Grandstand Tron General Maintenance
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Care and cleaning of the Grandstand Tron, Tomy's Tomytronic Tron tabletop game with a vacuum fluorescent display (VFD), which Grandstand distributed in the UK under code no. 11266.[1][2] No service manual has been published, and no teardown, board photograph or repair account of a Tron of any brand has been found. What follows rests on Tomy's instruction leaflet, the MAME driver notes, the Handheld Museum's records, and two owners' videos: one cleaning a Tomytronic Tron, the other describing one whose battery terminals had corroded. Fault-finding is on Grandstand Tron Troubleshooting Guide. No capacitor values have been published, so there is no capacitor guide for this game.
What is known about the hardware
[edit | edit source]| Part | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Case | Smoked clear plastic throughout, so the inside can be seen; large imitation circuitry at the back is part of the styling | Handheld Museum, video[2][3] |
| Main board | Marked THN-02 2E114E07 | MAME[4] |
| Microcontroller | Hitachi HD38800A88 (HMCS40 family); the program is inside it | MAME[4] |
| Display | NEC FIP10AM24T no. 2-8 1, cyan, red and green; ten grids | MAME[4][5] |
| Controls | CONTROL disc (right, up, left, down), ON/OFF slide switch, SPEED/SHOOT button | Tomy leaflet[6] |
| Power | Four C alkaline cells under a lift-up cover in the base, or an adaptor through a socket in the case | Tomy leaflet, videos[6][3][7] |
Tron is the only one of the three Tomy tabletops Grandstand sold that uses a Hitachi microcontroller; Grandstand Munchman and Grandstand Caveman use NEC chips.[4][5] Nothing published shows whether its display supply resembles theirs, so do not carry their part numbers over to Tron.
Batteries and contacts
[edit | edit source]
- Switch off, turn the game over and lift the battery cover. Fit four C alkaline cells as the moulding shows.[6] On the unit cleaned by GenXGrownUp the cover carries a printed instruction label.[3]
- Leaking cells are the one Tron-specific fault on record. Keeper1st left cells in a Tomytronic Tron for over twenty years; they swelled and leaked, and corroded the battery terminals so badly that the game could no longer run from batteries, only from an adaptor.[7]
- Clean corroded terminals back to bright metal, and replace any that have lost their plating or broken. Neutralise residue as described on Battery Explosion, Capacitor or Corrosion Damage.
- Tomy's care notes: turn the game off after use, take the cells out before storing it, and never leave dead cells in it.[6]
The DC socket and adaptors
[edit | edit source]- Tomy's leaflet recommends the Archer 270-1551 A or Recoton AD-10UL adaptor and gives the requirement as 7.5 V DC, 200 mA, 2.1 mm coaxial plug, tip (centre) negative.[6] Measure any adaptor before use: centre negative is the reverse of most modern adaptors.
- Four C cells give 6 V, so Tomy's adaptor rating is higher than the battery voltage.[6]
- No Grandstand leaflet for Tron has been found to give a setting for the Grandstand Universal Mains Adaptor.[1]
- The wrong adaptor is the commonest cause of damage to VFD tabletop games in general, usually a blown transistor.[8]
Opening the case
[edit | edit source]No account of opening a Tron has been published, so screw positions, clips and cable runs are not recorded here. Tomy's leaflet says not to take the game apart.[6] If it must be opened:
- Because the case is smoked clear plastic, look through it first for the screw posts, the board, the display and the wires before undoing anything.[2]
- Take the cells out and photograph each stage.
- The display is a glass vacuum tube; handle it by its ends and do not lever against it. A cracked tube cannot be repaired.[9]
- No photograph of the THN-02 board has been found; photographs of an opened Tron are the largest gap in what is known about this game.
Controls
[edit | edit source]- The CONTROL disc covers four direction contacts and SPEED/SHOOT is a single large button.[6][4] No account of cleaning their contacts has been published; if a direction fails, the contacts under the disc are the first place to look once the case is open.
- GenXGrownUp cleaned the control panel and the case seams with a cleaning putty, without opening the game.[3]
Case and window
[edit | edit source]- The smoked plastic shows every scratch and smear. GenXGrownUp removed old sticker residue from the rear of the case with Goo Gone (the "Surface Safe" formula) and a microfibre cloth.[3] Try any cleaner on a hidden area first; solvents can craze clear plastic.
- The imitation circuitry visible at the back is decoration, not a board.[2]
Display
[edit | edit source]- The FIP10AM24T shows cyan, red and green.[4] MAME's notes on these tubes record that the colours fade after decades.[5]
Storage
[edit | edit source]Tomy's care list: no excessive heat or cold (the leaflet's examples are a car glove compartment on a hot day and a heater vent), keep it dry and clean, do not shake or drop it, switch it off when not in use and take the batteries out before storing it.[6]
Maintenance checklist
[edit | edit source]- Cells out; inspect the battery box for leakage.
- Clean the battery terminals; test on fresh alkaline C cells.
- Test on a measured 6-7.5 V, centre-negative supply.
- Clean around the controls without letting liquid in.
- Clean the smoked case gently; test cleaners first.
- Store with the cells out.
Related pages
[edit | edit source]- Grandstand Tron
- Grandstand Tron Troubleshooting Guide
- Grandstand Munchman General Maintenance
- Grandstand Caveman General Maintenance
- Grandstand Universal Mains Adaptor
- Battery Explosion, Capacitor or Corrosion Damage
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Handheld Museum, "Grandstand Tron" (retrieved 2026-10-18): 1981, VFD, four C batteries, model 11266; "Grandstand was the distributer for Tomy's Tron in the U.K."; photographs of the Grandstand-branded game, with "GRANDSTAND TRON" on the bezel and "TOMY" on the front of the base, and of its box ("Code No. 11266", Tomy, "Three electronic games in one").
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Handheld Museum, "Tomy Tron" (retrieved 2026-10-18): 1981, VFD, four C batteries, model 7601; "the entire case is made of a smoked clear plastic so you can see the inside of the game (and it has some large, simulated circuitry in the back...)"; released by Grandstand in the UK.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 GenXGrownUp, "1981 Tron Handheld from Tomytronic in LIKE-NEW CONDITION!", YouTube, 29 June 2023, 8:58 (watched 2026-10-18; no transcript available; chapters "Hardware Tour" 1:31, "Original Manual" 3:06, "Clean-Up" 3:58, "Power On!" 5:33). Shown: the smoked case, with imitation circuit patterns visible through the rear of the hood; the battery cover on the underside carrying a printed instruction label, and the empty battery box with contacts for four C cells in two rows; the panel and case seams cleaned with a cleaning putty; sticker residue on the smoked rear removed with Goo Gone and a microfibre cloth; the game powered on with fresh C cells.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 MAME source, hh_hmcs40.cpp (retrieved 2026-10-18). Driver notes for Tomy Tron: made in Japan; PCB label THN-02 2E114E07; Hitachi HD38800A88 microcontroller, 1-bit sound; cyan/red/green VFD NEC FIP10AM24T no. 2-8 1. The chip list dates the HD38800A88 to 1982 and lists it for Tomy Tron (THN-02) only. Inputs: four directions read through a multiplexed interrupt, and one button; the machine configuration clocks the chip at 400 kHz, marked in the source as an approximation.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 MAME source, hh_ucom4.cpp (retrieved 2026-10-18), file header on VFD games: NEC FIP part numbers give the number of grids after "FIP"; "after decades passed, all the colors fade". Also the driver notes for Tomy Pac-Man (NEC uCOM-43, D553C 160) and Tomy Caveman (NEC uCOM-43, D553C 209, PCB TN-12 2E114E03).
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 Tomy Corporation, Tomytronic Tron instructions, no. 7601, copyright 1982 Tomy Corp., Carson, California, and MCMLXXXI (1981) Walt Disney Productions; printed in Japan. Hosted here as File:Tomy Tron Instructions.pdf. Page 2: "Illustration 1", the battery cover lifted on the underside with four C cells in two rows; "Set the On/Off switch to the Off position. Turn the game over and lift the battery cover ... Insert four 'C' size Alkaline batteries"; recommended AC adapters Archer cat. no. 270-1551 A and Recoton AD-10UL; adapter requirements 7.5 V DC 200 mA, 2.1 mm ID coaxial plug, tip (centre) polarity negative; "Illustration 2", the CONTROL button (right, up, left, down), the ON/OFF switch and the SPEED/SHOOT button; at switch-on "a pattern will move across the screen and a fanfare will sound", then the first screen shows four Tron figures, four Sark figures, three red and green enemy light cycles, the MCP and a score of 0. Pages 3-5: the Light Cycle, Ring and MCP games; the skill level rises after all three are completed, up to six times. Page 6: scores above 1,995 shown as green bars, maximum 15,995 then back to 0; an extra Tron at 2,000 points, at most five; care: no excessive heat or cold, avoid wet or dirt, "Don't take it apart", don't shake or drop, turn off and remove the batteries for storage, no dead batteries left in; "If the batteries become weak the display screen will become dark and show incorrect action".
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Keeper1st, "TRON hand-held electronic game (Tomytronic, 1982)", YouTube, 19 December 2010 (video description, retrieved 2026-10-18): "I had left the batteries in it. The batteries since had expanded and leaked, making a big mess and corroding the battery terminals to the point where batteries cannot power the game anymore. But thankfully it has a jack for an external power supply!"
- ↑ Handheld Museum forum, "Astro wars / galaxy ii repair", December 2018 - February 2019 (retrieved 2026-10-18). The site administrator (Rik), writing about VFD tabletop games in general: the wrong AC adapter "will usually fry" a transistor, "the most frequent damage I've seen to VFD games"; keep rubber buttons, springs and speakers from scrapped games as spares.
- ↑ Handheld Museum forum, "EPOCH Astro Command - dead or dying", January-February 2016 (retrieved 2026-10-18). The site administrator (Rik), writing about VFD tabletop games in general: the games play and make their sounds without the display; displays fade unevenly with heavy use; he has never had a display fail unless the glass was broken.