It can be hard to remove the solder from the GND and +5v pins so if it is possible to heat up the board or use a hotter temp soldering pen, that will help out a lot. I didnt do either and I struggled with this but looking back on it, I should have used my hot air gun to heat it up a bit or turn up the temp on my pen :) Hope your repairs go well.
I love your vids man. I have horrible natural shakes and spent 37 years thinking I'd never be able to solder but between your tips on your vids and just sitting down and doing it, I am now a soldering BEAST despite the shakes. Just made a 8x8x8 LED cube for my first project! Over 3000 different soldering points and I did it..... eventually (90ish hours later). Thanks for the inspiration!
Wow, that is a pretty amazing story and congrats on accomplishing such a feat! The vids here are nothing special but If they can motivate others like yourself to even give a project a try that is cool enough. Thanks again and great job
I used to be very good at soldering and other things that needed fine motor control, but I had a stroke and all that went away. I’m still improving but I have a long ways to go still. I find your story and Luke’s videos to be inspiring, so thanks to you both.
(To help Luke and Others on this board. I am a huge Sega fan and this is what this board is. ) SEGA SYSTEM C-2 HARDWARE Main CPU : MC68000 @ 8.948862 Mhz Sound chip : YM3438 @ 7.670453, SN76496 @ 3.579545 Optional Sound Chip : UPD7759 @ 640 kHz Video resolution : 320x224 Hardware Features : Line-scroll , column scroll and a raster interrupt with 2 background planes, one with an option window, a sprite plane and several levels of priority Board composition : One single Jamma board. This hardware is based on the Genesis hardware, the main cpu, the sound cpu and the graphic processor are the same. The main cpu is just a bit faster 10Mhz instead of 8Mhz and there is no Z80, the sound chip is driven by the main cpu. The dac is also replace by a uPD7759, the same as the System 16 hardware. Sometimes referred to as System 14. (Hope this helps everybody. I love Sega and while not a fan of the last 20 years the previous 30 were and are totally awesome. Keep up the awesome Luke! Peace brother. ) *Note: This information other than my comments in () comes from system16 website.
Thanks a lot for the info my friend :) I also think the sega hardware is amazing and so many variants. Many of these arcade boards are the system and the game wrapped into one.
I second the need for Smell-o vision. I like the smell of Solder smoke for one thing. And those disgusting dead bugs odors sound nauseatingly enticing, kinda like popping Bertie Bott's Every Flavour beans in your mouth and being unlucky getting foul tasting ones as a consequence 😋
I cleaned out a Super Nintendo that was a home for roaches at some point in it's life. Excrement everywhere it was a nightmare this video reminded me of. Isopropyl alcohol and contact cleaner saved the day. A good soak in soapy hot water helped with the plastic parts. Thanks for sharing these repair videos Luke!
Thanks a lot Qki. I make quite a few unconscious mistakes, and some may say that the methodology is wrong , but being able to get the boards going in the end is much better than a broken stack for sure :) . Im glad if the vids can also provide some entertainment.
Two things I've done with stubborn solder flooded vias like those buggers you dealt with are 1. Mix new solder with the old solder then heat it up and blow it with canned air to blow the solder out and 2. If there's something like a chip lead or component leg stuck in there then get a piece of the leg of a resistor or something similar, grab it with needle nose pliers (instead of regular pliers which tend to bleed off more heat), heat the end of the lead you're holding with the pliers and push it through to hopefully push the obstruction out.
Great to see the repair. I’ve just bought my first columns arcade boards so getting a head start on my knowledge of them before I have to attempt my own repairs!
Luke, you are a hero of mine. I’ve loved your videos since the beginning of the channel, especially the “extreme” repairs. I wish someone would make a documentary of your life.
Thanks man. I usually go over these boards with some Simple Green and scrub them down but it depends on the board. I might grab one in the future. I agree, they are very useful :)
For stubborn pins I usually grab a needle with pliers, push on the via and apply heat with the iron. The solder melts, the needle goes through and unblocks the via.
Thank you Luke for taking the time to fix this. It may just be Columns but in a world of component shortages, every piece of saved tech matters, and you gave a fighting chance to something I would have thought couldn't be saved. Excellent job!
Just a note for those playing at home :) Some boards that use a 74xxx chip cannot use the 74LSxxx equivalents. Defender is a prime example of it. You should always try to match the original part if you can. In some parts of Defender if you use an LS part you can experience graphics glitches. You can try it and if it works great, but if it doesn't something odd, try they same part type. Found this out the hard way :)
With 4 minutes left to the video, my hope was waning. But it wouldn't be Luke if he didn't pull everything he had to fix it, hehe. Loving the recent videos, top form!
Sega System C-2. Similar to Mega-Drive hardware but it has a faster CPU and a uPD7759 ADPCM chip for digitized sounds. Engineer makes special pliers just for cutting component legs.
Alright!! Awesome restore work. I actually picked up a soldering tip or two. Looked like some ram-save battery exploded to damage that part of the board. (I'll just pretend that was it in lieu of roach guts and the smell of their eggs... ew.) Columns is Tetris-lite to many folks, but it's still a worthy classic and it's nice to see this dead board brought back to life. I liked this game so much back in the day, I spent the last few years tinkering together my own handheld version using an Arduino. ;)
Nice one Luke i have that board somewhere in storage, man watching your vids sure makes one want to get back in the game. hope all is good back in good ol´ Japan
Thanks a lot man, its been a long time! Hope everything is great with you and if these vids can spark just a bit of inspiration, that is cool enough. Take care
Congrats on fixing this little gem. This board was a perfect basket case for an ultrasonic cleaner with some Branson cleaning solution. It would get rid of the rest of crap under other chips as well. Super Columns (sequel to Columns) was my favorite game on Game Gear back in the day. Lots of fun. I think I've seen tons of games in the arcades over the years, but I don't think I've seen Columns in person before. I saw a cart for Game Gear, but I never knew Sega had it in the arcades as well. I guess with all the hype of Tetris, that was their shot back in 1990.
I would recommend adding a date in parenthesis to your title, so it would look like something like this: Sega Columns (1990) Arcade PCB Repair Just some more useful info and eye catcher. This also helps to separate the title of the game from the description and makes it more stand out :). Maybe even add "#1" or something similar in case in the future you get to repair yet another board like this, so you don't end up having the same title... or just maybe add a date (Feb. 28, 2022).
Thanks for the ideas there Mark. If I get a few of these similar boards again, I may try that numbering system you suggested. One of the good things about YT is that it doesn't let you upload the same title twice but Ill keep that in mind. Thanks again.
I'm not super familliar with arcade PCB repair stuff but those eeproms usually have the little windows covered otherwise they get erased, right? but glad you were able to save another one of those boards, yeah that one looked in pretty rough shape!!
Thank you for the kind words. I dont go in depth very much with a lot of them and try to make ones where people at home can do some simple checks/tests/repairs without expensive equipment. There is the "correct" way to do repairs with the proper tools, schematics etc, and then there is this way lol.
@@lukemorse1 hey I am self learned and as long as it works and doesnt fall apart its fine ! Just love to see and learn different failure modes and maybe if I get a broken board I would be able to fix it too ! Plus its fun having such videos up whilst fixing stuff myself
Woot! Another save! Nicely done. :) For someone like me, with no experience dealing with electronics who wants to learn, Luke, what would you suggest? How did you get started working on this sort of stuff?
To be honest, these are just simple vids to show people at home how to possibly troubleshoot a board with very crude/limited tools. If you are interested in just tinkering around, I would recommend something small at first with limited components or practicing on broken items from ebay. Getting a voltage/continuity meter and a logic probe is a good start. As mentioned in the comments section of other videos, checking for similar repairs or pictures of similar repairs online, watching a variety of videos, a bit of some trial and error etc is a good way to get started. IF you are interested in doing thing "correctly" or by the book, Looking up the circuit diagrams online, checking the pinouts and truth tables of TTL's as well as what their functions are in circuit, using an oscilloscope to see analog and digital signals etc is the way to go. These vids here are what some may disagree with but hopefully they will provide just a little bit of help to a few people :) Nevertheless, If you are able to take something that is bound to be trashed and bring it back to life, thats something to try!
Sometimes sticky junk on boards that doesn't dissolve in any kind of solvent based cleaners is actually sugar.. water takes it right off.. ask me how I know..
Great video as always Luke, and awesome repair! I've been following your channel for more than ten years now, and all your videos are so entertaining and interesting to watch, I've learned so much from you! :D Greetings from Italy! (ps: does Can Do Wine still exist there? :D)
Thanks a lot Nessark. If anything, that is really all they are, just for entertainment purposes. Im glad you have continued to enjoy them and greeting back at you from Japan! As for "Can Do Wine"....we shall never try that again and Im hoping it is gone by now lol.
Thanks a lot Jake man. I dont work on the RC stuff anymore unfortunately but they are still a lot of fun. Unless you are living in the countryside in Japan here, finding places to race around gas powered car is a bit tricky lol.
lol, I visited one a few years back and made a vid on it but didnt really find a whole lot of stuff at that time. I know each place is different so trying another one might be a possibility in the future.
Nice getting it working but you should have checked the eproms 1st. On a dead board I check for CPU clock and reset,then the CPU eproms. Only if those are good and the board still doesn't boot do I go looking for other bad chips. CPU ram would have been the next thing to check. Checking for bad traces is OK but swapping chips without checking them can be a waste of time since even if they appear to be in a poor state as long as the legs are good they can still function.
Yeah, there are many ways to approach these boards for sure and you mentioned some good ones but there are many ways to tackle them. I generally look for bent pins first, cut traces, lifted or cracked solder joints, clock, reset, hault, eproms and other ways. In these vids I'm trying to put a few different ideas together that are somewhat different in each video. Everyone has their own way of doing it but getting the boards going in the end is still quite satisfying no matter which way you go :) thanks again.
Hey Luke, I have a UMK3 arcade pcb that has no sound but did previously. Would the big 2200uf 16v radial capacitor, located near the big heatsink, leaking cause the no sound issue? Everything tests fine on the board when I power it up but no start-up bong or sound of any kind
If those caps are leaking it could cause some problems for sure. The amps connected to the heatsink could also be bad or broken trace etc. Try to check that the voltage is correct as on the board first as well and then replace that cap if it is leaking and remove any electrolytic fluid. Also check neighboring components for damage and see how that works. Good luck with the repair!
@@lukemorse1 Would you like to take a shot at repairing the sound? I replaced that capacitor and still have no sound. Not too comfortable going much further myself
Hello I have the same pcb, it works perfectly but it lacks a C5 capacitor in a corner!? on yours I see that the capacitor is there. what can happen to my board from being used without this capacitor?