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Arcade Repair
Question from Michael: Good Evening, I have a Pac Man machine and it is not working. Which is why I am sending you the two images. The image of the PCB. I cannot understand what that foreign object is that is on the edge connector. No clue!! When I boot it up, I get the blue screen. I can adjust the blue and it will dim all the way down and the other pots red, green, etc. I took the PCB and tried it in my working Ms. Pac Man cabinet. It was not working, game would turn on, and a small image of two white dots appeared on the bottom right side of the screen. I removed that foreign edge connector extension piece and plugged it in without it and nothing happened. I took my working Ms. Pac Man PCB and plugged it into the Pac Man cab and the weirdest thing happened.
1. The screen booted up but not blue it seemed narrow and had different colored letters/numbers jumbled together down the center of the screen.
2. It was making game noises, each direction I moved the joy stick would be a different sound as well as the 1p start and 2p start buttons would give off a different sound.
Any clue as to where I should start? Thanks again for your help, Michael
1 answer
Response from Jonathan: Michael,
The foreign object on the edge connector is a RF filter board. Here’s the description from Lawnmowerman’s Pac Man Page: “You may have a RF filter board inserted between your main circuit board & harness. The RF filter board was meant to reduce radio frequency interference caused by the Pac Man game. Most operators have long discarded these filters since they cause more power supply connector problems and the RF interference is not a problem.”
OK, with that out of the way let’s get to the real problem. You might notice that in the description that I posted above he mentions power supply connector problems with the RF filter boards. This would be the first place we would start on your Pac Man cabinet. Make sure that you are getting good voltage all the way from your power supply to the board itself. You might check out our post on Checking A Classic Power Supply if you haven’t already as it has some great tips on working with old Pac Man power supplies. If your power supply is giving your board too much voltage then it could cause issues with the board. Always sure to check the voltage before plugging a working board into a cabinet or it could damage it.
Of course, it does seem like the Pac Man board itself is having some issues. You might look at that arcadegameover.com Pac Man Troubleshooting page and compare the screen you got (when you plugged the Pac Man board into the Ms. Pac Man cabinet) to the pictures to see if you can find something similar. If you can’t, it might be better to send the board off for repair to one of the people we recommend on our resources page or invest in the ABC Diagnostics Kit from TwoBits.com.
Hope that helps. Thank you for your question and good luck with your repair.
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