Sega Batman Forever - CPU board repair

[Jason Catrine]

Hi all,

I’ll give some background here first. I volunteered to try and get a pin working for someone and I’ve done some troubleshooting. The cpu board looks quite bad. Its had battery leakage in the past and it appears that it was repaired. My working guess to the issue is the previous repair has not got all the corrosion and although it apparently worked for a while, I’m assuming the corrosion has continued to eat through the board and damaged it further. When i turn the machine on i get some GI lights on the playfield and it actually plays a speech sample but nothing else happens. I’ve checked all the fuses and they are all fine. I’ve also reseated everything. Power board appears to be ok, despite someone soldering some wires directly to it rather than using a connector block - looks like they’ve done a clean decent soldering job on it though. I have 2 leds lit on the board - pia and 5v.

From what I’ve described, do you guys think the cpu board is at fault or could it be something else? Here’s a pic of the lights that come on in the playfield and also a pic of the battery damage. Does this look like something that can be repaired?

Thanks,
Jason.

 

[Jason Catrine]

 

[ronnie63]

I thought that would be whitestar but looks DE board, looks fairly bad! Everything if fixable if time and skill is plenty, I'm sure I have a spare that came out of a Hook

Ronnie

 

[drhex]

You can send me the board and I‘ll have a look. Pretty bad though, will be a lot of work and I don‘t have a machine to try it in.

 

[Jagspete]

It is a DE '3' board and it looks like the corrosion has spread far enough and affected enough components to warrant replacement, £200-300 if you look around. I'd go over the dmd cables and supply as think the CPU needs a response from dmd board before it will start a game

 

[Paul]

Everything if fixable if time and skill is plenty,

However there needs to be a line where the potentially weeks it may take to fix something is offset by the cost, even if fixing things for yourself. As soon as the PCB is shot, you are living on borrowed time..
This is my problem with Corrosion - you can never really get it all... just an attempt to extend the life of something the best you can.

Especially with the cost and availability of parts nowadays. People dont understand sometimes that parts have increased on average (from my view) of 30-40% over the last 5 years, and thats if you can get them...

The only time where i would break that rule is where something truely is unobtanium.... in which case you have no choice to put in the time and effort.

People dont like paying £100+ to have a board fixed and i get that in current times... in reality a lot of it is "mates rates".. couldnt make a living out of it (though some do!). But this goes both ways - people need to be sensible and realise that a lot of this stuff is 35+ years old, and will become more prone to breaking as time moves on...

How many people have anything else highly electronic in their hours that it 35+ years old that takes a battering every time it is used, however still works? Tv? Radio?

 

[Jason Catrine]

Thanks everyone. By the sounds of it, a replacement board is probably in order but i’ll get back to the owner of this machine and see if he wants to try a repair. Very much appreciate the offer of having a look at it @drhex i will let you know what the owner decides.

@ronnie63 if you find that hook board, please pm me with a price and I’ll present that option to the owner too.

Thanks also to @Paul and @Jagspete, really appreciate your input. Randomly the dmd power has been hacked at before so i’m now wondering if theres an issue there. Will look closer at that. Connector block has 4 slots but it goes into a 5 slot pin block on the board. Clearly had an ex-op ‘that’ll do’ fix at some point.

 

[Asiapinball]

https://arcarc.xmission.com/Pinball/Stern%20Service%20Bulletins/sb/sb106.pdf

You should carry out the modification to the dmd power cabling if it is not done already. All in the service bulletin and you can also get the kit but you don't need it now you have crimping tools etc.

 

[Asiapinball]

Sega Harness Update Kit For 192x64 Displays

Sega harness update kit for 192x64 displays includes cable with connector and installation instructions to fix reset/blankout issues in large dot matrix display Sega pinball machines. Easy, solder-free installation in under 15 minutes. Compatible with Maverick, Batman Forever, Frankenstein...

www.pinballlife.com

Here is he kit.

 

[Jason Catrine]

Thanks @Asiapinball….and yeah, crimping tools i now have, talent still very debatable, but thanks to you, I’m improving

I’m only taking on this machine to try to learn more so its a win for me and hopefully a win for the owner. i’ll run through that link tomorrow and see if i can add value to this guys machine for him. Cheers.

 

[ronnie63]

See how you go with the dmd issue I will look out the board but I know it has no rot and was working perfectly when I tested it