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Marquee Light is dark in the center
Repair of: Centipede(Atari 1980)
Repair Type: Game
Status: Fixed
Contributed by: Arcadenut
Symptom:

The Marquee light on my Centipede wasn't working correctly.

The light was dark in the middle of the light and bright on the two ends.

   
Solution:
Replaced the FS-2 Starter.

Diagnostic/Repair Steps

 
The following steps were taken to either diagnose or to repair the PCB/Part/Game: 
The Light Fixture
7/14/2007 3:21:00 PM
The Marquee light fixture is pretty simple and is made up of only a few parts. The Sockets, Starter, Ballast and the Fluorescent Tube. You can read up more on how Fluorescent lights work Fluorescent Lighting.

Since the light was lighting up, I could rule out a bad Tube (sort of).

The first thing I did was I replaced the Tube to make sure it wasn't that. Since it was lighting up, I just swapped them. If the light had not been on, I would have checked the Ballast first.

I put the new tube in and got the same results. I can now eliminate the Tube as the source of the problem. Since the tube was good, I went ahead and checked the Ballast using my Multi-Meter. It checked out good.

Fixed!
7/11/2007 3:30:00 PM
Since that was good, I dug out my last Starter (FS-2) and replaced it. Bingo! Light works great now.
 
We get light evenly across the marquee like it should be.
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Parts Replaced

 
The following parts were replaced:
Part Name 
Part Location 
Original Part Number 
Price Paid 
Substitution Parts 
Reason For Replacement 
 
ExpandFS-2 StarterMarquee BracketFS-2$0.99 Defective
    Sum=$0.99  
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