Galaga Board Repair

[TPMARTIN]

I purchased a Galaga cocktail in good condition that needs some board repair. I sent the boards out to a guy I found off of EBay but after three weeks he had not had an opportunity to look at or diagnose the issue and he was going on a months vacation so I asked him to send the boards back to me.

Please do not think I am bad rapping the guy he was very helpful and kind but he is just extremely busy.

That being said the boards should be coming back to me in the next day or two and I am looking to send them off to someone that is proficient in Galaga Board Repair.

If you know of someone or have experience in Galaga board repair please let me know and I send the boards to you.

Attached is a screen shot of what the game looks like and no it is not a monitor issue.

[Amachanic]

Hi.  Go under members to dragster73. I know he works on pinball machines and other video games. Send him an email and see if he can help you out. He has helped me with a few different problems and does great work.

Gary

[slotsteve]

try reseating chips 1st   then buy a 60 in 1 board  for 75 bucks you,ll be ahead of the game

[TPMARTIN]

I reseated all the chips and the guy who went on vacation on me reseated them all too.

I would do a 60/1 but I already have one.

[slotsteve]

imo the galaga on 60 in 1 is better the the midway one

[channelmaniac]

Galaga is a bitch to work on... There aren't many of us who will touch it.

I charge $90 plus return shipping to work on those. If you want to do it yourself, I sell a "renew kit" on my web site which contains all new sockets and resistor packs for that boardset. Those are weak points on the game board and common causes for MANY ailments. Once those are replaced and tarnished pins on the custom chips are cleaned, the boardset is physically stable enough for further troubleshooting.

For that screen shot, start by checking the 74LS368 in the clock circuit on the video board.

[TPMARTIN]

Thanks for the reply... I sent it off yesterday for repair to Michigan.

Hope I can get it fixed without alot of issue.

[channelmaniac]

Thanks for the reply... I sent it off yesterday for repair to Michigan.

Hope I can get it fixed without alot of issue.

Good luck. I hope they fix it right.

Those boards should have all the old sockets and old style resistor packs replaced to make it stable. Hope whoever does the work does that for you.

[TPMARTIN]

It is a guy I met off of this website named Jerry Clause out of New Baltimore Michigan. I hope he reads this post it seems like you know a lot about these issues.

Tim

[channelmaniac]

I do a few board repairs

The folks here are wonderful people who let me keep my repair logs in this forum: http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?board=19.0

Raymond

[Amachanic]

It is a guy I met off of this website named Jerry Clause out of New Baltimore Michigan. I hope he reads this post it seems like you know a lot about these issues.

Tim

Tim... I think you will be happy with Jerry's work. I've bought items from him and had him help me get one of my pinball machines working again. Last time I was over at his place he was running test on a Pacman or Ms Pacman. If he can't fix your problem I'll be suprised. Keep us posted.

Gary

[channelmaniac]

Guys, don't take my posts the wrong way... I'm not trying to discount or mess with anyone's services.

If the Galaga board has the flat ceramic, unencapsulated resistor packs they are prone to lifting of traces if they get bumped or moved. When this happens you get intermittant crashes and video display issues (graphics in wrong places...streaks on the screen, etc...)

The sockets used were mostly either single wipe or they were some weird TI sockets that were dual wipe, but only on the thin edges of the pins. Either case they lose their springiness similar to how the sockets on Atari games of that era did. When this happens the game will randomly lockup or crash.

Only the later board design used good quality double wipe sockets and decent encapsulated resistor packs... but that boardset suffers from leaking capacitors and the leaking electrolyte eats traces.

Most (>9/10) Galaga boards have custom chips with silver plated steel pins. These tend to have oxidation of the silver plating and often rust of the steel pins themselves. They are fragile and easy to snap off. They MUST be cleaned before being put back into new sockets. I use Tarn-X for this. (Rinse well and dry fully before powering up!) If you're lucky, you have some custom chips that didn't have those types of legs - but they are few and far between.

This is why I stated what I did. To do all this work takes time. It takes me between 2 to 3 hours to rebuild a Galaga boardset.

All of these issues apply to Bosconian as well. That game shared the same CPU board (with a few extra chips) as Galaga but had a different Video board.

Raymond

[xciton]

I'm in the process of rebuilding a Galaga board.  I got it as non-working, so I didn't pay a premium price for it.  I already noticed one of the resistor networks had detached pins, so hopefully that's what was wrong (I can't bench test at the moment).  I can see someone has already soldered a few replacement pins on a custom IC and also used a socket IC as a carrier for one of the custom ICs.

I've got all the parts desoldered (took about 2.5 hours) and I only lost 2 bottom pads on the CPU board.  Luckily, the track to those specific thru-holes is on the top, so hopefully the inner barrel is still attached (I'll meter it out after the new socket is installed).  In any event, it's pretty easy to overcome.

My question is about Tarn-X.  Other than rinsing with water, is there any need to neutralize it afterwards with anything to stop the chemical reaction?

[channelmaniac]

Nope. Just rinse the chips off well and let them dry overnight before plugging them in.