Konami Lethal Enforcers Audio Fix 054986A!

tkrn

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Konami Lethal Enforcers Audio Fix 054986A! Schematic included!

This is my first arcade board fix and I felt proud so I thought I'd post it!

My audio was the stereo-typical muffled sound, low audio and no audio completely! After a few hours and a lot of patience, the fix worked! The first things is to get the black coating off the board which is time consuming. I started with rubbing alcohol and an old toothbrush. From there, I used Carburetor/Brake Parts Cleaner and Lacquer-thinner which I dipped the toothbrush in brushed vigorously the coating off. Only parts of the coating came off which was around the base of the capacitors, oddly enough. The rest I used a razor blade and two sizes of flat head screwdrivers to scrap the rest off. Once exposed, the soldiering iron would not melt the factor solider very well. I used a pair of needle-nose pliers to basically rip the existing capacitors off, cleaned off the remaining black coating then prepped it for re-solider. I began to re-solider capacitors in place trying to avoid the existing traces on the PCB board all together if possible to ensure there would be no breaks in the connections. I've created a schematic for this chip 054986A which should answer most if not, all questions.

But! If you do have questions, let me know! Not too bad for the first post, eh?





 
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Excellent job...oh how I wish there was a way to mass produce an entire replacement. There's hope for all the xmen and gijoes still
 
Nice job! I've been working on doing this for my Konami X-Men pcb's, but I've been having a bit more difficulty, mostly because I decided to try and replace the caps with the same style surface mount which is really a pain. I'm probably going to just go back to standard radial lead caps so I can finally get this thing finished. I have one board that still works so doing the radials probably gives me a better chance to keep it running instead of worrying about the surface mount caps. Doing this replacement is exactly the kind of thing that needs to happen IMHO. We can't just keep buying more and more boards that will almost certainly develop the same problem. Hopefully more and more will attempt this or to send the board off for repair instead of looking for a temporary solution by buying another board. Would you be interested in making a schematic for the other version of that chip used for games like X-Men? Someone probably has a dead board or even that module by itself that would work for documentation purposes.
 
Congrats on reviving such a pesky module!

Not to deflate everyone's expectations on the thread, but the problem with the schematic is that it's only 1/2 of the module.

Those pesky modules are double sided and there is a custom IC on the bottom side of it. When the capacitor electrolyte reaches the pins on the edges of the module then the module is just about impossible to resurrect as the traces on the upper and bottom side of the module will no longer connect.

In order for a replacement module to be made, the bottom side has to be included. Any replacement modules would require the removal of the surface mount custom chip at a minimum so it could be installed on the replacement.

That is, unless some smart cookie like JROK could reverse engineer it and create one in an FPGA. ;)
 
Congrats on reviving such a pesky module!

Not to deflate everyone's expectations on the thread, but the problem with the schematic is that it's only 1/2 of the module.

Those pesky modules are double sided and there is a custom IC on the bottom side of it. When the capacitor electrolyte reaches the pins on the edges of the module then the module is just about impossible to resurrect as the traces on the upper and bottom side of the module will no longer connect.

In order for a replacement module to be made, the bottom side has to be included. Any replacement modules would require the removal of the surface mount custom chip at a minimum so it could be installed on the replacement.

That is, unless some smart cookie like JROK could reverse engineer it and create one in an FPGA. ;)

This is all true but if you have searched for a working board as I have you can clean it up real good before the underside gets destroyed and replace all of the caps. You should be gold then, right?

I'm telling you though, one of the repro guys could make some bank if they made a replacement for this. Just remove your custom chip from your module and install on the new one.
 
This is all true but if you have searched for a working board as I have you can clean it up real good before the underside gets destroyed and replace all of the caps. You should be gold then, right?

I'm telling you though, one of the repro guys could make some bank if they made a replacement for this. Just remove your custom chip from your module and install on the new one.

Yes... if you get a working board and fix it BEFORE the electrolyte reaches the edge of the module you should be gold.

It's NOT easy to remove the custom chip and install it on a replacement module. It's surface mounted which not everyone can solder and the ceramic substrate on the module conducts heat VERY well which makes it VERY difficult to solder and desolder components.

I do think that someone could make bank by creating a replacement module.

Hello? JROK? Any interest in this project? ;)

RJ
 
Cool, I was wondering what the capacitor values were. I have a board on which the sound has only recently started to fail and this should help me get that taken care of. Thanks for the capacitor map. ;)
 
I'd create the underside schematic if some one sent me the audio chip since mine is now in good working condition. The same goes for the X-man audio chip too which is similar but still different.
 
Nice work. I've got an Xmen I'm going to be fixing up in a few months, when I get to it, i'll take some pictures of how well I'm able to repair the board. I bought one from a member here who said it didn't have any sound, so we'll see :) I think I can fix it.
 
Ok they are the same values...I pulled all caps and will try it. I used goo gone...not a good idea. There was a chemical reaction with the goo from the caps. It started fizzing. So used alchohl and removed most of the black stuff.
 
If my memory serves me correctly, the values were 100uf@16 for the big caps, 47uf@16 for the medium caps, and if there were any small ones they were 10uf@16v... but... that's if my memory is right.
 
4.7uf and 47 if was what I was able to scrape away. There's hope it will work. It didn't have audio just a high pitch squeal
 
EXCELLENT! Yes glad to see this thread. My sound has recently started giving me some trouble on my x men and i was hoping someone could make a detialed thread like this. How many caps in total? Also could anyone out there assemble me a kit with all the correct caps? and map. I have no extra caps and hate to have to buy them 1 by 1 from BR. thanks in advance!
 
BTW anyone try paint thinner on the black gunk? Seems like it would work the best, it removes pretty much anything.
 
I'm starting this job in a Lethal Enforcers with intermittent audio, static/scratchiness and one channel maybe dead all the time.

I've been using isopropyl alcohol and an acid brush with the bristles cut down to a few millimeters, and occationally an X-acto knife to scrape of stubborn bits. Almost done with removal of the black stuff.

What method have people had success with for removing the caps? De-solder wick? Heat gun? Chipquik kit? Break off? I'm worried about breaking the ceramic substrate...
 
Break em off. Its probably be the easiest way with out damaging the traces on the board.
I try to also wick away some of the solder before breaking it off, but in general, I have had to forcefully remove them. Wicking away some solder might help, but it may not be doing much.
 
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