As do many people, I always wanted to add a Ms Pac to the collection, but man I never imagined how much a pain in the ass they are.
I found a non-working one(Serial# 9559) at a church yard sale at the unbelievable price of $30. The monitor was shot, the game wouldn't power up, the power supply tested DOA and the light ballast wouldn't work(this one was easy). After purchasing a switching power supply conversion kit, the board still wouldn't boot, so I decided to try to reseat the EPROMs... In doing so half the pins just crumbled in my hand as did the ribbon cable to the daughter board. Not wanting to dump any more money in without results(i.e. if new EPROMS and a ribbon cable didn't work I'd still be at square one), I ordered a new PCB set from Riptor. So now I had a working board but no monitor(the one in the cab was beyond hope). I bought a junker cab for it's monitor which was also not working properly. Ended up purchasing a cap kit and still had issues with the monitor only to find the cause the entire time had been a bad horizontal hold potentiometer. I did a little more testing on the ISO transformers after realizing they usually don't fail. Finally tracked the problem down to a spliced power cord of all things right at the plug end. The board still wouldn't boot and after a little tinkering realized the fuses were good but not making contact due to corrosion. Installed new fuses and finally after 10 days working on this beast, 15 flesh wounds and a sore back, it is working 100%. I'm sure a more learned person would have had this thing going in 10 minutes, but again I can honestly say I have learned quite a bit with this one.
So with $250 invested, I finally got her going which all in all isn't bad I suppose but man what a nightmare.
Anyone else encounter any restoration nightmares like this one?
I found a non-working one(Serial# 9559) at a church yard sale at the unbelievable price of $30. The monitor was shot, the game wouldn't power up, the power supply tested DOA and the light ballast wouldn't work(this one was easy). After purchasing a switching power supply conversion kit, the board still wouldn't boot, so I decided to try to reseat the EPROMs... In doing so half the pins just crumbled in my hand as did the ribbon cable to the daughter board. Not wanting to dump any more money in without results(i.e. if new EPROMS and a ribbon cable didn't work I'd still be at square one), I ordered a new PCB set from Riptor. So now I had a working board but no monitor(the one in the cab was beyond hope). I bought a junker cab for it's monitor which was also not working properly. Ended up purchasing a cap kit and still had issues with the monitor only to find the cause the entire time had been a bad horizontal hold potentiometer. I did a little more testing on the ISO transformers after realizing they usually don't fail. Finally tracked the problem down to a spliced power cord of all things right at the plug end. The board still wouldn't boot and after a little tinkering realized the fuses were good but not making contact due to corrosion. Installed new fuses and finally after 10 days working on this beast, 15 flesh wounds and a sore back, it is working 100%. I'm sure a more learned person would have had this thing going in 10 minutes, but again I can honestly say I have learned quite a bit with this one.
So with $250 invested, I finally got her going which all in all isn't bad I suppose but man what a nightmare.
Anyone else encounter any restoration nightmares like this one?
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