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Will Womble Fix Your Board? Probably...


Womble

Question

People keep asking me if I offer a board repair service, and if so what my prices are. Over the past few years my answer has been yes and no, and very inconsistent, which isn't helpful - even I am confused.

So I am going to say a formal "yes", but with a few caveats and exclusions, basically this is a hobby so I'm increasingly declining repairs that require me to commit too great a proportion of my own free time.

Please read all of the below.

Pricing

$250 flat repair fee for JAMMA pinout boards, plus parts, return postage, on a no-fix-no-fee basis.

$400 flat repair fee for non-JAMMA pinout boards , plus parts, plus return postage, on a no-fix-no-fee basis.

 

Parts are included, unless I have to buy parts in. Usually this is when the repair needs a tonne of ROMs, a whole load of new sockets, or if I need to track down an unusual IC that I can't find in my heap of donor boards. Increasingly I don't even take on boards that are likely to need a tonne of parts replaced, as they are not a fun way to spend a weekend.

The biggest risk is if I need to find really vintage RAM chips or PROMs that I don't keep stock of. PROMs especially as they need to be "new old stock" as they can't be erased and re-used once they have been burnt, as a result stocks are getting low and some are now $30 a chip.

In a lot of cases I won't take these jobs on, as many of these chips are utterly unobtainable without risking buying a load of labelled-to-order fakes from China. Also, if I have to buy parts in they can take 4-6 weeks to arrive post COVID, and all parts are getting rarer.

If I can't fix it then it is up to you what you want to do, I can return it at your cost, or use as scrap so other boards can live. My preference is always to send it back, I don't need more scrap.

Finally - I do repairs as a hobby, not a business, I don't meet the ATO criteria. I went down the ABN path some years ago and it was a pain, my ABN has now expired.

 

Caveats

1) I can only do one a month, two at a push. Sometimes it can be 3-6 months before you see your board again, it depends on how much of a fight it puts up.

2) If you are in a hurry please let me know up front, in most cases I will decline, its a hobby after all - I have enough deadlines in my day job.

3) If you ensure the packaging is re-usable then it will mean the board will likely get back to you more quickly. If you include the return address on a label, or printed on an A4 page it will save even more time. Packing and posting back is a major pain. Without providing return packaging it can take me weeks to get it rolling again as life gets in the way of finding boxes and packaging, and getting to the post office for a quote, and then taking it back to drop it off. If it arrived boxed I know what the return postage will be, and I can re-use the box. Much much quicker.  If you mummify the board in bubble wrap and tape so I have to cut it out then it will take longer.

4) No Neo Geo boards - sorry but no, so much track rot, and potential for problems with the edge connector, plus issues with the carts in your collection that I don't get to test with.

5) Anything with a suicide battery - I can't take responsibility for things that suicide in the mail, it happens, the batteries are nearly 30 years old. I'll let you know what options exist.

6) Anything that uses non-standard controllers, spinners, rotary joysticks, light guns, steering wheels will be a problem. I can't test those functions, or invest the time in replicating them. An exception here is Sega Outrun, Hang-On and Super Hang On which I do repair as I've got my head round those systems on recent repairs.

7) Anything that is medium or high resolution is out, I am not set up for that. The vast majority of arcade PCBs are standard resolution so this is mostly a non-issue.

8 ) Early Taito and Williams multi stack PCBs are an issue - getting them to a reliable state usually requires a major rebuild, so we'd need to agree on how much needs doing. As much as I like fixing boards I really don't want to see the same board over and over again as it works its way through all the other faults that are about to occur. 

9) Anything newer than 1994 is out, am not set up for SMD work, not that you can get spares of the custom parts without scrapping another board of the same game. Doesn't hurt to ask but I'll probably decline. 

10) Anything older than 1983 is also out - these always need a complete rip and replace, every socket, edge connector and pin header. They also come from an era when half the power supply is a brick in the bottom of the cabinet, I don't get to see that, so fixing half a power supply and expecting it to work, or stay working, isn't a viable approach. Finally, they usually contain a tonne of parts that I cannot source within Australia, so that adds 1-2 months postage delay and a high chance of getting faked parts in from China.

10) I don't fix anything that's an XXX-in-1, or Pandora boxes.

11) I don't do mod kits or conversions.

12) Anything related to CRT chassis, mains wiring, or cabinet wiring is out. So game PCB's only - liability madness ensues once I step away from low voltage DC land.

13) International folk - I have done repairs for folk in the US and the UK, but please check your postage prices first, if it costs US$100 to post me your board, it will cost the same to post it back. I agree this will make almost all repairs uneconomical, but it's your call.

14) Warranty - I don't provide one. All this gear is 30-40 years old, it was expected to be used for 6 months then scrapped. Eventually everything will die, so there is no reason to expect that something I fix will magically become immortal just because I touched it. I will fix the faults I find, and release it back into the wild. I don't bulk replace every single chip on the board, I also don't re-cap PCBs. I replace the caps that are faulty, damaged or missing. Having said that, I have never had a board arrive back at the owner DOA, or faulty again, but there is always a first.

I cannot bullet-proof a board without spending 100+ hours, and $1000 sourcing and replacing every single part on the board.

Questions I know I am going to get asked

Q: Isn't that a lot of $$ to fix PCBs when you can usually buy them fully working for half the fee

A: Not really, you are buying my time, what the board is worth working doesn't change that. Same as your local mechanic doesn't drop his rate if your car should have been scrapped a decade ago. It's actually pretty cheap to be honest, I could double it and still be lower than many of the professional options, not that there are many left.

 

Q: What about mates rates for AA members?

A: That is mates rates, I could charge twice that and still be cheaper than any professional option that exists.

 

Q: Can I pay you with scrap boards?

A: Maybe, but probably not, it depends what they are, so it doesn't hurt to ask. In general scrap boards are worth next to nothing, at best they have $5 of useful parts on them, but those are parts you find on almost all scrap boards so I have a lifetimes supply already. If I can only sell the fixed scrap board for $200 then it is the same as asking me to fix two boards for the price of one, obviously this takes twice the time. So unless the game is something I actually want to keep then I'd rather not.

 

Q: Can I send you a load of boards to look at and you can choose which are fixable?

A: Please don't, am trying to keep the amount of junk I have in the toy-room to a manageable level

 

Q: Can I post you a board now, and you can look at it when you get the time.

A: Please don't, am trying to keep the amount of junk I have in the toy-room to a manageable level. Am going to operate this on a 1-in-1-out basis.

 

Q: Do you do onsite work.

A: No - there's no way I can dismantle my workbench and transport everything I might need.

 

Q: Do you repair whole cabinets?

A: No, see point 11 above about mains side and monitors. Old mains wiring in cabinets is often well below modern safety standards, and usually contains decades of operator hacks (rotten wiring, gaffer tape, chopped earths, switched neutral, fuses blocks bypassed, incorrect fuses, fuses in both L and N etc etc). Taking on a cabinet means I have to make sure it won't kill you, or your kids, and is up to modern standards. That's a lot of work, even for a cabinet where the mains-side appears to work, and I am not a licenced electrician.

Legally if I touch it anything mains-side it is my problem, if I see the bad things, I have to fix them.

I don't touch monitors for the same reason.

Finally whole cabinets are just too big and bulky, they end up stuck in the garage for a month or two eroding Mrs Womble's patience. I'd really rather not.

 

Q: What about boards that just have a simple fault?

A: Most faults are simple, tracking them down is the hard bit, that's the bit that takes all the time.

 

Q: You realise that fee means you won't get many boards, bootlegs, or low value boards to fix.

A: Yes - great!!!

 

Q: Can you program ROMs for me?

A: No, there are other folk on here that can sort you out.

 

Q: Can you provide spare parts, or program EPROMs/PALs/GALs for me?

A: No, that way leads to madness, the chances of "that chip" you saw as the culprit in an online repair log fixing your board is slim, even if the fault looks the same, so most of the parts would end up trashed or welded to a junk board. Also if I provide parts then there seems to be an expectation that I get involved in troubleshooting it remotely when it doesn't fix the issue, almost as if my part should have fixed it and because it didn't then it's my problem.

 

Q: Can you de-suicide games, or can you convert it to another title for me?

A: No, this is the same as the "can you program ROMs for me?", except it is a LOT of ROMs, plus many hours of time troubleshooting why it didn't work, digging into jumper settings for JEDEC/Non-JEDEC EPROM layouts, poking around regional version issues and non-accurate PAL dumps.

 

Q: Will my board get a write up?

A: Hard to tell, I've got a huge backlog of write ups, most will never see the light of day.

Edited by Womble
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Great write up, well done.

 

Sadly many still think it is a 5 minute fix and any old Joe can do it without understanding the time, effort and pain needed to go through to attain the very specialised skills that you (and VERY few others) have.

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Very reasonable prices considering some of the boards are a nightmare to work on.

True for some boards not for others.

Maybe a hourly rate is better (that's what I do).

But it can cover the cost of a new board quickly.

 

A big no-no for me are boards heavily Fujitsu populated. I only repair them for myself (and only rare ones).

Recently fixed a Japanese Street Fighter (the first one from 1987). It's a 3 board stack, I found around 20 dead Fujitsu chips but replaced them all for future reliability: that was more than 100 chips and a 6h job (desoldering, cleaning, resoldering)... I did it in 6 evenings over 3 weeks (1 hour each time).

 

Q: You realise that fee means you won't get many boards, or bootlegs, or low value boards to fix.

A: Yes - great!!!

I love that!

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True for some boards not for others.

Maybe a hourly rate is better (that's what I do).

But it can cover the cost of a new board quickly.

 

A big no-no for me are boards heavily Fujitsu populated. I only repair them for myself (and only rare ones).

Recently fixed a Japanese Street Fighter (the first one from 1987). It's a 3 board stack, I found around 20 dead Fujitsu chips but replaced them all for future reliability: that was more than 100 chips and a 6h job (desoldering, cleaning, resoldering)...

 

 

I love that!

 

hourly rate is a mess with this kind of repair and you leave yourself open to arguments -

 

"how come it took 20 hours? Are you lazy or slow or just stupid?"

 

Flat rate eliminates this and also turns away those that think "it's only a cap".

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hourly rate is a mess with this kind of repair and you leave yourself open to arguments -

 

"how come it took 20 hours? Are you lazy or slow or just stupid?"

 

Flat rate eliminates this and also turns away those that think "it's only a cap".

Flat rate can be good too if you keep track of the time you've spent on each board and then make an average.

It also means sometimes you win big, sometimes you lose big.

 

Main thing is it's all about trust. For instance if you declare a board "unrepairable" due to faulty customs people could say "how am I sure you're not saying that to keep the board"...

With the hourly rate I explain that after X hours it's just not worth spending more time and that it's a risk the owner of the board takes.

 

The no-fix-no-fee basis is also a mess. You just give your time for free... I'd rather do a minimum fare for diagnostic/inspection and again at owner's risk.

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Great write up.

I've been thinking of doing something similar for playfield restores.

 

 

Sent from my Redmi Note 3 using Tapatalk

 

Yes it pains me to see how many pins are sitting out there in parts, not working and just waiting for parts taken off to be lost.

 

To me, a replacement playfield swap over is a 6 hour job. 6 hours is $300. No rotisserie, straight in the top of the machine, start on the bottom side and when it's done, flip the board over and finish the top.

 

Shit I get less than 6 hours to do a whole machine. Give me a brand spanking new playfield to put the parts directly onto and that is bliss.

 

Chasing parts is my biggest issue when I don't have them. This is especially the case with SS Gottlieb parts as I never really liked them and never kept parts for them.

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People keep asking me if I offer a board repair service, and if so what my prices are. Over the past few years my answer has been yes and no, and very inconsistent, which isn't helpful - even I am confused.

 

So I am going to say a formal "yes", but with some caveats. Please read all of the below.

 

Pricing

 

$175 flat repair fee for JAMMA, plus return postage, on a no-fix-no-fee basis.

$200 flat repair fee for non-JAMMA - unless you can provide a harness, plus return postage, on a no-fix-no-fee basis. You get to keep the harness I have to make if the board is fixable and sent back to you.

$50 de-suicide fee - beware that if the board is currently dead then a de-suicide may not fully bring it back to life, the $50 could turn into a $175 job. Dead boards can hide many faults.

 

Parts are included, unless I have to buy parts in, which is pretty rare. Usually this is only the case for funky RAM chips that I don't have stock off.

 

If I can't fix it then it is up to you what you want to do, I can return it at your cost, or use as scrap so other boards can live.

 

I do repairs as a Hobby, not a business, I don't meet the ATO criteria. I went down the ABN path some years ago and it was a pain, my ABN has now expired.

 

Caveats

 

1) I can only do one a month, two at a push. Basically I need a free afternoon per board.

2) If you are in a hurry please let me know up front.

3) If you ensure the packaging is re-usable then it will save a lot of time. If you include the return address on a label, or printed on an A4 page it will save even more time. Packing and posting back is a major pain.

4) No Neo Geo boards - I hates them, so much track rot, and potential for problems with the edge connector.

5) Anything with a suicide battery - I can't take responsibility for things that suicide in the mail, it happens, the batteries are nearly 30 years old. I'll let you know what options exist.

6) Anything that uses non-standard controllers, spinners, rotary joysticks, light guns, steering wheels will be a problem. I can't test those functions, or invest the time in replicating them.

7) Anything that is Medium Res, or VGA is out, I am not set up for that.

8) Anything newer than 1994 is out, am not set up for large scale SMD work, not that you can get spares of the custom parts anyway.

9) I don't fix anything that's an XXX in 1.

10) Anything related to CRT chassis, mains wiring, or cabinet wiring is out. So game PCB's only - liability madness ensues once I step away from low voltage DC land.

11) International folk - I have done repairs for folk in the US and the UK, but please check your postage prices first, if it costs US$100 to post me your board, it will cost the same to post it back. I agree this will make almost all repairs uneconomical, but it's your call.

12) Warranty - I don't provide one. All this gear is 30+ years old, it was expected to be used for 6 months then scrapped. Eventually everything will die, so there is no reason to expect that something I fix will magically become immortal. I will fix the faults I find, and release it back into the wild. I don't bulk replace every single Fujitsu TTL on the board, I also don't re-cap PCBs, I replace the caps that are faulty, damaged or missing.

 

Questions I know I am going to get asked

 

Q: Isn't that a lot to fix PCBs when you can usually buy them working for half the fix fee.

A: Not really, you are buying my time, what the board is worth working doesn't change that. Same as your local mechanic doesn't drop his rate if your car is bomb. It's actually pretty cheap to be honest, I could double it and still be lower than many of the professional options, not that there are many left.

 

Q: Can I pay you with scrap boards?

A: Maybe, but depends what they are, so probably not, but it doesn't hurt to ask. In general scrap boards are worth next to nothing, at best they have $5 of useful parts on them. If I can only sell the fixed scrap board for $200 then it is the same as asking me to fix two boards for the price of one, obviously this takes twice the time. So unless the game is something I actually want to keep then I'd rather not.

 

Q: Can I send you a load of boards to look at, and you choose which are fixable?

A: Please don't, am trying to keep the amount of junk I have in the toy-room to a manageable level.

 

Q: Can I post you a board now, and you can look at it when you get the time.

A: Please don't, am trying to keep the amount of junk I have in the toy-room to a manageable level. Am going to operate on a 1-in-1-out basis.

 

Q: Do you do onsite work.

A: No - there's no way I can dismantle my workbench and transport everything I might need.

 

Q: You realise that fee means you won't get many boards, or bootlegs, or low value boards to fix.

A: Yes - great!!!

 

Q: Will my board get a write up?

A: Probably, but I can't guarantee it.

 

Hats off to you mate.

I know @Johns-Arcade went down a similar route because he got fed up and I won't do them at all. I've helped many people out over the years, funny how you only hear from somebody when they want something fixed.

Edited by Arcade King
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Hats off to you mate.

I know @johns Arcade went down a similar route because he got fed up and I won't do them at all. I've helped many people out over the years, funny how you only hear from somebody when they want something fixed.

 

How come the uneducated idiot always seems to know the, "it's probably just a cap".

 

Really, how about when it may have been, "just a cap", before some fool saw the 5vDC adjustment pot and cranked it up to max and just about fried every part on the board.

Edited by Autosteve
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Great terms! };-P I totally understand you!

 

I tried repairing for money and a guy I didn't know once at some point, at it just went terribly wrong. Never gonna do that again.

 

Now I only repair my own stuff or for very close friends... who knows that it might take over a year or more, before I get "in the right mood" for that particular repair/board.

Usually they pay me some nice defective PCBs or similar (once got a mint PS2 TEST machine) just for trying. No expectation of a fix.

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Very reasonable prices considering some of the boards are a nightmare to work on.

 

Maybe, but depends what they are, so probably not, but it doesn't hurt to ask. In general scrap boards are worth next to nothing, at best they have $5 of useful parts on them. If I can only sell the fixed free no deposit casino bonus
 scrap board for $200 then it is the same as asking me to fix two boards for the price of one, obviously this takes twice the time. So unless the game is something I actually want to keep then I'd rather not.

Edited by Kathline
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Extremely low rates to have such a proven expert work on your board.

 

$60 for de-suiciding sounds amazing! Is that for a new battery, original ROMs restoration or phoenixing? I have some dead CPS1 games I would like to get fixed.

 

EDIT: Do you have a supply of CPS1 B21 chips? I need one replaced on a C board and would like to be able to get it repaired before I resort to sacrificing a CPS2 A board.

Edited by Segasonic91
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It is just for replacing the battery and re flashing the security keys back into C board on Capcom CPS1 pcbs.

 

I don't provide replacement EPROMs or take on de-phoenixing back to original. That ship has already sailed as the board will always look like it has been phoenixed as the ROM stickers will be long gone.

 

Also beware that the failure rate of CPS A boards is very high, it is quite common to find suicided C boards paired with known dead A boards and sold as "needs to be phoenixed". There is no fix for the A boards as the main custom chip is the one that fails, the only source for those is other A boards. Same for the B21 chips, there is no new old stock known, so you'd have to gut a working board to get one.

 

I've met quite a few where the BC board is brought back to life but the A board set is still dead, or has serious gfx corruption which is due to the failed custom IC.

Edited by Womble
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Hi Womble,

 

After checking my Captain Commando board tonight, it looks like there is no cut tracks on the C board. There is the wire from the C board to whereever (3am, mind is not working) but looks that is all the work they did. I would love to send this in to get re-batteryfied!

 

King of Dragons is in stock state. Even has the old battery. Was very lucky to get it in a junk lot last year. I spotted it in the photos right away and hoped no one else would. The lot ended at about ¥5000!! It also had an ST-V board and Puyo Puyo. The rest were junky marjong games that I have no need of. Wanted it for KoD even though I knew it woukd be dead, the ST-V and the SEGA board which turned out to be the awesome Puyo Puyo.

 

Wonder 3 is my main problem because of the missing B-21 chip. I do have the C board from the 14-in-1 CPS1 board which is modified exactly as a phoenixed board would be. Can this be reversed and used for Wonder 3 or would I have to check the PALs? If not, is taking the B-21 off the 14-in-1 C board and putting it on the Wonder 3 board be something you could do?

 

Edit: Womble, is a CPS1 board displaying only half the screen something you have encountered before? I have a world Final Fight like that. I have never seen anything about that fault before. It is not the A board and I have swapped C boards with Jp Final Fight and same deal. Any ideas?

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It is just for replacing the battery and re flashing the security keys back into C board on Capcom CPS1 pcbs.

 

I don't provide replacement EPROMs or take on de-phoenixing back to original. That ship has already sailed as the board will always look like it has been phoenixed as the ROM stickers will be long gone.

 

Also beware that the failure rate of CPS A boards is very high, it is quite common to find suicided C boards paired with known dead A boards and sold as "needs to be phoenixed". There is no fix for the A boards as the main custom chip is the one that fails, the only source for those is other A boards. Same for the B21 chips, there is no new old stock known, so you'd have to gut a working board to get one.

 

I've met quite a few where the BC board is brought back to life but the A board set is still dead, or has serious gfx corruption which is due to the failed custom IC.

 

The custom ICs from the CPS-1 A board and C board can also be found on a CPS-2 A board. It's not hard to find those motherboards where the video output section was fried because someone plugged the board into a monitor that needed, but was missing, an isolation transformer.

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I'm sure you've heard it all Womble, good to clarify... I don't think Joe Public knows how difficult and time consuming this hobby can be. My favorite take on it is...

 

Dead transistor...50c

 

5 hours work finding the blighter!!! $250

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