Espgaluda, no sound

[Animaitor]

Hello fellows! Got Espgaluda from a French member a while ago and he already warned me the board had no sound. I asked him if the board had any repair work but the only thing he did while in his possession was removing the battery from the board.

Once I got the board, I tested it out. The graphics have no glitches, the game runs fine and as expected, there was no sound. After inspecting the PCB I can tell there has been some resoldering on some capacitors and audio pot. Here you have a couple of shots from the board and after comparing it with Ketsui (same CAVE PGM board) I made red circles on the areas where the PCB has gotten some work. The "?" means I'm not sure.

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Is there anything I can do to restore the audio on this beautiful game? My knowledge is limited related to voltmeters and such. I do own one though. I can do some soldering but that's about it. Other CAVE PGM games run fine on my cabs so getting the right voltage might not be the problem, at least not from the cab itself. Any suggestions are appreciated. Cheers!

[KmanSweden]

1.) Is the heatsinked component getting to hot to touch?

2.) Looking at the board and comparing it to http://www.world-of-arcades.net/Cave/Es ... da_pcb.jpg
2nd pic, just under your bottom right circle and above the CS17810 circle-thingy.. it looks a bit diffrent. looks like it's missing solder..

[yosai]

There is a track side pic of my old board here if it helps.

[opt2not]

Hello fellows! Got Espgaluda from a French member a while ago and he already warned me the board had no sound. I asked him if the board had any repair work but the only thing he did while in his possession was removing the battery from the board.

Once I got the board, I tested it out. The graphics have no glitches, the game runs fine and as expected, there was no sound. After inspecting the PCB I can tell there has been some resoldering on some capacitors and audio pot. Here you have a couple of shots from the board and after comparing it with Ketsui (same CAVE PGM board) I made red circles on the areas where the PCB has gotten some work. The "?" means I'm not sure.

DisplayCollapse view

DisplayCollapse view

Is there anything I can do to restore the audio on this beautiful game? My knowledge is limited related to voltmeters and such. I do own one though. I can do some soldering but that's about it. Other CAVE PGM games run fine on my cabs so getting the right voltage might not be the problem, at least not from the cab itself. Any suggestions are appreciated. Cheers!

Those caps look new to me, and though some of the soldering looks burnt, they should be ok.

If I were you, I'd get a magnifying glass and start looking at all the traces first, inspecting for a physical damage whatsoever. Front and Backside. From the picture of the back you posted, there seems to be a bunch of scratches and nicks here and there. Don't know if they're deep, or if it's just camera lens dust, but you would do good to verify none of the traces are perturbed. Best thing to do is just go around with your continuity setting on your multimeter, and check the traces that look questionable.

When I fixed the audio problem on my DX board, the first thing I thought of was the caps, since most of the time caps on a board are used for the audio section. Next I figured my amps might have been shot. But it turned out that I had one small nick on one of the traces in the audio line, that broke it's continuity. After I jumpered the connection with a hook-up wire, my audio came back.

[Animaitor]

Well, thanks to all for the replies!

1.) Is the heatsinked component getting to hot to touch?

2.) Looking at the board and comparing it to http://www.world-of-arcades.net/Cave/Es ... da_pcb.jpg
2nd pic, just under your bottom right circle and above the CS17810 circle-thingy.. it looks a bit diffrent. looks like it's missing solder..

1) Not much difference from Ketsui.

2) You are right and from the picture it looks like that part is missing some solder but I checked the board again and it looks fine.

There is a track side pic of my old board here if it helps.

Thanks yosai, I'll keep the picture just in case.

If I were you, I'd get a magnifying glass and start looking at all the traces first, inspecting for a physical damage whatsoever. Front and Backside. From the picture of the back you posted, there seems to be a bunch of scratches and nicks here and there. Don't know if they're deep, or if it's just camera lens dust, but you would do good to verify none of the traces are perturbed...

It might be the lens or dust on the board. I checked for any physical damage on the traces and they look fine. I might need to use my multimeter on the traces and caps but don't know how... I'll have to search for some tutorial on youtube

Thanks again for all the help gents!

[Animaitor]

Ok, I checked the traces that might be suspicious but all turned out fine. As for the capacitors, is there a way to measure them or check if they work without taking them out? I don't want to mess something that wasn't broken in the first place. I found some very slight blue corrosion (copper sulfide?) on the legs of a chip 35A6J7M as well. Took a picture before I removed it with some rubbing alcohol and a cotton bud:

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Don't know if this will give you some clues but pressing the "test switch" freezes the game... is that related to the battery not being present?

[Animaitor]

Hey Kernow! I've tried to hold it for 3 seconds (and other combinations) but as soon as I press the test switch, the game freezes. When powering up the cab, there's no memory check routine and it goes directly to "This game is for use in Japan only... bla, bla, bla"

I found a similar problem on this thread here but the caps on my board look fine. How can I test if a capacitor is not doing contact?

[KmanSweden]

My Ibara PCB tested just fine wraped in bouble wrap but when I removed it there was no sound.
I pressed down (gently) on the big cap in the corner (the one in the plastic holder-thingie..) and the sound returned.
One of the solder points had broken in transit and the bouble wrap pressed down the cap so it made a connection.
I just reheated the solder and attached it again and it was permanently repaired.

But I'm guessing you would have noticed that..

[davewellington]

reflowed solder = reputation ruining repair

[Animaitor]

What KmanSweden says gives me some hope. If the sound problem is related to a capacitor not making contact, that's an easy fix. I just need to know how to detect a bad contact from a cap on the PCB. But I wonder if the freeze issue is some how related to the absent of sound... I would hate to send the game to some repair service is I can fix this by just resoldering a cap. Mind you, everything else on the game runs fine. No glitches on the graphics (played all the way till the end just to make sure), controls are fine, etc.

[KmanSweden]

reflowed solder = reputation ruining repair

Huh?

[idc]

reflowed solder = reputation ruining repair

Huh?

[KmanSweden]

reflowed solder = reputation ruining repair

Huh?

I still don't get it.

[goatboy]

Check the 'FS Raiden PCB' over at ng.com

Can't believe i just did. What a waste of time.

[KmanSweden]

Indeed..

[idc]

teh dramas

I'd say that we were way past due for some light relief anyway. Livens this hobby up. A++, would flame again.

[Korszca]

n-g.com is where I go to feel better about this hobby

[Animaitor]

I promise, If I try to sell this game, I'll mention it did get some job done if I ever find what's wrong with it. I just need to know how to detect a bad contact from a cap on the PCB to get the drama started.

[davewellington]

presumably they're soldered down flat against the board, so there's no way of properly testing them without removing them. I haven't been following the thread properly, but if you think caps are the issue, just replace them. It's cheap and quick to do.

[monouchi]

ng.com...

Oups, I just remembered that I sold a fixed pcb.