Why are people so incompetent/lazy with JAMMA wiring?

[nesjess]

Why are people so incompetent/lazy with JAMMA wiring?

So I just got my Double Dragon today and all is well except there is an issue with the monitor picture. This was something that the seller was upfront about from the beginning. He is not the first owner and had attempted no repairs other than getting a new marquee and replacing the speaker. At first, I thought it was just the usual adjustments, needing a cap kit, etc.

Then, I took a look at the JAMMA wiring at the edge connector and there are two wires all hacked up and both were soldered directly to the board. I mean seriously, straight to the board? Then I notice one of the wires is soldered to another wire at the edge connector. When I removed these connections, the picture went fuzzy and brown.

After a few minutes of closer inspection, I narrowed the two wires down. One wire is for a player control. I'm guessing the wire broke off and they just decided to "fix" it. The other wire (speaker wire) is soldered to the video sync wire and and was then soldered to a ground connection. I don't know the reasoning behind this.

So it's just a bit of a mess that I'll have to clean up. It just makes me wonder why some guys think taking the easy road will fix their issues. I'm guessing whoever did this didn't know any better or was just plain lazy.

So every JAMMA cab I've gotten has had hacked up wiring in some form or another. Just frustrating. Either this is a common occurrence or I just have bad luck with JAMMA cabs.

Picture of hack job attached.

EDIT: So the red wire was for Player 1 Up and Down. The other wire is jumpered from a video sync wire to a ground. The picture will not show up unless it is jumpered this way. I have no idea. I really don't care. I'm going to end up replacing the entire JAMMA harness anyway because the connector and pins have corrosion.

 

[Oryk Zinyo]

Many hacks were a result of operators being in a hurry to get the games back up and running. Later hacks were a result of owners not knowing how to get the parts to replace things properly so they just soldered wires to boards since solder and irons can be purchased at Radio Shack, Home Depot, Lowes, etc.

Earlier this year I picked up a ton of boards from a fellow collector and the owner had bypassed the Jamma harness all together and substituted a PC parallel port connection in order to make games switchable in his cabinet. He soldered the parallel port connector directly to the boards via wires. He also decided that kick harnesses for games like street fighter were stupid so he cut traces that he thought were unused and jupmered the kick harness jack to the Jamma base.

The worst hacked board was a Street Fighter II: CE that had all player two inputs cut and player one kick buttons wired to the player two punch button positions...

 

[nesjess]

I see what you're saying. Well, if that's the case, I'm guessing others like yourself have probably seen much worse.

I just attached a picture. If any others have pictures of ugly hack jobs, please do share.

 

[Grbgemen]

I got a MK board with the entire Jamma harness soldered to the board.

 

[Hyde]

Haha, I did the same thing one time with my Time Soldiers machine. Soldering the wire directly to the board may be ghetto, but at least the game works!

 

[Cubbie]

I don't know the reasoning behind this.

Sounds like there wasn't any.

 

[Mindl3ss]

I bought a Missile Command that hada ground wire soldered directly to the board. The trace on the edge connector was fried, looked like they stripped a wire and "clipped" it on to where the edge connector was and soldered it on both sides, but I guess that wasn't enough of a fix, as it was just ignored and soldered to the board.

freeplayinc has it now... don't know if he fixed that part.

Bob Roberts sells edge connector fixers

 

[kencinder]

I have a rule with my harnesses...

All wires get zip tied in groupings. One bundle for monitor, one for speakers, one for control panel, one for coin door etc.

No soldering! Spade connectors on everything except for the power wires and of course monitor connections, those get the through-hole ones so they can't come off the terminals.

I can't be bothered with Molex connectors, just a pain in the ass and useless added cost for something I have no intention of unplugging over and over.
And soldering wires to the board is lame, fix that shit properly.

 

[kjeffery]

I guessing operators back then wanted to fix / conver the most easiest and cheapest way possible to get it back on the floor quickly and not lose any money

 

[RetroHacker]

I've seen pretty bad hacks. I've seen at least a couple of games where the entire harness was soldered directly to the board's Jamma connector. And I don't know how many times I've seen an Atari game or a Pac with the burned up ground or power connector where the harness is hacked and the power soldered to the board. Most recently was a Dig Dug with the +5 and ground lines clipped at the harness, extended with a wire nut onto scraps of wire soldered to the board. Funny thing about that one is that there wasn't anything wrong with the connector on either the board or the harness. Apparently an OP just liked it better that way.

-Ian

 

[Crazy Climber]

Although that hack looks shitty who knows how long it lasted, may have been 20 years... I'm sure it was a meant as a quick fix to get the game going again but if people kept putting quarters in then why bother with fine tuning right? At least thats how the arcades around here were

 

[YieArKade]

I haven't had any JAMMA pcbs with the harness wires directly soldered on. But I do hate when the wiring is directly soldered onto the micro switches on the control panel.

 

[dirt]

the pole position cockpit i picked up a few weeks ago has all the wires soldered to the board at the edge connector. it works so im not touching it till something happens, which shouldn't be too long since it is a pole position.

 

[TK_Monkey]

I haven't had any JAMMA pcbs with the harness wires directly soldered on. But I do hate when the wiring is directly soldered onto the micro switches on the control panel.

Yeah I thought the "bare wire run to all the microswitches in a long loop and soldered on to them" CP hatchet job that was done on the cab I'm working on turning into a multi fighter was bad. From the looks of this thread I got lucky in comparison, yech.

 

[freeplayinc]

I bought a Missile Command that hada ground wire soldered directly to the board. The trace on the edge connector was fried, looked like they stripped a wire and "clipped" it on to where the edge connector was and soldered it on both sides, but I guess that wasn't enough of a fix, as it was just ignored and soldered to the board.

freeplayinc has it now... don't know if he fixed that part.

Bob Roberts sells edge connector fixers

I used some solder wick and wraped from one side to the other then coated it with solder then I repaired the harness with new crimps and problem was solved.

 

[jay]

the pole position cockpit i picked up a few weeks ago has all the wires soldered to the board at the edge connector. it works so im not touching it till something happens, which shouldn't be too long since it is a pole position.

LOL! I know the feeling.

On another note, I have a Dual VS cab I should post pics of. It's a fucking rats nest of twisted wires and shit with electrical tape semi covering the bare wire. I haven't found enough motivation to make an attempt at figuring it out yet. Mostly because OZ wanted the guts Hint, Hint

 

[Mindl3ss]

I used some solder wick and wraped from one side to the other then coated it with solder then I repaired the harness with new crimps and problem was solved.

Glad to hear you got it fixed. That was probably going to be what I was going to do, had I kept it.

It's in good hands, though.

 

[nesjess]

Finally got around to fixing this by getting a labeled JAMMA edge connector and grabbing new wires from an old JAMMA harness I had laying around to replace all the jacked up ones.

The genius who hacked up the wiring had mixed up the power and ground wires which was causing all of the issues I had (including the need to jumper from the video sync to a "ground" to get the picture to show).

Seriously, it's not that hard to fix broken wires or whatever reason he felt the need to completely bastardize this harness and start soldering wires to the board. I'm guessing he just had no idea what he was doing and just messed with it until he got something to show up on the screen.

Though, it does feel great to get it sorted out and looking pretty.

Before:

After:

 

[Mindl3ss]

Looking good...

Doesen't it make you happy to know that game will never be treated like it has been in the past ever again?

 

[nesjess]

Looking good...

Doesen't it make you happy to know that game will never be treated like it has been in the past ever again?

Seriously, it's a reality that these games took so much damage over the years by gamers, ops and the elements.

My Restoration Pet Peeves (in no specific order):

- Lock Bars/Holes
- Hacked Up Wiring
- Caked Dust, Soda, Rodent Excrement, etc.
- Removing Old Damaged Side Art/CPOs
- SANDING!!!

And I'm sure there is about a hundred other things to list. But hey, no one ever said all of it would be easy and fun.