Light Sixer Issues

[boesch]

Mys light sixer has some problems. The button on the left controller doesn't work. I've tried 5 controllers and over a dozen games and the button wont work. It will work in the right controller port though. I went ahead and cracked it open and I found something very odd.

It seems some parts are missing. Can anyone tell me what parts are missing and where I can get them.

[zylon]

That's the best pic I have of the parts you're referring to. I usually just get them from other "donor" machines.

[Benzman66]

Depending on the revision number of the board, most likely those holes are to be left empty. I looked at two of mine and they look just like yours. The one Zylon has pictured is an older board, possibly from a heavy sixer being there is no channel select switch and has the "green chicklet" at the top, whereas yours probably is below the switches on the left and has a channel select switch on the right.

 

If the fire button doesn't work, I would think one of two reasons;

1.Pin is broken from the back of the port where it goes in. (pretty hard to see)

2.Solder ring crack on the board where the port pins are soldered.

 

Push your finger against the pins at the back of the socket while pressing the fire button and see if it fires, if it does, it has a broken pin. (I think the fire pin is either the first or last pin on the socket back)

You can also heat up the socket pins on the bottom of the board with a soldering iron and see if that works.

Edited November 28, 2010 by Benzman66

[boesch]

that isnt the as my model, mine has a little metal plate on the left side thank anyways

[Benzman66]

that isnt the as my model, mine has a little metal plate on the left side thank anyways

 

Right, the "plate" is called a heatsink, it absorbs the heat generated from the regulator which is screwed on top of it. Zylons board is older and back then, they put the power regulator into a little "cage" which extended from the switchboard as shown in his picture.

 

BTW, the switchboard has nothing to do with the firing issue.

Edited November 28, 2010 by Benzman66

[A.J. Franzman]

Fire button issues, where a controller works correctly in one port or console but not another, are usually due to the following:

 

Bent, broken or pushed-in pin in the controller port.

Broken solder connection where controller port connects to motherboard.

Broken lead wire on back of port (this can be hard to detect; other than checking continuity with a multimeter, the best way to find this problem is to use some kind of a probe to apply some force to each wire near the top where it connects to the port. They have an odd tendency to break there.)

In six-switch and junior consoles, failure of the CD4050 (Atari CO10181602) Hex Buffer IC, usually from static electricity.

 

Don't worry about the empty holes on the switchboard. They are left over from a circuit revision and have nothing to do with the fire button issue.

Edited November 29, 2010 by A.J. Franzman