DOA DKJR PCB - Hacked DoubleDK or just taken again on eBay?

[MameFan]

Hi all. Hopefully someone out there has a clue about this situation.   (See picture links below). Perhaps it is a DDK hack that is saveable or perhaps trash the whole thing?

A friend of mine bought a Donkey Kong Jr. PCB off of eBay a couple months ago.  The pertinent auction text said this:

Title: "DONKEY KONG JR PCB WAS TOLD IT WORKED"
Desc: "BUT? THE BOARD LOOKS GREAT AND I WAS TOLD BY THE OPERATOR IT WAS WORKING %100 BY THE TECH BUT BID AS IF IT WERE UNTESTED. BID ON AS NON WORKING. I WILL NOT PUT ANY WARRANTY ON IT. THIS WAS IN A STACK OF BOARDS. THIS IS IN GREAT SHAPE, [...]  BID ON THIS BOARD AS UNTESTED OR NOT WORKING. THANKS I HAVE USED MANY OF THE BOARDS FROM THE OPERATOR AND THEY ALL WORKED. [...] SOME JUMPERS ON CHIPS ONE IS OFF AND ONE POT IS OFF TOO.

Since I'm a techie, it was given to me when I last saw him in order to get it running.

Well, needless to say, it is dead.  But worse yet, it is in poor condition and has been HORRENDOUSLY HACKED!

First, it smells of animal urine.  

Second, it sustained damage laterally causing at least one resistor to be swiveled and one leg broken, possibly another one gone entirely, and an IC twisted on board breaking one leg off and bending the others.

Third: it has a loose patch wire just flopping around and at least 4 points where it COULD go (see next)

Forth: A good number of logic chips as well as eproms are stacked on top of the original soldered chips, and their legs are either directly soldered to the original chip, or legs bent outward and tiny wires soldered that lead to other chips on board, or original chip legs cut or cut+attached to wires.  A real MESS.


Given this condition, there is NO WAY this was working "100%" before shipment.  I connected it up and poked around and got absolutely nothing other than 5 volts to all 3 video lines, plus a stable sync. Resulting in a blank picture.  No sound, no hint of a picture, etc..

I doubt I am going to spend much time on it, but was curious if this was some type of multi-game hack from the 80's or some horrible patch job to fix it (but why stack eprom chips?)   Or if there was any hope other than to re-ebay it with an honest description to just dispose of it to someone who has time and patience to diagonose it.  

I can fix Pacman and Galaxian boards since there is lots of tech data on them, but there isn't much for DK Jr, plus the hack job only makes it much worse.

Any suggestions?    Pictures (much better than the original auction, mind you) are below:

(Attempting to add pictures...not seeming to work right now)

[MameFan]

Side 1

[MameFan]

Another side 1

[MameFan]

Side 2:

[MameFan]

Another side 2 (lateral shearing of components)

[MameFan]

Whole side 1

[MameFan]

Whole side 2

[IIOIOOIOO]

Ouch. Yes, looks like DDK I think. No one has docs on it for repair, because the guy who does the DDK conversion doesn't sell it as a kit. I'll buy it from him (cheap...) for parts, though, if he wants to reclaim a little bit of money.

[SirPeale]

You mentioned that it smells like animal urine.  This in itself could be contributing to the fact that it does not work.

My recommendation?  Wash it.  Put it in a sink, and using lukewarm water, spray the heck out of it.  Get every nook and cranny you can.

Preheat your oven to about 175 degrees.  Put the board in the oven, and let it dry for an hour.  Let it stand for a day or so, and then try again.

[JesterDEV]

Looks like a DDK hack to me also. I would suggest telling the owner to sell it for parts. Some of it might be good.

[radiator]

mmm, i agree about the urine thing...

once, in a drunken state, my bro came home late, went to bed, only to get up a few hours later to goto the loo...

he ended up walking out to where out portable phone is (was) and p**sed all over it...

it never worked again (and looking at the PCB inside, you could see that some of the tracks and solder joints had actually disintegrated!!)