29 Year Old Fault Fixed

[pinballmania]

Had a wpc power driver board in today that had an intermittent fault on a row of lamps. Owner had been round in circles trying to track it down before sending it to me. Fault traced to this chip

Output to the row drive is folded over when inserted so is just resting on the solder pad. Reverse side shows the missed connection.



And the extracted chip.

Never come across this fault before.

 

[stevebm1]

I have seen faults like that on bootleg arcade pcb's before,but obviously it was friday afternoon at the factory when that one slipped through

 

[Calimori]

So it has survived for 29 years just barely making a solid connection. I wonder how many people have seen but ignored the issue.

 

[John Beveridge]

Well it is my machine and i certainly did not ignore it and did my very best to fix it. It drove me nuts for weeks . i am SO grateful to Andy to have spotted what i never would have in a million years,
Thanks,
John Beveridge.

 

[Calimori]

Sorry, that maybe came across harsher than I meant it to. It was the idea that the issue maybe lasted so long because it seemed so complicated to track down, so it got left.
The right person takes look and it all becomes clear.

 

[John Beveridge]

Absolutely agree Andy was the right person. He is always helpful fast efficient and does his stuff with no fuss.
Just got so annoyed with myself for persevering with a fault i was convinced i should be able to fix. All i ended up with was a machine that could go a whole week perfectly whilst on for two or three hours a night and on other nights the row of lamps would come on and off every few minutes. It was bizarre to be able to get the lamps to come back on by simply tapping my finger nail on the backglass and on some occasions the playfield glass.
Looking forward to now playing the game without that distraction !

 

[Wayne J]

I used to have a problem 29 years old, so I dumped her