Original Pacman Joystick Won't Go Left

dcaryll

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Hi guys,

I have an original Pacman arcade and just recently the joystick will not allow Pacman to go left. I am a newbie to arcade games.

It was previously working fine. I just turned it on one day and it started. I have taken the control panel apart to see if I could see any problems. There are no broken wires. The leaf connector does seem to be a bit worn but I don't know if that's the problem.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Here's a photo of the bottom:

http://dancarylldesign.com/images/joystick.jpg

Thanks for your help!
-Dan
 
Where do you live maybe a local guy could drop by and help.

IF it were me in that situation, I would do a few things. First I'd probably pull out a digital multimeter and test that the metal leaf has continuity up the wire that is connected to it.

Then I would remove the wires from the joystick and put little quick connect tabs on then, and rotate them to a different spot. meaning, I'd put the left wire to the up leaf and see if it wouldn't go up now.

After that I'd report back here if I didn't figure it out.
 
Thanks. I'll give that a go. Appreciate the quick response.
 
If the continuity all checks out from the leaf switch to the board, then you may have a bad 74ls367 IIRC

Hopefully it's just a dirty switch.
 
If the leaf switch checks out, then I'd have to replace the whole board?

Thanks for your help. (Again, I don't know much about this stuff.)
 
I'm located in Wheeling, WV (in response to your question about a local guy stopping by).
 
No you don't have to replace the whole board. (Assuming you can solder/des older...which is a skill you should learn if you want to collect arcades and don't already have said skill) all you have to do is replace the logic chip that controlls the input.

Brian
 
I am not sure what your skill level is on repairing a board or what tools you have.
I tend to get surprised by friends with arcade machine when I go over and vist so I do not always bring my tools with me.

If there is one position that the joystick does not move into. Look at the swtich to see which leaf switch is giving you problems. Use a quarter to connect the wires see if the pacman will go left. If he does you have a dirty leaf swtich. Use a white business card between the switch push the switch closed and slowly pull the business card. You should see a black streak on the white card. Do this a few times until there is no more black streaks on the card.

Test again.

If the PAC man still refuses to move to the left.
Turn off the pacman.
Try unplugging the control panel harness and replugging it back in. This should knock the off enough of the oxidation on the pins to make a better connection.
Turn back on the pacman and retry.

If the pacman is still not working. Grab your self a pencil with a clean pink eraser.
Turn back off your pacman.
There is one card edge connector on your pacman board.
Pull that connector off.
Softly rub the eraser in the edge connector. If the eraser come up black, rubbing the eraser on paper will clean off the oxidation of the eraser.
One the edge connector is clean.
Plug it back in and power it on..

While all these steps might not get you your game back running. It is things you can try to do with very little tools.
 
Take a look at the control panel and first verify that both wires are connected to that leaf switch. Next operate the joystick and see if the switch is being made. You can use an ohm meter set on continuity check to ensure the switch is making contact. If everything looks good there the next thing to check is the control panel plug. After that you have the pcb edge connector and then the pcb itself. Its not very common for a problem like this to be on the pcb but it does happen occasionally. If you end up needing the pcb repaired let me know.
 
Checking stuff

Hey guys,

Finally had a chance to pull the machine out and open the back. I've taken the edge connector off and cleaned it best I could. I also did a continuity check with the leaf connector and it seems to be working. Still no luck with Pacman going left.

Not sure where to go from here. I was considering upgrading the machine to a 60-1 board and though this might be a good chance since the current board doesn't seem to be functioning correctly.

Any suggestions on either fixing it or upgrading?

Thanks so much for your time,
Dan
 
Contact riptor about doing a repair on your pcb board is the easier way go..

Converting your machine to a 1 n 60 means ripping out the old harness installing a swticher leaving the isolation transformer alone and adding more buttons and a track ball to your game control panel.
 
I never dealt with that sort of conversion before. Not quiet sure if it would work. My norm is to tend to convert 1 n 60 machine back to there original condition.
 
No, don't do a 60-1. For such a tiny issue, I think thats jumping a bit too far. Have one of us test/repair the board for you.
 
yeah as Drew said... get someone to repair it.
if it's not physically the switch or the cable to the board, 99.999% it's the input buffer IC which is not even a 5 minute replacement for someone who repairs boards.
(desolder chip, solder in socket, pop in new chip)

if you have a solder iron and a $5.00 solder sucker from radio shack you can do it yourself.
(though practice desoldering on some crappy broken electronics board first :)

-brian
 
On pac's its usually just a bad buffer IC. It could also be a broken resistor network or a shorted .1uf cap. This is a very simple problem to diagnose with a logic probe.
 
No, don't do a 60-1. For such a tiny issue, I think thats jumping a bit too far. Have one of us test/repair the board for you.

Agreed - if you're going to 60:1 a Pac cabinet, do it to one that's way far gone or is a rebuild. Pacs are reasonably common but a lot of them are beat to hell so if yours is in any kind of decent shape, you don't want to chop it up for a bargain-basement bootleg multi. It's worth keeping intact.
 
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