When troubleshooting an arcade game, you might get to a point where you start to suspect that your board has issues. Swapping in a tested, working board in JAMMA wired cabinets is an easy way to find out if it’s your current board or the cabinet that’s causing your issues. In this post, we will discuss how to swap boards in a JAMMA cabinet for testing and conversion purposes.

Swapping Boards In A JAMMA Cabinet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eSUe5FrkC8

As mentioned in the introduction, we highly recommend keeping extra JAMMA boards around for testing purposes. Some good candidates for test boards include 8 liners boards (such as cherry master) or older JAMMA games from the late 80s and early 90s. You can purchase these types of boards pretty cheap at arcade auctions or even off of eBay. It’s OK if the board that you use for testing is not 100% working. We use an old Street Fighter 2 board that has some graphical glitches but it works well enough to tell if our cabinet is working properly.

Before we begin the process of swapping out our JAMMA boards, we recommend checking the power supply to make sure it’s working properly. Keep in mind that the board expects a certain voltage to be connected to specific pins on the JAMMA harness. Board damage or malfunction can result from incorrect voltages being sent to these pins from the power supply. Please review our post on Checking And Replacing A Power Supply for more information on checking the voltages coming from your power supply.

Once we’ve checked our power supply, we can begin the process of swapping out our JAMMA boards. Begin by opening up your cabinet and locating the board that is currently connected to the harness. Slowly remove the JAMMA harness from the board. Make sure you note the location of pin 7 (known as the key) on your main harness as you remove the board. The key helps you identify how to plug the new board into your harness. Many JAMMA harnesses have a plastic placeholder in this spot which prevents you from plugging the board into your harness incorrectly. Keep in mind that plugging the board in backwards might cause damage to your board. You might notice an additional harness (known as a kick harness) inside of your cabinet. If your cabinet has a kick harness, remove it from the board after the main JAMMA harness. At this point, you can either remove the board from the cabinet or find a partition (such as a piece of cardboard) that will prevent the current board from touching the new board.

With the harness removed from the current board, we can proceed with connecting our new board. Locate the harness coming from the cabinet. Make sure that the key on your harness matches up with the key on your new JAMMA board. Place the harness on the JAMMA connector in the correct position. You should now be able to turn your cabinet on and get a picture on the monitor. Please note that you might have some problems with your control panel especially if your new board requires a kick harness. Unless the original board and the new board use the same system, you will probably need to hook up a different kick harness to your cabinet to get all of your controls working. If you are only using the new board as a test board, plugging up the main JAMMA harness should be enough to tell if your power supply and cabinet wiring are working.

Whether you’re trying to track down problems with a game or installing an entirely new board, swapping boards in a JAMMA cabinet is a valuable skill to have. Please leave any questions or suggestions you have in the comments section below.

Troubleshooting board (or PCB) issues might just be the toughest part of arcade repair. While many board repairs require sophisticated equipment, there are some simple things you can check before sending your board off to a qualified professional. In this post, we will discuss how to inspect and identify problems with an arcade board before you send it off for repair.

Inspecting An Arcade Board

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjUPtUmYvC0

Let’s talk about some of the tools you’ll need to do your arcade board inspection. It’s good to have some type of magnification device. It could be a magnifying glass, a magnifying visor or a magnifying lamp. Looking through a magnification device will help you identify small issues such as broken solder joints on the board. A small screwdriver (such as our recommended Suzo-Happ Screwdriver) or chip extractor to help with removing chips from the board. A machinist scribe for etching oxidation off of chips. A razor blade kit to scrape away parts of the board for testing. Small needle nose pliers and nippy cutters for holding parts or cutting wires. A brush set and canned air to clean the board and other parts. Of course, it’s also a good idea to keep around Your First Arcade Toolbox as it contains many of the tools you’ll need for this project.

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Just as a quick note, we want to be careful that we don’t build up static electricity as this can harm the board. We recommend using some sort of anti-static wrist strap or gloves to prevent you from accidentally doing damage your board.

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Let’s begin our board inspection process by cleaning the board. Start off by using the canned air to blow any dust, dirt or debris off of the board. If you have access to an electric duster, feel free to use it instead of the canned air. Follow up the canned air with the brushes to help remove some of the more caked on dirt from the board. We recommend following up the brushes with another round of canned air to remove any dust that might have come loose during the brushing process.

Now that our board is clean, we can begin the inspection process. We like to start off at the harness connector. Use the magnifying glass to look for any broken parts on the connector. Remember that the game receives it’s power and control inputs through this connector. Feel free to use a multimeter at this point to make sure that power is going from the pins on the connector to the next part on the board. Once you have inspected the connector, you can clean it by using the eraser end of a standard pencil. Make sure that you clean both sides of this connector. This will help remove any built up dirt that has gathered on the connector pins.

You might notice that your board has several different types of chips on it. Some of these chips may be socketed and some may be soldered directly to the board. If a chip is socketed, it’s a good indication that the manufacturer thought that the chip might fail at some point. You can remove these chips pretty easily by using a small flathead screwdriver or a chip extractor tool. Be very careful not to pull the chip out too hard as you can break the legs if you’re not careful. Gently pull up on each side going back and forth until the chip is removed. With the chip removed, you can use the machinist scribe to etch off some of the oxidation that has built up on the chip’s legs. You can also use your brush set to clean the legs as well as the sockets themselves.

Just like we talk about in our post on Installing A Cap Kit, there might be some capacitors on your board that are bad. A bad electrolytic capacitor will often swell or bulge at the top or leak out of the bottom, however, they can still be bad even if they don’t look bad. If you have an ESR (Equivalent Series Resistance) meter you can test the cap before you remove it to see if it’s bad or not. Make sure you go through your entire board and replace any capacitors you suspect are bad.

Once we’ve inspected the parts side of the board, we can move on to the solder side. Using your magnifying glass again, look for any broken or cracked solder joints and touch them up as necessary. You also want to look for any scratches that might be preventing electricity (or data) from getting to other parts of the board. In other words, look for scratches that are going through traces. You can test to see if the scratch is preventing the flow of electricity by setting your multimeter on continuity (or diode) test and checking the continuity between the two points. If there is no continuity between the two points then you will need to repair the trace.

In order to repair a cut trace, you will need your soldering iron, some solder and some wire. We recommend using 30-gauge insulated wrapping wire which should be available at your local electronics store. First, cut a piece of the wire that’s a little longer than the trace. It’s always good to have a longer piece of wire in case the wire comes detached from the via (or solder point) and you have to solder it back. Second, strip both ends of the wire leaving just enough for it to make contact with the board. Third, solder the ends of the wire to the board to make up for the broken trace. If you can solder to a via that is preferred, however, you might have to solder directly to a chip pin depending on where the scratch is located. Once you have soldered the wire, you can use some hot glue, electrical tape or another adhesive to keep the wire in place against the board.

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Inspecting an arcade board can save you some time and money. Knowing how to identify and fix these types of small issues can keep you from having to send your board off to someone for repair. Please leave any questions or suggestions you have in the comments section below.

Just like most console video games, arcade games have different options that you can adjust in order to change the gameplay experience. Options such as difficulty, number of lives and number of plays per coin are just some of the options that can be changed on your arcade game. While newer arcade games usually use service menus for these adjustments, classic arcade games typically use a set of switches on the board known as DIP switches. In this post, we will discuss how to adjust these DIP switches so that you can customize the gameplay experience to your liking.

Adjusting Dip Switch Settings On A Board

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0evRVo8WM4

Before we can adjust our DIP (or Dual In-line Package) switches, we must first locate them on our board. Take a look at your board and see if you can find a set of switches all in a row. The DIP switches themselves should be one of two styles: slide or rocker. Slide style DIP switches have a small plastic square that “slides” to indicate the on or off position. Rocker style DIP switches “rock” down or up to indicate the on or off positions respectively. In our video for this post, we demonstrate how to adjust slide style DIP switches but the process is very similar for rocker style DIP switches as well.

Once we have located our DIP switches, we can begin adjusting them. Please note that DIP switch settings are typically only read when the game boots up. As such, make sure your game is turned off when adjusting the DIP switches then turn the game back on for the settings to take effect. Please do not blindly try and adjust these DIP switches as doing so could lead to undesired results. The manual for your game should contain all of the information you need to know about which DIP switches control what settings. If you do not have a manual, please check out the sites below for help locating one.

Arcade Manual Sites:

• The ARCade ARChive – http://arcarc.xmission.com/
• Crazy Kong Manuals – http://www.crazykong.com/manuals/
• Textfiles Arcade Manuals – http://pdf.textfiles.com/manuals/ARCADE/
• MikesArcade.com – http://www.mikesarcade.com/arcade/manuals.html

Depending on the setting you are trying to change, you might have to adjust multiple DIP switches. For example, the first four switches on your DIP switch might control the amount of coins per play. Your manual should indicate how to set each of these in order to achieve the desired setting. If you are trying to set your game on free play, the setting might be related to the coins per play switches or it could be on a separate switch altogether. Also, some of the games that you encounter might not have a setting for free play in which case it might just be easier to install a credit button which we will discuss in a future post.

Whether you are an arcade operator that needs adjust the coins per credit settings or a collector that likes all of their games on free play, adjusting DIP switches is a valuable skill. Just remember to always consult your manual before adjusting them to make sure you achieve the desired effects. Please leave any questions or suggestions in the comments section below.

Those of you who are just now getting into the electronics part of arcade repair might wonder about where to start. This post contains some recommended books that will help you understand the basic electronics principles that are applied in arcade games.

The Book: A Guide To Electronic Game Operation And Servicing (Atari, 1980): This book was written by Atari in 1980 specifically to teach people who had bought their arcade games how to repair them. As you might expect, The Book assumes that you have little to no knowledge about electronics so it’s great for beginners. While finding an original copy of The Book is near impossible, you can buy photocopies of it from eBay or you can download the PDF file at http://pdf.textfiles.com/technical/atari_thebook.pdf or at http://arcarc.xmission.com/PDF_Arcade_Atari_Kee/Atari_TM-129_The_Book.pdf.

Getting Started In Electronics (Forrest M. Mims III, 2003): Many people consider this one of the best books for electronics novices. Forrest Mims uses simple explanations to help you understand even the most complex electonics ideas. This book includes some great examples and sample schematics that will have you well on your way to becoming an electronics expert. Highly recommended.

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Electronics For Dummies (Gordon McComb & Earl Boysen, 2005): Much like Getting Started In Electronics, Electronics For Dummies is a book for novices that explains electronics in a simple way. Gordon McComb & Earl Boysen lay the groundwork for your electronics knowledge so that you don’t get completely lost when you move to more advanced electronics books. There is a 2009 edition of this book coming out soon but the 2005 edition should work fine for most of you.

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There Are No Electrons: Electronics For Earthlings (Kenn Amdahl, 1991): Besides having an interesting title, There Are No Electrons: Electronics For Earthlings has a very unique approach to teaching basic electronics principles. One review I read compared this to a Mr. Wizard like approach and I would tend to agree. Comparing electrons to little green men (greenies) on their way to a killer party and capacitors to parking lot sized traffic jams is unorthodox but actually helps in comprehension. This book is a great complement to the more conventional books we’ve talked about here.

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The Art Of Electronics (Paul Horowitz & Winfield Hill, 1989): So you’ve gone through the rest of these books and now you’re ready to move on to something a bit more advanced. Well, you’ve found it! The Art Of Electronics, written in 1989, changed the way that electronics was taught. One of the great things about the book is that you don’t have to be a mathematical genius to understand it. It’s a great book for someone who feels that they are past the beginner phase but not quite yet a pro. Definitely worth checking out.

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Well, those are some of our recommended books on electronics repair. Now that you know ours, what are yours? Do you have a book you would like to recommend to beginners in electronics? Please leave some comments below and let us know.