Star Wars w/Clay's ESB not holding settings

Altan

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I realized that my Star Wars with Clay's ESB kit isn't holding any settings. E.g., if I set it to free play then, after power cycle, it's not free play. It does this without ever switching to ESB mode, so that's not a factor.

I'm just starting to dig into it and thought I'd see what others think.

I've found it uses a 2202 (or 2212) chip. But I think the Clay kit replaces the on-board one with 2 (one for SW, one for ESB).

I can set the dip switches and solve the free play issue, but it's always nice to have some high scores...

Anyone resolved this issue in the past?

... Altan
 
Did a little more digging... It appears the NVRAM for ESB is working fine. It's just the NVRAM for SW that has a problem.

I pulled up a picture of the Clay kit and it looks like there is a single 2212 chip on there. My conclusion is that the ESB game uses the 2212 on the Clay board while the SW game uses the original 2212 chip.

If that's true, then perhaps my original SW 2212 chip is past its prime.

I'll probably order a new one on Monday --- unless someone has a better theory. In that case, I'd love to hear it!

... Altan
 
I have one of Clay's SW/ESB kits still in the box which I plain to install as soon as I get my SW game back up and running. I thought I remember you are suppose to remove the Novram chip from your board and install it on the daughter card next to the one that came installed on the board. I even bought an extra Novram because I was sure the one on my board was toast. I looked at the install instructions on his web site and sure enough here's what it say's
http://www.multigame.com/esb3_01.PDF
Remove the NOVRAM at 1E and place it in the Daughtercard next to the NOVRAM already on the
PCB. The orientation will be the same as the NOVRAM next to it. There is a small arrow on the PCB
pointing to pin 1. The chip will be a VERY tight fit into the holes on the PCB. Make sure the pins line
up exactly! Gently press it into place making sure not to "fold" any pins under in the process. Solder it
down once you're certain no pins were bent and everything looks OK.
 
Thanks Sam. Before posting yesterday, I looked briefly at that doc you linked and when I saw the PCB picture at the very beginning with only one 2122 I thought there would be only one 2212. It never occurred to me that one would move chip from the motherboard to that daughter card. Thanks for pointing that out.

In the meantime, I've found posts stating that their SW doesn't store settings once the Clay kit is installed. It wasn't clear whether it didn't store any or just SW settings. But this seemed to be a somewhat random occurrence.

I'll pull the boards from the cage today and make sure nothing looks funky with the 2122 chip. Assuming I don't find anything, I'll go ahead and get a one 2122 and see what difference that makes.

What surprises me, however, is that the game doesn't think there is a problem.

... Altan
 
Just wanted to post a good news update.

I ordered a couple 2212 chips. Tonight I pulled out the Star Wars board set and unstacked the boards to get access to the Clay modification.

As indicated, there are 2 of the 2212 chips. I suspected one was bad and one was good since ESB stored settings but SW did not. Just because I didn't want to mess with more than necessary, I wanted to only replace one of them --- but which one? Which one is used for SW vs. ESB?

I decided to replace the 2212 that was moved from the SW PCB to the Clay board per Clay's instructions. I figured that would be the oldest one and likely the bad one, but I still didn't know if it was used by SW or ESB.

And... drum roll...

It's working great! Star Wars is now holding its settings (as well as ESB).

I suppose this is a strong indication that I swapped the SW 2212 (unless just disconnecting everything and reconnecting it fixed the problem).

... Altan
 
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