I killed my pinbot...

learpilot2

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I just got a defender and pinbot that had leaky battery holders on the cpu pcb. I soldered a lithium battery holder on the boards to replace the leaky batteries. It worked great on the defender, but I had an accident on the pinbot.

The battery pack on the pinbot had been previously replaced. They had soldered the battery pack on the non solder side of the pcb. I tried to remove the mess with a desoldering iron and desoldering wick. It worked ok, but I think I damaged 2 pcb traces that came off a nearby IC chip. I think the burn I put in the pcb shorted 2 traces that came off of the output pins of a nearby IC chip. The traces ran from the IC chip to a capicitor, then to a ribbon cable to the pcb that controls all the led displays in backglass scoreboards. I did not know I caused the damage before I resinstalled the board. oops..

When I turned the Pinbot on, after the lithium battery mod, the scoreboards came on for 1 second, and then went blank. Oh, and it was accompanyed by a god awful humming noise from the speaker. Otherwise dead except for some general illumination.

On the front of the pcb, can I cut out the shorted pcb trace, and on the backside of the pcb, run two jumper wires directly from the IC chip legs to their normal conection on a downstream capicitor/edge connector? I have never done this before, but my phoenix pcb seems to have a similar hacked repair, and works well.

What kind of other damage can I expect to have in the way of other components. Will the IC chip, cap, or led displays be damaged and need changing? Will it kill the cpu board in general? Have I killed Pinbot for good? It sure sounded like it when I turned in on.
 
On the front of the pcb, can I cut out the shorted pcb trace, and on the backside of the pcb, run two jumper wires directly from the IC chip legs to their normal conection on a downstream capicitor/edge connector? I have never done this before, but my phoenix pcb seems to have a similar hacked repair, and works well.

What kind of other damage can I expect to have in the way of other components. Will the IC chip, cap, or led displays be damaged and need changing? Will it kill the cpu board in general? Have I killed Pinbot for good? It sure sounded like it when I turned in on.

Yes, it will work fine.

Have you killed it for good? No. Damage? Tough call. Thoughts? Check all of the fuses.
 
I found that I severed a trace on the PCB that comes from a IC chip to a capacitor. I confirmed this with a multimeter. I soldered a jumper wire on the back side of the cpu board. Continuity checked good. It looks like my previous soldering error did not SHORT any PCB traces.

I fired up the pinbot, and only hum in speaker and some lights, no other response. I noticed a row of ceramic resistors on the cpu pcb were getting so hot, that they were untouchable (burned my finger), and beginning to scorch and discolor the pcb behind them! I turned it off and gave up. Not sure what to do. Should I just send out the board for professional diagnosis? Is the pcb beyond repair?
 
I found that I severed a trace on the PCB that comes from a IC chip to a capacitor. I confirmed this with a multimeter. I soldered a jumper wire on the back side of the cpu board. Continuity checked good. It looks like my previous soldering error did not SHORT any PCB traces.

I fired up the pinbot, and only hum in speaker and some lights, no other response. I noticed a row of ceramic resistors on the cpu pcb were getting so hot, that they were untouchable (burned my finger), and beginning to scorch and discolor the pcb behind them! I turned it off and gave up. Not sure what to do. Should I just send out the board for professional diagnosis? Is the pcb beyond repair?

Find the schematic and narrow it down to the circuits close to the area you affected. Retrace and verify with a meter proper continuity where it should be. It sounds like you still have a short somewhere. Too much current flooding through those resistors. Good thing you shut it off, or you would see a 'pop corn effect' haha.
 
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