The Lucky board - CRT inverter board by Lucky Dog - TECH discussion here.

[LuckyDog]

Lucky Dog,

I just came across this thread, if you have any more of the Lucky Boards available, Can you put me down for two of them.

They look great!!!

Thanks
Dennis

Hey Dennis, Tried to send you a message but your inbox is full.

[nykr95]

Hi - Funny about the timing. I just built my own perf board sync combiner built on an old thread from 2011.  I had the same issue with the 8200 - never worked with separate H and V.  I did the inversion on a PE+ by replacing one of the chips on the motherboard.  Yours seems more elegant.  The issue I had was that the colors were off - I has very little signal coming on the Red channel (tried adjusting the 8200 trim pots - did not fix it). Though nothing was apparently wrong with RGB out of the MB when I checked with a scope.  I was able to fix it by replacing all 3 transistors for R,G,B on the motherboard with 3 that had slightly higher gain.  Not sure if it was the gain or one of the transistors was marginal - all the old ones tested good.  Anyway now its rock solid.

[LuckyDog]

The issue I had was that the colors were off - I has very little signal coming on the Red channel (tried adjusting the 8200 trim pots - did not fix it). Though nothing was apparently wrong with RGB out of the MB when I checked with a scope.  I was able to fix it by replacing all 3 transistors for R,G,B on the motherboard with 3 that had slightly higher gain.  Not sure if it was the gain or one of the transistors was marginal - all the old ones tested good.  Anyway now its rock solid.

Good to know I'm not the only one that has no luck with H & V Syncs 

The video outputs of the MPU normally drive the CRT inputs with a high impedance ( ~ 1K Ohm ).  The 8200 input impedance is much lower (70 Ohms) , so the transistors have to work much harder out of their designed range.  The Lucky Board corrects for this impedance mismatch.

Glad you found a replacement transistor.  Can I ask what you used?

[LuckyDog]

Wall Wart NOT compatible with the 8200.  just something to keep in mind if you're having trouble....

Using an 8200 between a PE+ and LCD monitor....

Ran across  a +5V 3A wall wart that doesn't play well with any of the four 8200's I tested it with.
Although the monitor showed the proper display, it would go dark momentarily every 5 - 10 seconds, jump & jitter slightly once in a while.
I swapped the wall wart with several others & the problem went away.

The power supply looked fine with a DVM and O-scope both, & has been used very little.  Only guess is that the oscillator frequency of the supply interfered with the video.

[Chris-socal]

Sounds to me like it doesn’t have a sufficient amperage rating. Im pretty sure they say 3A minimum.
I usually find one that is 6,7 or 9v 3Amp. Some routers used them. 5A is even better especially if you are only going to use 5v, you cannot afford any voltage drop under load.

Chris

[jay]

For most of my projects I have been buying 20A ATX power supplies.
I can get 5 or 12v and the 5v is adjustable. Space wise there is no comparison to a wall wart but I have had so many of those things with suspect quality I took the sledge approach.

With my Mikohn display pannels - They were drawing 1a idle and 1.5a when fully lit. When you have 16 of these I was using 5 Mikohn power supplies and they all had floating grounds causing other issues.
I replaced with 2 x ATX but figure I could have gotten away with one.

[Chris-socal]

Jim
I was experimenting with my PE board and my 8200’s. I have two, one is allegedly an official Gonbes 8200 and one is a generic. I have had the generic version in use in my CEI for years without any problems. On the other hand, the Gonbes has always been problematic in that it has a problem with Green and the buttons for image setup are touchy and often have a delay in responding which requires you to circle back around the top because it refuses to accept Down button.

Either way, I can’t get either one to work with a PE. They both work in the CEI machine but neither does anything when connected to a PE. I tried all options for sync (white only, yellow only, combined), and I tried both inputs (5 peg and the 8 pin). I think I tried this in the past and assumed it was because PE machines used inverted signals. Is this what you saw before you created the inverter board?

The other observation I have is that they both suffer from a minor typo which makes me think they are both fakes, albeit there are differences on the board build.
On the 8 pin connector the screen print says the pin layout is like this:
GND
GND
VH
HH
SPACE
BLU
GRN
RED

HOWEVER, on the board that is in my CEI the “space” or spare spot is actually where my sync wire goes and works perfectly fine.

Is this consistent with what you saw?

Chris

[LuckyDog]

Jim
I was experimenting with my PE board and my 8200’s. I have two, one is allegedly an official Gonbes 8200 and one is a generic. I have had the generic version in use in my CEI for years without any problems. On the other hand, the Gonbes has always been problematic in that it has a problem with Green and the buttons for image setup are touchy and often have a delay in responding which requires you to circle back around the top because it refuses to accept Down button.

Either way, I can’t get either one to work with a PE. They both work in the CEI machine but neither does anything when connected to a PE. I tried all options for sync (white only, yellow only, combined), and I tried both inputs (5 peg and the 8 pin). I think I tried this in the past and assumed it was because PE machines used inverted signals. Is this what you saw before you created the inverter board?

The other observation I have is that they both suffer from a minor typo which makes me think they are both fakes, albeit there are differences on the board build.
On the 8 pin connector the screen print says the pin layout is like this:
GND
GND
VH
HH
SPACE
BLU
GRN
RED

HOWEVER, on the board that is in my CEI the “space” or spare spot is actually where my sync wire goes and works perfectly fine.

Is this consistent with what you saw?

Chris

Chris,  Yes, what you are describing with your PE  is what my various 8200 boards were doing.  I also had the same results with PE+, 80's CEI poker and a Bally V2000 poker.  With all machines, if I implemented  a sync combiner ckt they would work as expected. (PE video colors are inverted, but does display properly)

When I use a Lucky Board & 8200, all machines work as expected: PE looks correct and CEI and V2000 show inverted colors.

As far as pinouts: I find the same as what you show with one exception:  the space pin is connected with a small trace to the Horz pin.
I connect things via the Red, Green, Blue, Combined Sync to the first 4 pins respectively; and last pin for ground. 

Testing with my CEI poker, I had no luck without a sync combiner.

[Chris-socal]

What did you do to combine sync? Join with a resistor or just put the two together? I need to try it with my PE because I get absolutely no image at all,minverted or otherwise.

Not all video circuits will work with combined sync, for example I think Electrohome and Wells Gardner need separate and V.


Chris

[LuckyDog]

What did you do to combine sync? Join with a resistor or just put the two together? I need to try it with my PE because I get absolutely no image at all,minverted or otherwise.

Not all video circuits will work with combined sync, for example I think Electrohome and Wells Gardner need separate and V.


Chris

Started with the old threads /nlg/index.php?topic=336.msg967#msg967

and ended up with this ckt.

I catch myself sometimes forgetting to change modes on the 8200 when messing with syncs
*   RGBHV   should be selected when using 2 sync inputs (H & V)
*   RGBS   should be selected when using a single combined sync

[Chris-socal]

Right! I forget that too.
It just seems like we should not need to combine the sync manually…. the board supports H and V separately.
You had to combine H and V in order for a PE to work with the board? That just doesn’t seem right.

Chris

[LuckyDog]

It just seems like we should not need to combine the sync manually…. the board supports H and V separately.
You had to combine H and V in order for a PE to work with the board?

Yes

That just doesn’t seem right.

I AGREE   

[nykr95]

LuckyDog,

The transistor I used is a 2N3906 - think the original is a 2N3904 equivalent.

Regards,

Steve

[LuckyDog]

LuckyDog,

The transistor I used is a 2N3906 - think the original is a 2N3904 equivalent.

Regards,

Steve