusion that without having access to the right cab, im not going to get past the IO error. I bought another Ace Drive PCB and when i booted it up i got the IO error, with or without the the IO board being plugged in. Same goes for Ridge Racer 2 and Rave Racer. I dont really know where to go from here. Ultimeatly i would prefer to have a fully functional Ridge Racer Set-up but that looks out of reach for now.

 

So, I have got

 

3 System 22 Boards (one with a faulty video board)

(3 CPU board, 3 Video Boards)

Ace Drive Rom Set

Ridge Racer 2 Rom Set

Rave Racer Rom Set

2 EMI Filer PCB's

1 Version A IO Board

1 Version B IO board (not sure if this guy is working)

1 System 22 Cage

1 6 Speed Gearbox

1 Set of Pedals

1 Outrunners CP

1 Namco Link sys Board.

Some misc wiring.

 

If any body is interested in this lot then please send me a pm. I think that it is time to move on. If you already have a RR cab then this might be an easy way for you to convert it into the other system games.

 

AND,

 

George, your stuff has been sent back to you. Big thanks mate!

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there's a fully functioning, sweet as ridge racer cab on ebay. only prob is the manual trans won't work, but auto goes anyway and would be an easy fix.

 

here it is

 

the cab looks awesome and i think won't go for too much considering the size of the thing.

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that's the craziest crazy talk i've heard in a long time. it'll fit through sliding doors if you take the 2 whole doors off, you don't have to use the whole machine - just store the seat peice if it is too bulky and fit something else. come on, i thought you were dying for one of these, where's the enthusiasm???
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Alrighty then,

 

I have come to the conclusion that without having access to the right cab, im not going to get past the IO error. I bought another Ace Drive PCB and when i booted it up i got the IO error, with or without the the IO board being plugged in. Same goes for Ridge Racer 2 and Rave Racer. I dont really know where to go from here. Ultimeatly i would prefer to have a fully functional Ridge Racer Set-up but that looks out of reach for now.

 

So, I have got

 

3 System 22 Boards (one with a faulty video board)

(3 CPU board, 3 Video Boards)

Ace Drive Rom Set

Ridge Racer 2 Rom Set

Rave Racer Rom Set

2 EMI Filer PCB's

1 Version A IO Board

1 Version B IO board (not sure if this guy is working)

1 System 22 Cage

1 6 Speed Gearbox

1 Set of Pedals

1 Outrunners CP

1 Namco Link sys Board.

Some misc wiring.

 

If any body is interested in this lot then please send me a pm. I think that it is time to move on. If you already have a RR cab then this might be an easy way for you to convert it into the other system games.

 

AND,

 

George, your stuff has been sent back to you. Big thanks mate!

Your welcome.Glad that i could help you.Its a shame that you didnt get your rr going.Dont give up.

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Your welcome.Glad that i could help you.Its a shame that you didnt get your rr going.Dont give up.

 

Nah, think its about time to move on. I have got one whole room dedicated to all of my RR shit. I'll probably move it all on to ebay soonish.

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