buying a pcb

[MattR]

Hi,

I am going to buy a Dodonpachi PCB. I know these are getting old now. What should I be careful of?

Cheers,
Matt

[CIT]

Before you buy it, confirm, that it works.

After you receive it, make sure you store it safely, in bubble wrap or some other padded material, and NEVER connect the Jamma harness to it the wrong way around, otherwise you'll insta-fry it.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Some Jamma edge connection do have a plastic stopper to allow the genuine Jamma PCBs to work with them and allow it to interface with an arcade PCB one way only (hence the little slot). It's with the bootleg non-slotted Jamma PCBs that one has to be careful about inserting the Jamma edge connector to..."instant fry" of PCB as CIT mentioned previously.

If the Jamma edge connections on the arcade PCB are very dirty, upon powering it up may or may not work properly. By taking a kneadable "gray" colored artist eraser (found at your local art store, of course) and getting the pins restored to their former golden (or silver) sheen and then for that extra shiny brillance, take some rubbing alcohol and use a Q-Tip to get all traces of rubber eraser particles off. Be sure that all the rubbing alcohol is evaporated before powering up on your arcade cabinet or Supergun setup.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[MattR]

Do they have batteries and other bits that wear out?

[CIT]

It depends. Dodonpachi doesn't and most other PCBs don't either, but all Capcom CPS2 games (like Progear or Mars Matrix) for example do. There's a way to re-burn CPS2 Eproms though, so if a game's battery dies on you, don't panic!

[thchardcore]

Check the expiration date on the ROMS and don't eat it if it's out of code. Seriously, with wikipedia and google, obvious questions like yours have no place here, you could find the answers to your questions in less time than it would take to wait for a response, while also saving the site valuable server space!

[elvis]

Check the expiration date on the ROMS and don't eat it if it's out of code. Seriously, with wikipedia and google, obvious questions like yours have no place here, you could find the answers to your questions in less time than it would take to wait for a response, while also saving the site valuable server space!

Goodness me.

Not everyone has been collecting PCBs since the dawn of time. Give the guy a break. Offer friendly advice, or feel free to ignore the thread and not waste server space yourself.

Elitist tripe is not welcome. "With wikipedia and google" no forum on the net should ever contain a single post.

[thchardcore]

I didn't mean to come off as a <i>complete</i> asshole in this post, elistists are scary things and I would hate to think that I am considered one by anyone. I like the fact that you hold me to such a holy light though.