Raiden Fighters Jet relief

[raiden]

this thread contains no questions, I just wanted to mention how glad I am about the outcome of my recent RFJ problems. The first one wasn´t so bad, I changed the Timer settings, and suddenly only 8 ships were selectable instead of the usual 14. Unfortunately, among the missing were also the best, like Judge Spear and Ixion. But while waiting for the timer to unlock them again, the board started having a bad graphics error, making it almost unplayable. That was one week ago.

RFJ was my first PCB ever, although I hadn´t played it THAT much recently, there´s a strong nostalgic sentiment attached to it. I started looking for possible reasons, cleaned the board carefully over and over again, checked all the connections, used contact spray on the contacts between cartridge and board, tried to change carts, but my RF1 is another region, so that didn´t work. Nothing worked, really. There is an arcade store in Germany where you can send your PCBs to, and they try to repair them, you can specify a limit how much you are willing to pay, and if they can´t repair it, you don´t have to pay. I considered sending it there, but I can´t really spare any money right now, so that would have to wait a few more weeks.

Well, yesterday I finally got the clue: Examining the board for the nth time, a tiny piece of connection seemed suspicious, just slightly darker than the other connections beside it. So I searched for my old magnifying glass, and only then I could confirm that indeed, there was a tiny piece of copper wire missing from that connection. I must have ripped it out while cleaning the PCB with a vacuum cleaner when it was locked inside the old cupboard. So I used the new fine-tipped solder iron I bought a while ago to solder a small wire to the board, bridging the connection, and yay, the game works again as it´s supposed to. Best of all, even the unlockable ships have returned in the meanwhile! I was so happy - restoring a dead PCB to life is like 10 times the fun of just buying a new one.

[Ord]

Great stuff. Nothing beats a happy ending. Something like that would scare the crap out of me.