PSA - Konami Hybrid Sound Chips are a ticking bomb. (X-men)

PrairieDillo

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PSA - Konami Hybrid Sound Chips are a ticking bomb. (X-men)

This is a note to all X-men owners. (Lethal Enforcers, GI Joe, Run n Gun and Metamophic Force are included)

this applies to Modules 054544 and 054986A

The hybrid sound chips on these boards have leaking caps. Most if not ALL are leaking by now. Many of these chips have failed and that's why the Xmen has the notorious sound failure.

First thing you should do is inspect your chips. You may see some crust forming around the caps or the area looks wet/shiny. Paint may be flaking. Spraying or brushing the chip with denatured alcohol is supposed to neutralize the leaking electrolyte and at least stop the corrosion for now. Ideally you should have the chip re-capped.

054544 with obvious leaking
Xmen%20bare%202.JPG


0549986A cleaned up a little
Metamophic%20Force.JPG


This technique is pioneered by John Robertson
http://flippers.com/vid-tips.html#Konami

A few threads here bellow documented attempts and results to fixing these chips. I felt that it was buried in the tech/repair section and wanted to bring light to this in the heavily trafficked section.

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=149877
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=152061

There are guys that have succesfully used surface mount caps and caps with leads (which is in some way easier to solder and fix trace damage.

I am 2/2 on saving working Xmen boards and 0/2 in repairing/saving boards that have damaged sound or where the sound was clearly failing.

My doc on these chips
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...TgwMGYtNDg3ZTcxMGZjOTRi&hl=en&authkey=CNKztTs

Because there is no replacement chip dead boards will be forever dead unless you can harvest a working chip from a board with other problems. IMHO this issue is on the level of a Capcom Suicide CPS3 battery. The good thing is that it fails at a slower rate so you have time to deal with it. It hopefully won't all go at once and once re-capped... you should be good for another 10-15 years.

My example of a re-capped X-men chip
Hybrid%20Xmen%20Capped.JPG


Last nights success - I realized I can save time by not trying to strip the paint off all over the chip. Just exposing the pads where the SMC caps solder to is really enough.
IMG_20110512_085149.jpg
 
Last edited:
what's the going rate for Metamophic Force. I got mine cheap when I had looked for it for a long time.
 
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