Noob questions: PCB repair - opinions welcome

Hi all - I’ve recently reignited my interest in arcade hardware, cabs, and PCBs after many years of passively following the space and a few years away. I’ve bought a few things from users here (lovely forum and people here) and wanted to ask some beginner level questions as I get back into it.

The first topic I’m curious for opinions on is repairing PCBs. Some questions below, any and all comments welcome. Thanks!

1. In your opinion, is it generally worth it for a relative beginner to even attempt to buy cheaper, semi-working boards in the hopes of repairing them (simple repairs - Infinikeying, trying to repair graphics issues, etc)

2. How would you recommend practicing repair work to get better at it? Any common board types to target, repair work to attempt, etc.

3. One thing you wish you knew when starting the hobby (related to repairing hardware)

Thanks again everyone

You absolutely should learn to repair as a beginner, and I think it's great that you're interested. For me a lot of the fun and benefit in this hobby has come out of working on the hardware.

Learn to solder if you don't know already by building something useful from a kit like this: https://www.amazon.com/Elenco-Triple-Output-Power-Supply/dp/B0002DT0GU

Get a decent soldering iron right off the bat like a Hakko 888D. Get a decent autoranging multimeter and logic probe. For a multimeter, I like this guy: https://www.amazon.com/Greenlee-DM-200A-Digital-Multimeter-1000/dp/B003JZB4EE/

Decent logic probe: https://www.amazon.com/Elenco-Electronics-LP-560-Logic-Probe/dp/B000Z9HAP4/

Try building a supergun from scratch. Not a kit, but come up with a BOM to create your own to your taste and follow through. This is one of the first things I did when I started learning electronics and it was a great project. No PCB creation needed.

Try desuiciding something like Super Pang and burn your own ROMs. Try desuiciding CPS2 stuff.

Find a cheap common board with some graphical or other minor errors, something from the mid-late 80s or early 90s. Medium sized single board with lots of 74XX logic. These are usually well documented and you will learn how to troubleshoot and trace problems.

Get a cheap JAMMA cab in rough shape but working tube and bring it back to perfection by recapping the chassis and PSU, fixing or rebuilding the harness, refreshing the controls with new parts.

As far as question 3, I wish I knew that it wasn't as hard as it initially seemed, and that it was a lot of fun. I ended up changing careers to something hardware/electronics related and I started down that path by working on arcade stuff.

@dos Huge thanks for your thoughtful reply.

I’ve soldered here and there in years past (up until I bricked a PS2 trying to mod it ), but definitely need to brush up on it.

Was looking into Hakkos and I’ve seen others say that’s the way to go, too. Very much appreciate your recommendations for the output kit, multimeter, and logic probe as well.

I’m a big CPS2 fan and the seemingly easy process of Infinikeying suicided boards seemed like a good starting point. I was impressed when I saw that @kikaso had added a heat sync to the Final Fight I bought from him, and I like the idea of helping to extend the life of some components by upgrading them, even if it’s just a cap kit.

Will have to work my way up to supergun building and cab maintaining

Find boards that are completely dead to practice on. CPS2 boards with battery damage, MVS 4 slots with battery damage are good candidates and they are cheap because they look (and maybe are) so hopeless.

People are pretty aware that boards can be revived with infinikeys and usually try and charge close to working prices.

Using good tools will make things a lot easier and cleaner (this doesn't mean the most expensive tools).

Get good with flux (and don't breath in the fumes) and good solder.

Don't get impatient with pulling desoldered ICs. The legs can get stuck on plated through holes and they will want to take traces with it. If you can't get the hole fully desoldered and the legs free, add a little heat with a hot air station and it will slip right out.

Get a Wiha chip puller. It is cheap and totally awesome.

ItsBobDudes said:

Get a Wiha chip puller. It is cheap and totally awesome.

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Oh yeah, this one is a must, and I say this as someone who got one relatively late. Also a good ROM burner (I like the Xeltek 610P) and UV eraser will get a lot of use.

Yes that is a good idea to practice on cheap games, but I would even recommend to get first any kind of old PCB junk and practice a lot your soldering and desoldering skills.
I will focus on that because I have seen so many games with "repairs" that damaged the board: scratches due to solderig iron slipping hard, aweful solder blobs (sometime causing short circuits), and the worst: damaged plated through-holes because of bad desoldering. It's super frustrating to see games damaged like that (and hard to repair). Be sure to have enough skill before using a solder iron on a game PCB. An important thing is to have some quality tools of course. I highly recommend to buy a good desoldering gun (I have a Hakko FR-301, really good stuff imo), it will change your life and allow you to do really clean desoldering. Never use strength to pull off desoldered ICs, even if there is only a really small amount of tin left on one leg, it's the best way to damage through holes. Also, you have to be pretty quick with the iron, I try to never stay more than around 3-4 seconds on a solder.

Regarding dignostic skills, I recommend Adam's repair logs and tutorials that helped me a lot: https://www.youtube.com/user/OneCircuit

Have fun with your journey on repairing boards, it's super interesting and the feeling you have when you revive a game is awesome!

dos said:

Oh yeah, this one is a must, and I say this as someone who got one relatively late. Also a good ROM burner (I like the Xeltek 610P) and UV eraser will get a lot of use.

Click to expand...

I have yet to look too deeply into ROM burners and I don’t know what a UV eraser is but I’m definitely going to look!

A-M said:

Yes that is a good idea to practice on cheap games, but I would even recommend to get first any kind of old PCB junk and practice a lot your soldering and desoldering skills.
I will focus on that because I have seen so many games with "repairs" that damaged the board: scratches due to solderig iron slipping hard, aweful solder blobs (sometime causing short circuits), and the worst: damaged plated through-holes because of bad desoldering. It's super frustrating to see games damaged like that (and hard to repair). Be sure to have enough skill before using a solder iron on a game PCB. An important thing is to have some quality tools of course. I highly recommend to buy a good desoldering gun (I have a Hakko FR-301, really good stuff imo), it will change your life and allow you to do really clean desoldering. Never use strength to pull off desoldered ICs, even if there is only a really small amount of tin left on one leg, it's the best way to damage through holes. Also, you have to be pretty quick with the iron, I try to never stay more than around 3-4 seconds on a solder.

Regarding dignostic skills, I recommend Adam's repair logs and tutorials that helped me a lot: https://www.youtube.com/user/OneCircuit

Have fun with your journey on repairing boards, it's super interesting and the feeling you have when you revive a game is awesome!

Click to expand...

That’s what I’m thinking - grab any old board and just replace the caps to start or something. Good suggestion!

I was looking at the FR-301 as a cheaper option so I’m glad to hear it’s working for you!

FR-301 or similar is indispensable unless you're an actual graybeard who was forced to get really good with desoldering wick and soldapullt back in the bronze age or whatever