How tricky is a RAM repair on a Pac-Man?

[kayoteq]

I mentioned my 'hobby' to someone at a client's business, and turns out this one guy has a Pac-Man with apparently some bad RAM. couldn't get much more details on this, other than the local vendor (who only grudgingly will sell me buttons, if that) offered to fix it for somewhere between $400-$800, I think the upper range was for swapping out the original board for a multi.
I  consider myself at least 'competent' at soldering, work a _lot_ with computers..

Should I get involved in this and offer _my_ services on this? Like see what the problem is, let him figure out what he wants to do (restore it back to Pac, restore it and put in a chip kit onto the board (ms pac/plus), or swap the board /wires for a mutli)

Personally, I would be going for restore the board and put in a chip set at worst, but if he wants to go multi.. I figure part of my fee would be getting that pac board even with the funky ram. But I'd rather push the 'fix the board' thing.

I guess there's also folks out there that specialize in fixing the PCBs, so really I guess it's would be a careful extraction, ship it out to fix, and put it back in for a much more reasonable fee than the local vendor guy. That's the safest route.

however, I am shortly going to have a new 48-in-1 for my Jamma cabinet, (in transit) so that option is available.
Opinions? I gave him a inital estimate of $250 to do the swap thing, (new harness, multi pcb) If I keep the pac board, a bit less
if I pull the board, fix it myself or include the fee of the repair person. (if they at least 90-day guarantee their work)

I do want to be as upfront and honest as possible to this guy so he makes a decision based on facts and the best outcome.
Nothing against local arcade guy, but I think he may be charging 'taking up my time' fees a bit excessive.



 

[SavannahLion]

Do what you want. Sounds like you genuinely want to help this guy and probably gain some additional experience along the way.

If you do end up helping this guy, make sure you let him know three things.

First, that it's possible the board might not be repairable for whatever reason. Like if someone tried to do a previous repair and ended up destroying half the traces or something. Or the other end of the spectrum, the repair might cost more than what you estimated. Either way, you'll need to offer some of choice for him to choose from, such as if the board is unrepairable, you'll return the board and his money.

Second, unless you're wanting to get into this kind of sideline, let him know that this is a favor to him. You do this repair for him and the next thing you know, he's going to be telling his buddy whose got a busted Tron that you do repairs for nearly half of what the other guys charge. If it's anything like PC repair, people are going to be pestering you for years after you've done work on their machines. Or worse, those cheap ass relatives are going to find out and they're going to be calling out of the blue to repair their machines for even lower (or God forbid, free!) costs.

Lastly, unless you know this guy personally and know where he lives, get paid before you do the repair. At a minimum, get at least half up front and half after the work and make it very clear how the payment is going to occur.

[Pac-Fan]

If it's just row 4 ram, it's simple to fix. All 6 "2114" ram chips are socketed and easy to replace. This is the ram that fails the most often. If it's got TI brand ram in it, that's the ones I see failing most, most other brands (AMD, Hitachi, GTE, Motorola) don't seem to fail as frequently.  Could also be a bad VRAM daughter board/custom chip or socket in row 5.   2114 ram is about $1 each.

If it's row 2 ram, then those are soldered and harder to come by. They rarely fail however. 

[kayoteq]

Oh, I'm approaching this careful and such. I figure I give it an initial look-see, determine what is likely gone wrong, and let him decide what he wants to do and give him options on it. Like for instance, a sneaky person would just offer to put in that 48 and keep the pac board. Sorta what I'd like to do, but I'll explain that it has a value, and perhaps this is what makes up the difference in service fees; one to fix it, one to swap it (keeping pac) or swap (not keeping pac)

Some folks will want to keep the thing even if it does nothing and just sits in a box, eventually forgotten. I'd like to use it as-is (well, um, fixed first) and convert the galaxian into a proper midway game, rather than the 48 which I can put elsewhere.
I think as long as I'm upfront about the perceived value of the pac board.. but to him, it's broken, perhaps not fixable. We shall see. He might not even want to do the process, and put it off to a later date.  At this point in the process I'm not up to charging annoyance tax on my services..I just think I may want to add this as a service I provide along with normal PC/mac/networking tech guru services. I'm already familiar with the PC Tech/family/friends/fix this? phenomenon. Am used to it, but I have more friends/family with PCs than arcade machines..

At what point, though, am I going to have to 'register' as an amusement machine repair person? they regulate the things (tax,etc. ) and of course the law don't want working video poker machines, (which I will avoid) but I guess 'personal' machines are just fine for now. . I'd hate to get in trouble just because the machine takes money..

[Zeno]

You could also let the guy know that he can send in the board and get it repaired 100%.  It will only cost him about $100 and he wont get ripped off by his local guy.

[RayB]

I agree with the above post.  Be helpful, but don't "take on" other people's problems unless you really need to. Tell him the board can be swapped out for way cheaper (with a known working one off Ebay, or a board repair service for his).

And also jamma multi-board costs under $200 these days. But I guess the guy's estimate also includes many hours of labor to convert the machine to jamma.

[Witchboard]

If he's going to get a JAMMA multi-pac, he can just get a JAMMA to Pac cabinet adapter board for $20 shipped.

[kayoteq]

Well, even though it sounds dead simple, it's moot; the guy already got it fixed, $150 which ain't too bad for providing a technical service.  Game's working, and that' the important part, eh?