Star Tech Journal

(
SI'AR*TECH Journal·
Aagust.i 989 Y
)
Sega Power Drift Throttle Gear
Evan Wessel
Mercury Amusements
Havertown, Pennsylvania
On or clean the monitor screen on a Super
Hang On. How about the junk joysticks and
buttons used on Quartet. Shall I continue?
PROBLEM
I'm in the process of changing a worn nylon
gear in Sega's Power Drift throttle. This is a
nightmare! I've been struggling with taking
this assembly apart for the last hour with no
success. Seeing that it's a nylon-on-metal
gear system, I may have to go through this
again soon. Arrgh!
FACTORY RESPONSE
Dari Davidson, Customer Service Manager
Sega USA
San Jose, California
OBSERVATIONS
It's the nylon gear on Power Drift that is the
culprit. It is connected to a metal gear on the
throttle pot and didn't take too long to lose
it's teeth. I think it's best to use all plastic or
all metal; otherwise great wear and tear may
result.
COMMENTS
The biggest complaint I have is the time and
aggravation required to change the darn
thing. Typical "Sega" engineering, I hate to
say. Try changing a throttle cable on a Hang
Evan:
I have checked the parts sales on this gear
and it has not been out of line. We use the
same gear on Power Drift, Turbo Outrun and
also on our new driving game. This gear can
be replaced very quickly on Turbo and the
new game. Power Drift used the Out Run
control panel and the new games use the
Turbo-Outrun design which should be simple
to service.
~
Sega has been known for its innovative
controls. This has made the difference on
some games. Sega did not reuse the Quartet
buttons and, in fact, any button would work
on that game. Please understand it takes
time to feed input back to engineering for
improvement.
Atari Asteroids Monochroine X-Y Monitor
Problein & Solution
Matt J. Mccullar
Forum Fair Arcade
Arlington, Texas
This is one of the weirdest problems I ever
faced. It consisted of a monitor for an Aster-
oids game. Although it took several days to
find, I'll concentrate it here.
The problem: no picture on the screen. High
voltage was present, but the heater did not
light up. This kind of monitor has separate
power supplies for heater and high voltage,
so I checked the 3-amp, slo-blo fuse in the
transformer-heater circuit. Removing the
fuse and using the continuity function on
my DVM, the fuse looked good. The heater
inside the neck of the CRT had not opened
up and was also good. With no fuse in the
circuit I got 6.3 volts A.C. from the trans-
former, which was normal. But every time I ~
reconnected everything, the voltage to the
heater dropped to about 3 volts. I checked all
the wiring and it was good.