Arcade pcb repair projects of doom

[CraftyMech]

So you know how it goes... you see a tempting auction on eBay with no bids, or even pick up a board for free from a friend. The only hitch is the board has issues from glitchy graphics to just plain dead.

What project boards do you have lurking in your closet?

My list in order of neglect:

-- 3 Scramble/Super Cobra boards all with various problems. Don't know why I was on a Scramble kick that week, I liked the game when I was a kid so I couldn't resist. My first acquisitions in the "project" board category.

-- Mr. DO... ice cold with no pulse. This board taught me that "untested" on eBay probably means at some point the board was submerged in a bathtub with a plugged in toaster.

-- 1943 with glitchy graphics.

[TOK]

I have a hacked up Robotron... Early Williams games are already crazy to work on because everything is on a separate board.
I guess the good side of that is if one board is completely toast, you can just replace that one section.

Already have this machine up and running on a JROK board, but I'll spend some time on this when the weather warms up (unheated garage).

[CraftyMech]

Nice!

Reminds me of a Gorf board set I saw, looked like a supercomputer with 5 stacked boards.

The Williams boards don't show up on eBay that often, I would love to pickup a Defender or Joust set.

[CraftyMech]

Tracked down the prime suspect for my 1943 board with glitched graphics... a roasted Capcom IC (86S100). Finding a replacement could be interesting... from what I can tell this chip is a custom Capcom IC used in a few other pre-CPS1 boards like Side Arms, and Tiger Heli. A donor board might be my only option for replacement.

[ChadTower]

Most of mine are Kee games partial sets I saved from other people who wanted to get them off their shelves.  Not a whole lot I can do with them as they aren't full sets.  Maybe I'll drive them up to Funspot one of these days.

[CraftyMech]

Most of mine are Kee games partial sets I saved from other people who wanted to get them off their shelves.  Not a whole lot I can do with them as they aren't full sets.  Maybe I'll drive them up to Funspot one of these days.

I have a Rampage pcb that was a freebie as well, and at the time I thought I'd probably run across the other board eventually. Later I found out Rampage is a 5 board set! So it's a parts board I guess.

[HaRuMaN]

Picked up a Rastan for $10 because the sound didn't work.
Turns out the seller wasn't supplying the -5V required for the sound.   

Traded a glitchy Popeye pcb for a glitch Cadillacs & Dinosaurs bootleg.
Turns out all it needed was a good edge cleaning.   

[CraftyMech]

Picked up a Rastan for $10 because the sound didn't work.
Turns out the seller wasn't supplying the -5V required for the sound.   

Traded a glitchy Popeye pcb for a glitch Cadillacs & Dinosaurs bootleg.
Turns out all it needed was a good edge cleaning.   

Nice score!

[CraftyMech]

Found a source for the chip I was looking for, so hopefully the replacement will bring my 1943 board back to 100%.

[SavannahLion]

Does every cab you own count? 90% of what I have are in the untested category. 

I think I have at least two or three SFII boards with a layer of dust so thick I could grow plants on them. I also have a four or so "spare" ROMS for some strange reason that goes with them. Some sort of upgrade/downgrade I think.

A Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man board, or maybe it has a speed hack. Haven't decided which it is.

Two CPS2 sets. One probably has a dead battery (no label and I got razzies on it) and the other, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, does work. I really should get around to replacing that battery to be on the safe side. But one of the mating boards has a bad I/O header and I can't find the correct part.

Nearly all of my 'cade stuff is buried under other projects. The cabs and monitors are buried under my flooring work (kid flooded my house whattya do? ).

What's irritating is I'm quite mystified as to why nearly half of my gathered parts for my current projects has mysteriously gone missing. My fresh inks, copper clad boards, three different huge orders of IC's and uC's, the CuCl2 and FeCl3, the Atari 2600, my sons DS game collection, my paints etc etc have all disappeared. Remember the car from Wristcutters? I ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- you not, I think my work bench is like that. It's not just with the SMD stuff either. My daughters cat jumped down from the bench and I haven't seen her since.

[CraftyMech]

Wow SavannahLion, you have a lot of projects to catch up on! I don't feel so bad now for having a few broken boards on my shelves

[SavannahLion]

I suffer from the same ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- my father both suffered from. We take on so many projects they quickly overwhelm each other. Then we get married, get kids, and all bets are out the door.

When I was a bachelor, it was reasonably easy to keep track of things. I lived in a cottage, I turned one of the rooms into my work space. When I wasn't playing Diablo or Unreal, I was writing software. At the time I wasn't interested in cabs, but collected consoles and games. But a series of tragic events (I started dating ) led to a direct competition between my tallywacker and my numerous interests.

In short, I wasted ten years of my life on that  and she left with just under half of my GCN & PS2 game collection, the GCN, a 1/3 of the PC game discs, and attempted to siphon my bank account (I was broke so what was there to take?). So now, I'm older, wiser, not a whole lot richer and my tallywacker still makes my choices because I'm married with 2.5 kids. I see a lot of  get a lot of  have to break up a lot of  clean up after the damn  do a lot of  and  and  and the only thing I really have to look forward to now is  when my daughters start dating, watching  with my son and feeling and doing a lot of 

And I've got my projects 

[CraftyMech]

That does sound like a handful SavannahLion.. I'm married as well but no kids. So that does help quite a bit with the free time! I also work from home, doing IT work remote, so being around the house during the day lets me peek in on projects for a few minutes here and there.

I was doing well on my own projects though until I decided to start my mini SLG project. That has taken up most of my free time since November, but I'm hoping soon to be able to get back to working on a bartop, and a full size cab that lives only in my head right now, and repairing some of these broken pcbs... I think all of us in this hobby need an eighth day of the week!