Star Tech Journal

STAR* TECH Journal
November 7992
.44.
Kerry Messana
Betson Advance
Syracuse
New York
Closer·
Look
PROPERLY POWERING
y OUR COIN-OP EQUIPMENT
I was inclined to write this article
because of the amount of prob-
lems I have solved over the phone
by telling the operator or
routeman to check the AC voltage
going into his machine. It seems
that there has been a rash of this
going around lately, almost like
the measles.
PROPER GROUNDING
Grounding is probably the last
thing anyone is concerned with. I
cannot stress how important this
is, however. It should never be
defeated.
I would say that more than fifty
percent of the equipment that
comes in for repair has no third
wire ground. It has either been
cut off at the plug or left discon-
nected on the inside of the ma-
chine.
There are many reasons to have
good grounding but I will only
cover the important reasons
here. The most important reason
is to keep any spurious AC from
entering metal parts of the ma-
chine. This could become danger-
ous especially if there are other
machines with it.
With a bad
ground orno
ground there are
much higher risks
of component
failure due to
noise and static
discharge.
If one machine is grounded and
the other has some AC on i t ~
chassis the result is an electric
shock for whoever touches them
both at the same time. This can
prove dangerous to folks who are
old or to players in a damp/wet
environment. You definitely
don't want to kill anyone or be
sued for negligence.
Another important reason for
good grounding is safety of your
electronic equipment such as
CPU boards and other Pcb's.
With a bad ground or no ground
there are much higher risks of
component failure due to noise or
static discharge.
I am not going to go into the
theory of this as there are several
good books written on the subject
of grounding. If you must use a
twoprongplug, useanadapterto~
give you a third wire ground to
your equipment. The better ones
have a pigtail wire coming out of
them.