Galaga board repair

luke9511

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Hey everyone, I have this galaga here with a couple of chips that had most of their legs fall off when removing them from the sockets for cleaning due to corrosion

Should I just replace them or can they be fixed? I did try to fix one but I am not sure about the other
 

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Replace they should be easy to find unless any of them are the custom chips.
Whoa, wait.

Show the tops of the chips. If they are the customs, those are hard to find, so before you do anything post pictures of the tops of those chips.

If they are customs, the best you can do is find donor legs, and solder them back in, or your board won't work.
 
Whoa, wait.

Show the tops of the chips. If they are the customs, those are hard to find, so before you do anything post pictures of the tops of those chips.

If they are customs, the best you can do is find donor legs, and solder them back in, or your board won't work.
Pretty sure they are custom, they are the ones with the long line across them, one of them is 1h I believe and yes I know the board won't work with out them, most of those legs there is not enough meat to solder on to
 
Whoa, wait.

Show the tops of the chips. If they are the customs, those are hard to find, so before you do anything post pictures of the tops of those chips.

If they are customs, the best you can do is find donor legs, and solder them back in, or your board won't work.
That's why I said unless any of them are the custom chips, those are not so easy to replace.
 
Even with the legs like that, you can save customs. I've done broken legs by taking a file and grinding down some plastic on top. It is a tedious process but can be done.

Some of them have replacements available. There is a new guy who was making them and they are for sale on mike's arcade. But a lot of the namco customs have been out of stock for a while. People tend to be stingy with replacements of custom chips but at least with namco customs they are put there.

You gotta be REALLY careful with those namco customs. The legs are super fragile because they were made from silver. It is super easy to break them.
 
Even with the legs like that, you can save customs. I've done broken legs by taking a file and grinding down some plastic on top. It is a tedious process but can be done.

Some of them have replacements available. There is a new guy who was making them and they are for sale on mike's arcade. But a lot of the namco customs have been out of stock for a while. People tend to be stingy with replacements of custom chips but at least with namco customs they are put there.

You gotta be REALLY careful with those namco customs. The legs are super fragile because they were made from silver. It is super easy to break them.
Yeah I know first hand
 
That's why I said unless any of them are the custom chips, those are not so easy to replace.
Yeah, I get that. It just made me nervous.

If you started with:
If they are not Custom chips, see if you can find a replacement.

If they ARE Custom chips, you'll have to save them.

I think I would have been more comfortable.

There is the old MASH episode where they had a US propaganda bomb dropped into the middle of the camp (they didn't know that, it looked like a bomb).

The defusing instructions were:
Cut the green wire (turns page)
But FIRST!

Boom!
 
I've saved probably 150 or so of these over the years. Here's the process I use:
1) Using a Dremel with a reinforced cutoff wheel, cut all legs off flush with the edge of the chip.
2) Using the Dremel, remove 1/16 inch of top material, exposing fresh shiny pads
3) Take a 28 pin machine-pin IC socket and solder 28 pieces of 30 gauge buss wire into each of the holes
4) Place the prepped custom on top of this IC socket, fold the buss wires over onto the pads, then solder each buss wire to its associated pad.
5) Coat the exposed soldered areas with some electronics grade RTV.

This also works for the 42 pin Namco customs, but you have to be careful when soldering the buss wire pieces to the IC, as to not create solder bridges20220911_093514.jpg20220911_100956.jpg20220911_102246.jpg
 
Yeah I know first hand

I've saved probably 150 or so of these over the years. Here's the process I use:
1) Using a Dremel with a reinforced cutoff wheel, cut all legs off flush with the edge of the chip.
2) Using the Dremel, remove 1/16 inch of top material, exposing fresh shiny pads
3) Take a 28 pin machine-pin IC socket and solder 28 pieces of 30 gauge buss wire into each of the holes
4) Place the prepped custom on top of this IC socket, fold the buss wires over onto the pads, then solder each buss wire to its associated pad.
5) Coat the exposed soldered areas with some electronics grade RTV.

This also works for the 42 pin Namco customs, but you have to be careful when soldering the buss wire pieces to the IC, as to not create solder bridgesView attachment 835122View attachment 835123View attachment 835124
This is great. Im going to have to employ this technique for one of my Galagas. I got a flaky custom as well. Game will boot then the game will rapidly start coining up. The the ships disappear. I've located the issue down to connection with one of the customs(cant remember the number off the top of my head). Gonna have to get crafty!!!!
 
Even with the legs like that, you can save customs. I've done broken legs by taking a file and grinding down some plastic on top. It is a tedious process but can be done.

Some of them have replacements available. There is a new guy who was making them and they are for sale on mike's arcade. But a lot of the namco customs have been out of stock for a while. People tend to be stingy with replacements of custom chips but at least with namco customs they are put there.

You gotta be REALLY careful with those namco customs. The legs are super fragile

I've saved probably 150 or so of these over the years. Here's the process I use:
1) Using a Dremel with a reinforced cutoff wheel, cut all legs off flush with the edge of the chip.
2) Using the Dremel, remove 1/16 inch of top material, exposing fresh shiny pads
3) Take a 28 pin machine-pin IC socket and solder 28 pieces of 30 gauge buss wire into each of the holes
4) Place the prepped custom on top of this IC socket, fold the buss wires over onto the pads, then solder each buss wire to its associated pad.
5) Coat the exposed soldered areas with some electronics grade RTV.

This also works for the 42 pin Namco customs, but you have to be careful when soldering the buss wire pieces to the IC, as to not create solder bridgesView attachment 835122View attachment 835123View attachment 835124
Why dremmel bit should be used for this?
 
Why dremmel bit should be used for this?
if the legs break off flush you have to cut into the chip to expose the legs inside to connect your jumpers to. if they break off at the skinny part of the legs then you'll need to sand the wider part of the legs to stick to.
 
if the legs break off flush you have to cut into the chip to expose the legs inside to connect your jumpers to. if they break off at the skinny part of the legs then you'll need to sand the wider part of the legs to stick to.
That was a typo lol it was supposed to say what dremmel bit should I use? Lol
 
I use a Dremel reinforced cutting disc. The reinforced ones have fiberglass(?) in them and won't shatter if you put too much force on them, or push at an odd angle.
otherwise I've used sanding bits on chips. but that's only for a leg or 2, not the whole thing. lol
 
So update, I spent an hour and a half just cleaning the board and the owner basically gave me the whole thing as payment, so I will use this as a test bed to try and fix the chips and see what happens
 
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