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Where to start on a dead Jamma Board?
Question from Matt: Hey Guys, thanks for all the great tips. I have a question for you: I recently purchased a Soul Edge JANNA board on eBay. Despite being listed as “tested and working”, it arrived in a non working condition. I have plugged the board into my JAMMA cabinet and it did nothing. As Tim says “the lights are on, but nobody is home.” I have tried 2 other JAMMA games in the cabinet and they work fine. So far, I have cleaned the contacts on the board with a pencil eraser and tested the +12v, +5v, and -5 at the harness. At this point, I think the board is at fault. Do you have any advice on where to start troubleshooting this board? It is a Namco System 11 game if that helps at all. I am comfortable with a soldering iron, so I might be able to fix something on this board. Unfortunately, some components on this board are surface mounted, and I’m not sure if I could fix those. As I see it, the board is already broken, I might as well give it a shot. For what it’s worth, the seller did refund my costs without making me ship the board back which was kind. Thanks again and I look forward to your response! Matt
1 answer
Response from Jonathan: Matt,
Unfortunately troubleshooting newer JAMMA boards with surface mounted chips can be a real hassle. The main problem is that most JAMMA boards do not give you any kind of indication of where the problem is on the board. They usually either display garbage or nothing on the screen which pretty much means that you have to test every component to find the problem. If your board was mostly working but had some corrupt graphics or sound issues then it would be a much better candidate for repair. Also, soldering surface mounted chips is tough! If the problem happens to be with a surface mounted chip then you will need a steady hand and a lot of patience to replace it. It can definitely be done but it can be a frustrating process.
With the disclaimers out of the way, one way you can troubleshoot the board is just by following the voltage. Make sure that each component on the board is getting the correct voltage going to it and through it. You might also make sure that your harness is supplying the voltages and grounds to both sides of the board (parts & solder). Some harnesses I’ve seen recently only supply voltages and grounds to the parts side. While some boards will work fine like this, some don’t and need the voltage and grounds to both sides. You might also contact our friend Raymond at arcadecomponents.com. He does a lot of board repair (newer JAMMA boards included) and is an electronics guru. He might have some ideas for some specific places you can check on your board.
Hope that helps. I wish we had a better answer for you but these newer JAMMA boards are just so tough to work on. Please let us know if you end up getting it working so we can pass that information along. Thank you for your question and good luck with your repair.
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