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Circuit Board Repair Options? WPC95

thelab

thelab

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Oct 8, 2012
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834
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London
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Vin!
Good people of Pinball Info, I'm hoping you can help a pin repair newbie or help point me in the right direction.

I have a TOTAN on very kind loan that came out of storage and worked for one game before giving up the ghost the next day, (Backglass lights only with one sound 'bong' but no DMD or playfield lit).

I'm new to pin repair, but thought out of courtesy to the owner that I should at least try and diagnose the issue myself and have offered to pay towards costs of repair.

I have changed the power lead, fuses, re-seated ribbons and checked everything I could (inc. board screws, coin door, all ribbons and connectors).

Turns out LED203 on the CPU board is not flickering, so the CPU is not booting up.

The last thing to try was to power the CPU board with nothing else attached, and LED203 still doesn’t light (LED201 stays on). So I checked for battery damage, and there is some, which may be the cause, eeek!

I'm not sure if the corrosion on the back is the cause, but as I don't have any electronics skills, who would you guys recommend I could (with owner's permission) send the board to for a price on checking/testing/fixing please?

Pics attached..

Thanks in advance!

VinWP_20170204_19_30_10_Pro.jpg WP_20170204_21_16_30_Pro.jpg WP_20170204_21_15_07_Pro.jpg
 
Best person for sorting out battery damage is @lukewells .
It's where every other repairman sends there boards to.
 
Vin

Can I lend you my world poker tour ?. Works perfect. I will stick it on a pallet to you

BTW beware Rottendog boards. They are a last resort option imho. Better to get a clean original board (these things have lasted for 20 yrs after all). Or get a repaired original

Ta
 
replicas said:
Best person for sorting out battery damage is @lukewells .
It's where every other repairman sends there boards to.
Click to expand...

He won't thank you for that. Last time Luke mentioned his repairs he was looking to come out of doing them. Bit like Phil at PH, spending a life of fixing others problems and dealing with idiots...... he rarely has time to come in here anymore.
 
JMP said:
He won't thank you for that. Last time Luke mentioned his repairs he was looking to come out of doing them. Bit like Phil at PH, spending a life of fixing others problems and dealing with idiots...... he rarely has time to come in here anymore.
Click to expand...


Ah man, I hope he doesn't. He's a font of knowledge and experience. A real dying art.
There are so many bell ends out there aren't there. Hopefully he'll still do them for people he knows
 
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Can't blame him if he does tbh. He tells me of constant hassle with people....e.g. people have faults in their machines causing board damage, send them to Luke to fix, he sends them a video of them working when fixed, they put back in the faulty machine and damage them again telling Luke he hasn't fixed them. Others saying his new displays don't work and want a refund but when Luke asks for them back to test they don't send them. He's probably got several months of work ahead of him and tells people of the long waiting list when requesting repairs, then they chase him up after days or a few weeks ! @philpalmer will relate to this.....

He doesn't know I'm posting here but about time people are aware. If people keep hassling him or trying it on, he'll likely stop all together. Just so you know.... ;)
 
DRD said:
Vin

Can I lend you my world poker tour ?. Works perfect. I will stick it on a pallet to you

BTW beware Rottendog boards. They are a last resort option imho. Better to get a clean original board (these things have lasted for 20 yrs after all). Or get a repaired original

Ta
Click to expand...

David! Thank you for the lovely offer, but the missus will only allow one machine in the house (working or not!). Would love to buy that WPT off you one day! Speak soon!
 
Cheers for the help all, sending the board off to repair and working with the owner to resolve.
 
i never repair battery damaged cpu s its not worth the hastle the solder never keys to the damaged areas and once the acid has set in its only a matter of time before it burns through another track somewhere else also corrosion causes loads of silly faults do yourself a favor and buy a new one
 
Good advice, or even better, use remote battery holders or NVRAM seems to be the mantra!

Newbie learnings...!

Cheers all!

Vin
 
chris b said:
i never repair battery damaged cpu s its not worth the hastle the solder never keys to the damaged areas and once the acid has set in its only a matter of time before it burns through another track somewhere else also corrosion causes loads of silly faults do yourself a favor and buy a new one
Click to expand...

They are a massive hassle, but certainly can be done, this one in particular looks like a totally reasonable repair. I get some shocking ones in, but if the owners want them fixed then I usually do it. I think I've only ever condemned 2-3 WPC boards that were totally beyond any reasonable repair.

The corrosion must all be removed down to bare copper and then any tracks that are thinned out need to be solder coated or patched on the back.

I've got boards in my own machines that I did corrosion repair on 10+ years ago, so I know they last if you get rid of the corrosion properly.

Sega boards are the real nightmare as the pcb quality is dire, and the tracks are so thin in copper weight, but you have to fix them as buying new boards are just too expensive
 
Luke your soldering skills far outweigh mine and no that's not too bad but it's a high end pin so justifies a new board in my eyes yes if it's a cheeper pin and your own then worth a repair
I also think that repairing stuff like this always comes back and bites you on the ass if 2 weeks later he has another fault and you have charged x amount to fix leads to unhappy customer and unhappy you
If anybody wants some cheep cpus to repair I have boxes full of them
 
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