Donkey Kong Junior Sound Success!

paulliadis

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After nearly 5 months of messing with this thing, I finally have sound in my Donkey Kong Junior! I feel like I just won the Stanley Cup.

I picked up my Donkey Kong Junior in September off a guy on craigslist. My Dad and I drove 2.5 hours only to find there were issues with it. I took it anyway

I put new molding on, cleaned everything up, put on a new marquee bezel bracket, but until tonight there was one thing I hadn't fixed: the sound. The guy I bought it from had a cheap pc speaker inside the cabinet wired to the machine which I guess was an okay enough solution, but wasn't good enough for me.

I thought I'd just be able to wire the speakers the right way and get it to work but only got glaring noise that way. Many of you on here told me i needed a cap kit for the sound board. You were right, of course.

I was reluctant to do the cap kit because I had never soldered (or desoldered) anything before. After trying everything else, I finally got up the nerve to try the cap kit. I desoldered all the caps on day and soldered the new ones on the next. Holding my breath, I installed the board again. Nothing. That brings us to tonight.

My machine has sat without the sound amp in it since before christmas. However I have a co-worker coming over tomorrow and wanted to get the thing put back together tonight even without sound. I even told her there would be no sound. Well, just before putting the amp back in I checked out my soldering points and saw that one was loose and not connected to the board at all.

So I desoldered it, resoldered it, and put it back in the cab, not expecting anything. i plugged it in and heard a little bit of sound. I turned the volume pot a bit and heard a lot of sound. luckily the kids didn't wake up. Either way, I'm so amazed this thing is finally working.

Anyway, thanks for all the advice out there. i'm so glad I was able to fix it on my own rather than buy a new sound amp. It took learning a new skill for me, but the payoff in the end is huge!
 
Congrats. Nothing feels better than fixing a problem that feels "over your head". I had the same thing when I got my Monaco GP working. Swapped out a couple suspect ICs and bingo it worked! Felt great!
 
Exactly. That one was hanging over my head for a while to the point I hadn't plugged it in for a week or so. Now, having fixed it I feel like I've leveled up or something.
 
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