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Museum of the Game® & International Arcade Museum® Forums
I recently found a solution to making longer ribbon cables work to help separate board stacks.
I was working on several Marvin's Maze sets with issues. This is a 3 board pcb stack where the boards are connected with several 60 pin IDC box headers (same as ribbon cables use basically). In order to probe the lower boards, I had to separate the stack and make long 60 pin extension ribbon cables. After making these and connecting up, the game would try but would not boot successfully.
I tested continuity on every pin of each ribbon cable between the boards multiple times, no breaks and all less than 1 ohm resistance.
I suspected increased electrical noise interference on the cables, so decided to try and shield them. I wrapped the cables in aluminum foil, and then covered the foil with packing tape to prevent anything touching the cable from shorting.
After shielding the cable in this way the game was able to boot right away. Just thought I would share in case it helped anyone down the road with a problematic board stack.