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Fixing PCB's


Two Dads

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Hey dudes..Do any of you gurus out there no of any good sites or have any knowledge you like to pass on about what steps should be taken to fault find pcbs, and how to go about it..Well a starting point anyway. Interested in learning how to go through and localize what part of board I should be looking at according to what is or isn't happening on game fault find ic's and reprogram etc...basically so I can have a go at trying and fix my own boards...:cry As more interested in that side of it then playing them nearly now-a-days..Thanks, Pete
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if you can find schematics for the board you are repairing then that helps alot. What i usually do (priliminary) is grab a pair of multi-meters and get voltage reading from the board in various places. i generally work my way backwards through the board from the finger board back (following schematics). This really only applie to dead boards though.

 

Next step would be to grab a logic prob and make your self a cheap test rig from an old monitor, psu etc. Then go through the chips folloiwng the schemtaic from the finger board backwards making sure that ic's are pulsing etc. having replacement ic to compare with is always real good.

 

This is about as far as my expertise goes though.

 

There are so many variables with dead/broken boards though that it really depends on what the specific problem is. i.e.

 

If i saw garbled sprites, then first i would check to make sure that their is enough power at both ends of the board, then i would look at framebuffer memory or system memory with a logic probe. Also, you could dump the contents of the roms and compare aginst mame to make sure that was not the prob.

 

Board that freeze/reset, i would be looking at capacitors on the board and making sure that they were all good, especially the electrolytic ones.

 

Also, checking for dry solder joints has paid off for me many times when doing fault finding on baords that have corrupted graphics.

 

There are many other backyarders here at operation badmouth that have got lots more experience than myself in this field. Alot of the repairs can be performed by yourself, you just have to patient and do a bit of research before you start. It will come with experience.

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