Board Repairs - ICs are past their end-of-life!

bit_slicer

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Just had a good email from a customer regarding repairs and gave a response I thought would be good for discussion. Things to keep in mind for this hobby!!! :)

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I'd be happy to work on the CC board. There is one thing to keep in mind about these old circuit boards. Back in the day companies like Atari manufactured these boards to last about 3-5 years. Back then that was more than enough time for an operator to regain his investment many times over. So today these boards have already lasted 5-10 times longer than expected. Unfortunately for us IC failures are statistically much more common now at the end-of-life part of the cycle. i.e. Every time someone flips the power switch on a game they are rolling the dice that something might go wrong. That's the reality the hobby lives with.

Another thing to keep in mind is that most peoples repair prices are for a one-time repair. Which means that I could get it working here on the bench, send it back to you, you plug it in and something else fails. Now I do offer a couple of comprehensive warranties, but they are very expensive, because these boards are at their end-of-life.

Something must've gone wrong if you got the board back non-working. I would be happy to fix the CC for you, but one thing you might do is ask (your repair guy) if he would be willing to try another fix for a reduced price. I will do this on occasion. Also a bit surprised he doesn't keep a repair log. With me you get both an invoice and shop order with repair details. I sometimes use these to fix future boards.
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It sounds to me like someone wanted him to fix it because he thought Dick ripped him off. He is simply explaining that Dick does a great job and he very much doubts that is the case. If anything, I read it as a compliment, not a bashing.
 
It sounds to me like someone wanted him to fix it because he thought Dick ripped him off. He is simply explaining that Dick does a great job and he very much doubts that is the case. If anything, I read it as a compliment, not a bashing.

I agree. Not a hint of bashing imho.
 
While I agree that the OP should have removed Dick's name from the posting of the reply, most of the points he makes are valid. These boards are well beyond the original design lifespan. I have had boards that have come in for one repair and during the burn in after the original repair, something else has gone out, probably because the new chips caused other parts to be stressed.

I have also been finding a lot of multiple problem boards lately that take a lot of time to diagnose and repair because one failure is masking another problem. Some boards are like peeling onions, one issue leads to another, which leads to another and you need to work them out one at a time.

In the long term, the future of our hobby is going rest in the hands of people like JROK who can replace the fragile and potentially irreplacable IC's with the equivalent gate array chips. And in people who are willing to spend the increasing amounts of time to disgnose and repair our geriatric boards.

Or else we all just say the hell with it and Multicade that Beyotch!

ken
 
Back to the subject at hand-

I recall back in some electronics classes that one of the benefits of solid state chips over tube technology was their relatively low failure rate for most of their life.

The probability of failure over time for these chips was graphed as a 'bathtub curve'. That is, there was a somewhat high failure rate initially (which could be hidden from the consumer by a burn-in test period), followed by a very low failure rate for most of it's life, and then a rather high failure rate designated as it's end of life.

Those chips had an anticipated life of 20 - 30 years.
 
I agree tht we are lucky to have these games working some 25+ years later, and even luckier to have blokes around that can fix them!
And Mr. Millikan is one of the best! I have had many a PP/PPII boardsets repaired by him. One time, after getting a PP boardset back from him, I was testing it and after about 10 minutes the game went screwey and displayed "ROM 10". Subsequent turning power off/on, messing with connector, etc. did not change anything. Well ROM 10 is not even addressed in the manual, but I emailed him about it and he promptly replied saying that he hadn't seen that error yet, but to send it back to him and he would see what he could do. Two weeks later I have a properly working game. Sure I was out the $18.00 or so to ship it back to him a second time, but he did not charge me to re-fix it.

Somewhat related, I sold a working PPII boardset to a fellow KLOV'er just the other day, I mean I tested it on and off for nearly a month! No probs! Well he gets it and it doesn't work correctly for him. :001_ssad: So he is sending it back and I am refunding the initial cost plus the the fee to ship it back to me.. yee haw..
 
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Com'on are you two really that naive?

Sure... OK... why not? If that makes you feel your opinion is more valid than mine, then sure, I'm naive. :hmmmm2:

Still don't see it as a bash though.

BTW, just wanted to say I've had good experiences with both Dick and Bit_S and would recommend both to anyone... not that my recommendation means much seeing as I'm a touch naive. :)

-Jeff (aka The Naive Arcade Guy!)
 
I agree no bashing sensed. Maybe obscuring the name would have made everyone happy and been a better idea.

As a fellow repair person, we really do our best to insure that the board is burned in, tested and working when we send it back. A marginal IC may have just enough left to operate and even make it past our reliability testing, only to fail when it gets powered up the next time. This is not unusual and does happen. That said, most reputable repair people stand behind their work if you contact them and will work something out. Both of the repair guys above would do that no question.

At the same time, we cannot be held responsible for damage done to the board by incorrect wiring, faulty AR (on Atari) or a bad power supply. Too much voltage applied to the ics may not cause them to fail immediately, but the stress could cause them to fail later. We receive these boards with no history of how they were handled or who worked on them before. Some of them have sat for many years unpowered. They need some running time behind them to truly say that they are stable after repair - yes, another chip may fail that was working fine when repaired as described above.

The original intent of this post was very clear - these boards and ICs are operating well past their intended lifetime. That they operate at all to me is a wonderment. A little patience and understanding regarding the resurrection of an older dead arcade pcb will lead to years of stable operation once this phase is passed.

The web is chock full of repair logs, pcb improvement tips, etc. We love our games and board repair (resurrection) is one of the challenging facets of this hobby. I am glad that there are folks out there willing to accept the challenge - where would we be without folks like Dick or Bit Slicer? There would be a lot of pretty non-operating cabs or MAME conversions.

Bill
 
I am glad that there are folks out there willing to accept the challenge - where would we be without folks like Dick or Bit Slicer? There would be a lot of pretty non-operating cabs or MAME conversions.

Bill
Couldn't agree more. My last 2 boards sent for repair (Quadrapong and Pole Position) were done by these guys and both have been great to deal with. I only wish I had a fraction of the understanding they do for board repair. :)
 
I went back and re-read my post, and I probably do need to apologize here. I was PM'ing with a good customer, we had a great discussion about IC's and end-of-life, and I cut and pasted literally 30 sec before I had to bolt out the door this morning. Unfortunately I failed to take Dick's name out of the post. Let me go on record as saying that although I've not used Mr. Milligan myself, I don't know of anyone who has ever had a bad experience with him. IMHO he's a stand-up guy.

Yeah I'll go back and edit my post. Sorry about this.
 
I saw no bashing in that post, just a positive note about Dick being a standup guy. I am lucky enough to live about an hour from Dick so I just drive down and see him. I've had him fix 2 DK boards and bought a junior boardset from him and he does great work and if I had a problem I just took it back down and he fixed me right up. A definate asset to the community.

I have had some boards sent to others to repair that worked for a literal minute then went goofy. I just sent it back and if it needs more work and parts I'd be happy to pay as long as it works. Just a part of the hobby. - Barry
 
I saw no bashing in that post, just a positive note about Dick being a standup guy. I am lucky enough to live about an hour from Dick so I just drive down and see him. - Barry

Man, count your blessings that you have someone like him *that* close! :) I couldn't imagine being able to drop a board off locally for repair.
 
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