Advice on Ms. Pac-man

freeder23

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Just found a Ms. Pac-man on craigslit for $300. From the pictures, it looks like it is in good shape, with some off the normal control pannel wear.Talked to the guy on the phone. He says the game will work for a week or so and then the screen gets garbled. He said that if he takes the back cover off, jiggles the wires, and "walks around the machine twice" it starts working again. I am planning on going to take a look at this in person. Anything I should check out or look out for? I'd love to get an original Ms. Pac-man (with a speed up chip) but I don't want a major project. Since he is asking $300, I figure I should be able to get it for around $200. Is that a reasonable price for a Ms. Pac-man that is going to need some work?

thanks for the advice!
 
$300 for a Ms. Pac-man with a decent cabinet is a great deal. The garbled issue being fixed by wiggling wires - probably needs a simple edge connector cleaning and the harness is losing contact to the edge of the PCB. Walking around the cabinet twice is just supersticious ;)
 
Or the ROMS need to be cleaned and reseated, Jiggling the wires may just shake the board and help a loose ROM reconnect.

ken

Walking around the cabinet is probably superstitious, or it could be a timing issue and the walk around is just enough time between jiggling and power on.
 
Check the edge connector and fuse block. If it looks original, Then its likely that replacements will get the game going again. I'd talk the guy down myself. Pac's seem to be a dime a dozen these days. Paid $150 for mine in similar condition.
 
theres also molex conectors inside thet get corroded, fuse block gets krappy, all pac issues(except board replacement) are usually cheap easy fixes .. so what are you waiting for????
 
Probably a bad ribbon cable, or edge connector.

I had issues with mine, was working on location (playing blind) got it home, nothing... I ran it on a switching power supply for a while running +5 +12 and GND directly to the board, but after a while I finally got around to checking it and it was a loose edge connector... had to be wiggled to work. So, I just put a little solder on each of the pads to tighten it up a little, has worked like a charm ever since... probably same deal with that one.

Either way, if it works when the cables are jiggled... in my mind, I see that as "working". Just a loose connection SOMEWHERE, easy fix. Get it.
 
its probably just a fuse ;)

seriously, sounds like a fair deal. Pac boards are usually one of the easier ones to deal with i think. Sounds like it does just need a good cleaning if it works most of the time. Could it be resetting from low voltages to the motherboard ?
 
Could it be resetting from low voltages to the motherboard ?

You don't really get low voltages to the board on Pacs. No power supply - just a transformer, the board takes the AC directly. If it plays for a while then acts up, it's likely the edge connector, fuse holders or rom sockets - or a combination of the three.

Firmly seat the ROMs, replace any failing fuse holders and clean the edge connector on the game board. If you still have edge connector problems - it's best to replace the connector in the game, but you can sometimes get away with using a couple big metal binder clips to clamp down on the plastic edge connector housing to increase tension.

-Ian
 
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