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Board specific button issues
Question from Bracey: Hi Jonathan! I’ve got a few PCBs with some button issues and I’m pulling my hair out trying to solve the problems. I’ve got a Double Dragon where the 2nd player jump button doesn’t work, a BloodStorm where the 2nd player Front Arm button looks to be “stuck down” in test mode (and is registering on the 1P side when the button is pressed), and a Tough Turf bootleg board where the 1P buttons don’t work at all (though both joysticks and 2P side buttons work just fine). All of these issues look to be board-specific, as I have a number of others that work just fine with all the buttons on both sides.
I’ve cleaned the pins on the PCBs and cleaned and re-seated the IC chips on those boards to no avail. My question to you is simply: where is a good place to start looking on the board when you have issues with buttons like I do? All the work I’ve done doesn’t seem to be helping at all. Maybe I’m just looking in the wrong places?
I’m still new to the hobby, so pardon my ignorance!
P.S. – The Tough Turf board also has a bunch of crazy moving lines on screen that basically make the game unplayable. Thinking it’s maybe a ground issue? It’s a bootleg JAMMA version of a System 16 board.
Thanks so much,
Bracey
1 answer
Response from Jonathan: Bracey,
Well, it sounds like you have done most of the procedures we have discussed in our post on Inspecting An Arcade Board but it might be worth reviewing again just in case. It could be that all of these boards do, in fact, have board issues that can’t be solved easily. Before assuming this; however, you might check the pinouts for each game (which can be found online or in the manual for the game) to make sure that they match the way your harness is wired. Even though we talk about the JAMMA standard like it’s definitive, there are several boards that use variations on this standard. Usually these variations can be found in the control panel section of the harness which may explain why all of the issues you are experiencing are related to buttons not working. If the wiring is correct but you’re still having control issues then you might try tracing the line from the corresponding pin on the edge connector back through the board to see if there are any breaks in the trace. Using this method could also lead you to a chip (or another component) that has gone bad as well.
Now, the Tough Turf board sounds like it may be having problems that are beyond the simple control panel issues. In this case, it might be worth seeking out professional help. Since it’s a Sega game, you might try reaching out to Ken at irepairsega.com to see if he can help you out with your issue. There is also a list of additional board repair guys under the Board (PCB) Repair & Component Sales heading on our resources page that might be able to help you out as well.
Hope that helps. Thank you for your question and good luck with your repair.
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