One of the rows on my Coleco Ms Pac arcade is out, has been ever since I got it. Since I've come up to speed on soldering and troubleshooting, I thought I'd see if I could find out what was causing the problem.
I've reflowed alot of the solder joints in the game, including ones on the VFD. The row is still out though. If I put my finger on the pin of the row in question that isn't soldered to anything (I'm guessing this is a ground pin or unused pin?) and move it back and forth, I start to see some light coming on in the row I'm trying to repair. I'm not understanding what is wrong here. My questions:
1. is that pin supposed to work off of the grounding of the actual circuit board?
2. what can I do to make that part of the VFD work as it should?
I also looked over the traces on the board and although I see some wear spots I am not finding anything trace-wise that appears to be causing the problem. I could be wrong though.
I've reflowed alot of the solder joints in the game, including ones on the VFD. The row is still out though. If I put my finger on the pin of the row in question that isn't soldered to anything (I'm guessing this is a ground pin or unused pin?) and move it back and forth, I start to see some light coming on in the row I'm trying to repair. I'm not understanding what is wrong here. My questions:
1. is that pin supposed to work off of the grounding of the actual circuit board?
2. what can I do to make that part of the VFD work as it should?
I also looked over the traces on the board and although I see some wear spots I am not finding anything trace-wise that appears to be causing the problem. I could be wrong though.
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