Sankyo Victory LCD Problem

[Greg Lockhart]

I have a Sankyo (Victory) Janken Battle that the LCD doesn't work on.
I've tried the warm up/turn off/turn on procedure but it didn't help.
I've checked all cable connections and they appear OK.
There are three circuit boards on the back of the screen. Does any one know what the most likely problem might be... the screen itself or one of the boards? Any way of testing to tell which might be bad?
And if one of them is bad is there any one who has a working used one they would like to sell?
Thanks,
Greg

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[daverob]

The board on the right hand side of the picture is the inverter for the CCFL backlight, so if you can see the backlight operating (or anything at all on the screen that is about the normal expected brightness) then the backlight is working and this board should be fine.

The board on the bottom of the left side is just the connector board, nothing much happens on this board and it is very unlikely to have a problem on it.

The board at the top is part of the LCD panel itself. If you get a replacement LCD panel it should come with this board.

Without having access to another machine to test the LCD panel in, you are going to have to make a guess as to whether it is the LCD panel, or the graphics controller board.

Most late Sankyo victory games with the same size display (from about Lord of the Rings onward) use the same LCD panel assembly in the clear plastic box. So if anyone local has one of these machines, then if you take the LCD panel (in it's plastic box) and the cable that plugs into the white connector in the lower left corner, then you should be able to just unplug the connector from the graphics controller board on their machine and plug your cable/LCD in and check that it works with a known good graphics controller board.

If the LCD is found to be good (either by testing on a working machine, or by replacing the panel itself), then it is going to be a fault on the graphics controller board. If you have access to a repair shop that can solder fine-pitch surface mounted components, you could ask them to re-solder the 'Samurai Force' graphics chip on this board, as this is the most troublesome component on these boards. If you can't do that, then you are going to have to source a replacement graphics controller board.

[Greg Lockhart]

Thanks Dave,
When the machine is turned on the screen completely lights up (almost white)... then in a few seconds a round dark spot appears in the middle of the screen and it quickly enlarges until the entire screen is dark.
Where on the machine is the Graphics Controller Board??? and what does the "Samurai Force" chip look like? Is it "very likely" that re soldering it would help? I don't know if there is anyone in my area that could do that... but I could check around.

Does any one know where I could get good used components at a reasonable price? I would really like to get this machine working.
Thanks,
Greg

[daverob]

One of my Sankyo machines has started doing the same thing, previously it just had the 'needs some time to warm up' issue. I've done the LCD panel swap with a known good one, and it behaves the same, so in my case it's most likely to be the graphics board. I haven't gone any further fault finding this one, as I don't have the time to play around with it right now.

If you follow the cable that plugs into the connector on the lower left of the LCD panel, the other end goes to the graphics board. It should be the big board in the middle of the back of the machine. If you look at the Sankyo Victory frame manual on page 5 it is referred to as the 'Sub control board', and is the left hand one of the boards in the plastic box. The 'Samurai Force' chip is one of the big black square chips labelled 'LeboProject SAMURAI FORCE IT5412' the other big square chip is the Hitachi SH3 CPU chip.

There's a chance that resoldering will help, though I can't say that it's 'very likely', as my one success and one failure resoldering the chip to cure the warm up problem isn't a big enough sample size to be statistically significant.

As far as used parts, your best bet is either finding a scrap machine or searching Japanese vendors (or Yahoo Japan Auctions) for a board or complete cell.

[p.opus]

This is the sad truth for us owners of modern pachi's. Electronics go bad and almost impossible to repair. I have a 1971 Vintage that I restored that most likely outlive me. Almost everything on the machine can be fixed.

My early 80's Hanemono is the most likely first "victim". I'm just waiting for the stepper motor, wing controller, or some logic circuit to blow.

I used to bemoan the lack of documentation for these machines. I thought it was insane that something as complex as a modern pachi would have no servicable parts or have items that are nearly impossible to get to.

Then I realized, unlike pinball machines here in the US these things were only designed to last a year. In fact it's illegal to have them in parlor for more than a year. We have "rescued" them from the rubbish bin. No need to create a service manual that must be thrown out in a year.

I'm going to enjoy my moderns while I have them because I know that eventually something is going to blow on them and I better have gotten my fun out of them while I could.

[Greg Lockhart]

p.opus, I understand exactly what you're saying. I knew when I bought these two machines that something might be wrong with them... and I'd probably be out of luck because parts are mostly non existent. That's why I didn't pay too much for them ($25 each). I'll just hang on to this machine and maybe some day I'll run across another one from the same series that I can either get parts from or use parts from this one on. Maybe someone on the forum will part one out some day and I can get another graphics controller board for this one. In the mean time I might try re soldering the chip on this one if I can find someone to do it.
The Taiyo Maturi Gachinko 7 I bought along with this Sankyo works fine... and I ordered one of Daverob's dongles... so I'll enjoy it.
I have a few vintage machines also... so I know what you mean... there's not much that can go wrong with them that can't be fixed.
I became interested in Pachislo machines a while back (I have 8 of them so far) ... and playing them got me interested in trying modern Pachinko's... so the never ending hunt for machines continues
Thanks everyone for your help. Daverob,your expertise is invaluable.
If anyone ever parts out a Victory frame machine let me know.
Greg