No pulsing on an OR gate?

  • Thread starter Anthony Girasoli
  • Start date
A

Anthony Girasoli

Guest
Hello all,

I'm currently trying to troubleshoot a faulty arcade game board from the
80s (Star Castle, remember that??) :) Anyway, there's a problem in the
intensity circuit, so I'm tracing those particular outputs back with a
logic probe. When I get to an OR gate (actually, the schematics says
it's an AND gate with the two inputs and output all inverted), I found
something weird. The output of the OR gate has no pulsing. But both
inputs to the OR gate have pulsing. (The inputs are stuck high and low,
as well.)

What is going on here? Shouldn't I have pulsing on the output of an OR
gate, when both inputs have pulsing? Is there something that would
cause no pulsing on the output?

Thanks for any help!

Sincerely,
Tony
 
Anthony Girasoli wrote:

Hello all,

I'm currently trying to troubleshoot a faulty arcade game board from the
80s (Star Castle, remember that??) :) Anyway, there's a problem in the
intensity circuit, so I'm tracing those particular outputs back with a
logic probe. When I get to an OR gate (actually, the schematics says
it's an AND gate with the two inputs and output all inverted),
Click to expand...
Same thing. Just a different way of drawing it. All to do with logic and
negative logic. Usually the type of drawing used depends upon what one would
expect as being an "active" input. The end result is the same, it just
sometimes makes it easier to understand the schematic.

I found
something weird. The output of the OR gate has no pulsing. But both
inputs to the OR gate have pulsing. (The inputs are stuck high and low,
as well.)
Click to expand...
Make your mind up!. They're either pulsing or they're stuck!

What is going on here? Shouldn't I have pulsing on the output of an OR
gate, when both inputs have pulsing?
Click to expand...
Not if they are pulsing in perfect antiphase. The only simple way to check that
is with a scope on each input.

Is there something that would
cause no pulsing on the output?
Click to expand...
A faulty chip.

Thanks for any help!
Click to expand...
You're welcome.

Gibbo
 
Gibbo and Tim,

Thanks for the insight and explanations.

Let me clarify a bit... when I say one input is stuck high to the OR
gate and the other input is stuck low, I mean that using my logic probe,
I have a steady high LED and steady low LED, respectively. And, my
logic probe's pulse LED is flashing. Which (I am delving back to my CSE
logic design lab days) means the probe reads a clock pulse, correct?

So, one input is a steady high with pulsing, and the other input is a
steady low with pulsing, and yet the output is a steady high, with no
pulsing. If the clock pulses going to the two inputs are 180 degrees
out of phase with each other, I understand that they would be cancelled
out.

I looked at the schematics, and the two inputs of the OR gate are being
fed with two different circuits that have different clocks. One circuit
gets it's timing from "CLK1" and the other is from "Inverse CLK2"... so
that kind of makes sense. When I put my probe to CLK1, I don't see a
pulse, but when I put my probe to Inverse CLK2 I do see a pulse.

OK, I went back to my notes to see what that particular OR gate should
be doing, from a working boardset that I used to have. It says that I
should have pulsing on the output of this particular OR gate, with the
high and low LEDs of the probe flashing rapidly, suggesting activity.
Am I too quick to conclude that I have a bad IC where this OR gate
resides?

Thanks again for all your help!

Tony
 
If one input is almost permanently low, with high pulses on it, and the other
is almost permanently high, with low pulses on it, and they are the compliment
of each other then your output will be permanently high. Which seems to be what
you are saying you have.

Borrow a scope, and look at both inputs at the same time.

You'll probably find something like this....

(view in fixed width font)

____|____|____|____|____|

____ ____ ____ ____ ____
| | | | |

Which will give you a permanently high output as, quite simply, one OR the
other is always high.

You wrote:

Am I too quick to conclude that I have a >bad IC where this OR gate
resides?
Click to expand...
Yes. Though if you don't have a scope it may actually be quicker (and cheaper)
to simply change the chip. From the suggested era they are probably 74LS series
TTL or 4000 series CMOS which cost peanuts each.

If you're not experienced at removing them, instead of trying to be clever and
remove the chip carefully (which can be real difficult without a lot of
practice) just cut all the legs off, then remove each leg individually. Dead
easy, and almost no risk to the PCB (unless you're a complete knob!)

You will then be left with a machine that does either exactly the same (my
guess) OR (no pun intended) nothing (in which case you probably fucked up the
PCB removing the IC) OR works perfectly (doubtful as, from your [admittedly
limited] readings I don't think that IC is faulty)

Gibbo
 
On Mon, 08 Nov 2004 22:39:18 +0000, Anthony Girasoli wrote:

Hello all,

I'm currently trying to troubleshoot a faulty arcade game board from the
80s (Star Castle, remember that??) :) Anyway, there's a problem in the
intensity circuit, so I'm tracing those particular outputs back with a
logic probe. When I get to an OR gate (actually, the schematics says
it's an AND gate with the two inputs and output all inverted), I found
something weird. The output of the OR gate has no pulsing. But both
inputs to the OR gate have pulsing. (The inputs are stuck high and low,
as well.)

What is going on here? Shouldn't I have pulsing on the output of an OR
gate, when both inputs have pulsing? Is there something that would
cause no pulsing on the output?

Thanks for any help!

When I repaired video games, when we got to this point, we'd just
Click to expand...
replace the chip, because any more screwing around costs more.

If one took more than 10 min. to diagnose, we'd just replace
every chip on the board at $0.15 each, rather than continue
to troubleshoot at $30.00/hr.

Cheers!
Rich
 
Thanks again guys for enlightening me on the logic stuff. You've been
very helpful as I've been researching my problem in my old books and the
Internet, and had to go to usenet as a last resort.

I agree... If I'm going to work on these games as a hobby, I should just
front the bucks (or quid) and get a 'scope!

At any rate, I changed that OR gate IC, and of course, same problem
(ahhh, hopes were up for a short while!)

On to further troubleshooting this board. I am going deeper into the
schematics. Thanks again to all for your replies!!

Tony
 
On Mon, 08 Nov 2004 22:39:18 GMT, Anthony Girasoli wrote:

Hello all,

I'm currently trying to troubleshoot a faulty arcade game board from the
80s (Star Castle, remember that??) :) Anyway, there's a problem in the
intensity circuit, so I'm tracing those particular outputs back with a
logic probe. When I get to an OR gate (actually, the schematics says
it's an AND gate with the two inputs and output all inverted), I found
something weird. The output of the OR gate has no pulsing. But both
inputs to the OR gate have pulsing. (The inputs are stuck high and low,
as well.)

What is going on here? Shouldn't I have pulsing on the output of an OR
gate, when both inputs have pulsing? Is there something that would
cause no pulsing on the output?

Thanks for any help!

Sincerely,
Tony
Click to expand...
You really should do yourself a favor and get your hands on a dual trace
oscilloscope. Stick the logic probe in a dart board or something.


Bob
 
You really should do yourself a favor and get your hands on a dual trace
oscilloscope. Stick the logic probe in a dart board or something.


Bob
Click to expand...
I agree, the logic probe probably has very limited bandwidth anyway and I
wouldn't trust it to indicate a pulse. Both inputs need to be shown on a
'scope to be sure.

Mark.
 
Anthony Girasoli wrote:
Hello all,

I'm currently trying to troubleshoot a faulty arcade game board from the
80s (Star Castle, remember that??) :) Anyway, there's a problem in the
intensity circuit, so I'm tracing those particular outputs back with a
logic probe. When I get to an OR gate (actually, the schematics says
it's an AND gate with the two inputs and output all inverted), I found
something weird. The output of the OR gate has no pulsing. But both
inputs to the OR gate have pulsing. (The inputs are stuck high and low,
as well.)

What is going on here? Shouldn't I have pulsing on the output of an OR
gate, when both inputs have pulsing? Is there something that would
cause no pulsing on the output?

Thanks for any help!

Sincerely,
Tony
Click to expand...
An OR gate will have a high output if one or the other inputs is high.
If input A is always high when input B is low and visa-versa, the output
will stay high.

The schematic notation is to indicate that the signals are active low,
i.e. they are "false" when the signal is high. This was a common thing
when logic was TTL and could pull lines down faster than it could pull
them up, and is still common for "wired-or" logic where you have a line
with one pullup resistor and a bunch of open-drain outputs.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com
 
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