[Restoration] Moon Patrol - Return to the Lunar Surface

[Etienne MacGyver]

Awsome Ully !

Paint many times has that, that its final color after drying is different then when its wet.

I totally love your "patented Superully presure method" 

[Superully]

DAMN!!! just in time for my birthday tomorrow i put my moon patrol back together and played some nice rounds yesterday evening. tomorrow when i wanted to give it a go before school, all i got was the following screen



another vertical collapse!!!

everything works, the game plays fine, music is there, but the picture is reduced to that small portion you see. so i pulled the chassis and resoldered the ceramic capacitors, but this time it didn't work - problem stayed the same. however, i had troubles with TWO soldering joints where the solder simply wouldn't stick - no matter what i did.

question: how can i clean those older solder spots, how can i make the new solder stick?

[Arcadegek]

Are you sure that it is the monitor? it could be the pcb as well. In the past I fixed pcb's of my own and have had simulair problems.
After taking off the eproms and cleaning the leggs problems sometimes where solved. When this didn't help I empty the original rom info and burned new data in it, which often solve the problem(s).

i had troubles with TWO soldering joints where the solder simply wouldn't stick - no matter what i did.

Concerning the soldering problems? Maybe this link give you some help?

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Solder-Videos%3a-Why-is-soldering-difficult-s/

Worstcase scenario? If i'm correct I have a good working moonpatrol (PCB) in my collection, with this you could test in which direction the problems are.

[Etienne MacGyver]

question: how can i clean those older solder spots, how can i make the new solder stick?

Buy Flux in liquid form, and be sure to use the "old" kind of solder that contains lead. (60-40)
don't use that "lead-free" crap  

In the worst case, solder a "jumper wire" on the part that won't stick to the old joint and connect it to another point in your cirquit (where the trace takes you)

after that beep it through with your multimeter if its making the desired connection.

[Superully]

Are you sure that it is the monitor? it could be the pcb as well. In the past I fixed pcb's of my own and have had simulair problems.
After taking off the eproms and cleaning the leggs problems sometimes where solved. When this didn't help I empty the original rom info and burned new data in it, which often solve the problem(s).

absolutely positive! the pcb is working fine, game plays nicely, it HAS TO BE the monitor - 100%

[Superully]

Buy Flux in liquid form, and be sure to use the "old" kind of solder that contains lead. (60-40)

don't know where to get this here - and i sure won't be able to get it before the weekend is over if i order it online, so unfortunately this is not an option for now. i do have "old solder" with lead and most of the time it works fine, but not this time ...

In the worst case, solder a "jumper wire" on the part that won't stick to the old joint and connect it to another point in your cirquit (where the trace takes you)
after that beep it through with your multimeter if its making the desired connection.

good idea as a temporary solutions. here's a picture of the area, i've marked the two ceramic capacitor solderings in red and blue. i had problems with RED1 and RED2, the last time BLUE2 gave me some troubles. how do i know what to connect / to "jump wire"?

[Etienne MacGyver]

Youre talking about ceramic capacitors, but i think you mean resistors...
we are talking about that bulky white "blocks" right ?

anyway, take the connections from that parts that do not want to stick, and solder wire to that.
folow the cirquit trace where its going, and solder the other part of your wire there.

a picture says 1000 words;



you see here that they are "jumpering" the damaged trace on the pcb

do you get what i mean ?

[Superully]

Youre talking about ceramic capacitors, but i think you mean resistors...
we are talking about that bulky white "blocks" right ?

stupid me, of course i mean resistors, doesn't it say Rxxx on the PCB? we're definitely talking about those white blocks!

anyway, take the connections from that parts that do not want to stick, and solder wire to that.
folow the cirquit trace where its going, and solder the other part of your wire there.

i do get what you mean: i solder a wire to the "foot" of the capacitor eh resistor whose solder joint won't stick to the pcb and then solder the other end to where it is going.

the question is: WHERE IS IT GOING?

here's a picture of the entire chassis, the two resistors are in the lower right corner

[Etienne MacGyver]

I cannot tell exactly, but "follow the traces"

This is just an example:



the trace is going from A to B for example  

Do you get it ?

[level42]

Use:

1) Eyes
2) DVM

[Belike]

Use:

1) Eyes
2) DVM

What is DVM?

[Etienne MacGyver]

"Da Volt Meter" 

[level42]

Actually it stands for Digital Volt Meter.

However, the term is really used for meters that can do (much) more the just measuring Volts (electrical tension).

We, in Holland, call them "multimeters" which is (a bit) better term for it.

Anyway, those things can measure AC and DC voltage, amperes (current), resistance and usually have also a test mode for diodes/continuity check ("beep mode"). Some others have Capacitor measuring (which is mostly completely useless) and sometimes other things.

Here's the one I use:


I love this one....As few as possible push-buttons...

[Superully]

Do you get it ?

i get it for some, but not for all of them, the one in the lower left for example is clear, but what about the lower one in the middle? why from A to B to the right and not from A upwards? and what about the red one with the arrows? there are so many possibilities ...

would some more pictures help?

[Etienne MacGyver]

Do you get it ?

i get it for some, but not for all of them, the one in the lower left for example is clear, but what about the lower one in the middle? why from A to B to the right and not from A upwards? and what about the red one with the arrows? there are so many possibilities ...

would some more pictures help?

so you do get it  
thats why i said "for example" 
everything that is in connection with a trace, is good...
all the "light green" are traces (basicly cupper covered with some green crap) and the "dark green" are the places where is no cupper

so it does not matter which point you use, as long as its connecting the points together.

Andre, help me out here, i dont know how to better explane it