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CPS2 A-Board Smells Like Game Center/Cigs

Joko3

Joko3

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The title pretty much sums it up. I have a CPS2 A board that I bought from a shop about a year ago that smells like a straight old school game center/cigarettes/the inside of oyaji's kei-truck cab. It's quite noticeable when the board is running via supergun, to the point where I don't even use it as to not annoy my wife. I live in a 1LDK Japanese apartment, so the smell stays lingering in the main room for a little while.

The board has been thoroughly cleaned, once by the two guys at the shop right in front of me, and once again by me. The plastic has been washed multiple times. I wasn't sure if it was coming from the electronics, or if it was from years of cigarette smoke sticking to the insides and then the fan blowing it out. The fan has been replaced.

Anyway, my brother recommended changing out the caps on the board. Anything else I should look into?

(Will try to get it out of its box in the next couple of days and open it up for pictures. I thought I had some, but I guess not. There is nothing glaringly wrong with the board, and it's worked fine aside from having to do a switch reset to get sound one time.)
 
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Just put in some closed bag with

A) Coffee beans or
B) Vinegar

You can even kill mold stain smell with both but it takes time, go for one week and check again.
If there is still cigarette smell repeat. Some old books need more than four weeks to loose it.
Had to do this a lot with Mega Drive games and computer parts.
 
Thank you for the tip. The smell doesn't seem to be around when I'm not running the board, or at least it's almost non-existent in comparison to when it is on. I think I'll give it a go with the coffee beans anyway though. Nothing to lose. Got three really nice B-boards just laughing at me right now because I'm not using them.
 
Not sure how it'd work for an arcade PCB, but I've heard for old game cartridges (snes, nes, etc) putting it in a bag with a dryer sheet can help too.
 
From my experience vinegar is better to kill existing smell and coffee is better to put a new one over some leftovers.
Its normal that the smell gets more if you use the boards, will stop one day but you have to be patient. :-)
 
How do you go about ensuring the vinegar doesn't get all over everything? Trying to figure out some kind of contraption with a garbage bag that will work in my apartment lol.

Edit: I just realized I have a ton of PCB feet. I suppose I can put them on and then have the board sit above a small pool of vinegar. I'll go grab a plastic container to make the pool, close the lid, then bag it. That may work.
 
Sounds good! Just explain it to everyone running around there and be aware of cats and dogs :)
You can also put some sandalwood bags in your shelfes or store rooms later. It helps maintaining a neutral smell.
(If its too weak just squeeze the bags and break it some more)
 
AB40D83B-86A7-464A-8D00-38F073ECA18D.jpeg
The experiment begins! I’ll open this on Christmas. 12 days will hopefully take care of it.
 
Result: failure. The vinegar ruined the board. Condensation went to town and ate away damn near half the JAMMA edge along with a whole lot of wonderful black stuff all over various places on the board. It was in for one week. Cleaned it real good and then tested, made a sound I didn't like followed by a voltage drop on my harness display. No B-board was plugged in at the time. I decided to re-tin the entire JAMMA edge with the soldering iron. The sound was gone, so I decided to test out a B-board. Green screen. Another B-board same result. I really don't have the patience to mess with it right now so I ordered a new one. I'd like to see if it's salvageable later, but yeah, don't do vinegar in a bag......
 
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Rice vinegar. I didn't dilute. Didn't know I needed to. In any case, the boards fucked. Moving on.
 
Hmh, should only have around 4,3% according to google.... very strange
How much did you have to pay for the replacement?
Let me take a few euros for you, i feel bad for not explaining the "put a few drops in water" part :-(
 
Uroko Sakanabito said:
Hmh, should only have around 4,3% according to google.... very strange
How much did you have to pay for the replacement?
Let me take a few euros for you, i feel bad for not explaining the "put a few drops in water" part :(
Click to expand...
No need to worry about that; I should have used my head a little better or at least done the coffee first to see if that took care of it. I do appreciate the offer to chip in, but I'd rather you instead try out my new third-party service to buy from Yahoo Japan, Surugaya, Mak, BEEP!, etc. and then help spread the word : )
 
Yikes. I would have tried sprinkling some baking soda on the board, leaving it for a day, then vacuuming it up.

Otherwise it’s recommended to remove pcbs from humidity. I run dehumidifiers in my basement for that reason. Sealing them with water in a bag… yeah… sorry I missed this thread earlier!
 
Baking Soda works great too but i also never had any problems with a few drops of vinegar mixed with a few spoons of water.
Its a pretty common method here in germany (called Hausmittel). Bag should not be stored in the sun or on your heater.

Im pretty curious now, will store some old board for two weeks with 25% and check the humidity with one of my Hygrometers inside the bag.
 
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