Most expensive pcb youve broken?

[voltronbadass]

So arcade nerds know that this old equipment can be fragile and flakey. Whats the most expensive or rare pcb or cab youve accidently killed? Or tell us about a rare expensive item that died in shipping.

I once went to test like a $50 pcb that came in the mail in a friends cab. He had a battle garegga pcb in there hooked up at the time. All I did was gently unplug the jamma connector for about a minute. When I plugged his pcb back in it no longer worked. Various repairs were attempted over the next year or so but no dice. I actually traded another friend an astro city for another garegga pcb so I could replace the broken one.

Another short story: I once found a perfectly working jaleco pony 2-28 for around $200, and the flyback and a few other chassis part failed within a few weeks. Good luck finding another 28 inch candy cab monitor or chassis to replace that with. I was fucking gutted. After staring at the dead cab carcass a few years I ended up shoe horning a 29 inch tosh tube and MS9 in there with some custom fuckery and just limited the image size down to the 28 inch bezel. Cab was alive with a better image than ever but was now a pony 2-29.

 

[egg_sanwich]

I've gone through a couple of Nanao chassis which sucks, but at least they aren't unobtanium.

I've also had a Metal Slug 5 MVS cart die on me. Sacced a KOF2k for a board swap successfully, then had it die again about a year later.

You need big pockets for this hobby.

 

[F4U57]

Captain Commando US CPS1.

Thankfully there is the Arduino now I was able to get it back to it’s OG state.

 

[kuze]

This thread is already making me cringe and there hasn't been anything crazy yet

 

[NERDtendo]

I tried to put a Black Label ROM on my DDP DOJ PCB that I knew the previous owner had trouble with. Went to turn it on and it didn't boot. Said bummer and put the original ROM back in and it wouldn't boot again. Tried for a couple days to get it back to life with no luck. I put it away and assumed all was lost. A couple months later I decided to try to bring it back to life and it booted up properly without having to do anything to it. I got lucky!

I also tried to make a small minor mod to my Darksoft CPS2 kit to add the keywriting feature and my stupid shaky hands botched the soldering job and the game would not boot anymore. I removed everything I did and luckily it returned to it's previous working state.

I killed a MC Cthulu board when I was trying to make a fightstick.

I don't solder. I have learned it is not in my skill set. If something needs done, I have a couple local homies I hire to do the work.

 

[ChuChu Flamingo]

Probably bad timing on the BG, but possibily could've been ESD.

 

[jeffkun34]

I killed a Sunset Riders board but that was back when one could be had for under $100 bucks.

 

[mjmjr25]

I had a blast city chassis get goop of death mid-game of Crystal of Kings. Chassis was shot as was the Crystal of Kings motherboard. Those games are usually cart/mother combo and not many games on that hardware. I was able to find a dongul herrong cart/motherboard on ebay, so had a motherboard again.

 

[wataru330]

My Windy II has never worked for more than a few weeks consecutively. The damn OEM chassis and PSU on these things are cursed. I should store action figures in it; call it their home, because like Tom Hanks’ house...it’s a money pit.

I’ve got almost 2Gs into it, and won’t even sell it now, for fear of the backlash I’ll get from the new buyer.

 

[ShootTheCore]

I had a Metal Slug 5 MVS cart die as well.

 

[[OCEAN]]

I fucked up my CPS3 Jojo's while trying to replace the battery a few years ago. Bought it cheap back in 2003, but prices had exploded when I broke it and had it sitting on a drawer until the CPS3 multi kit came out.

 

[wyo]

Nothing major, just some CPS1 fatalities due to unstable air and voltage.

 

[fake]

I crossed some wires and blew up my 1-slot and supergun. A member on here bought the 1-slot on the cheap and fixed it though.

 

[gusmoney]

I broke a dipswitch on my Raiden II PCB the day I got it. Pretty dumb.

 

[Gaston]

Fried a couple of 1 slots when I was still learning all the ins and outs of all different mods that existed. Once blew up an AES as well, that I was able to fix luckily. No games (yet) though

 

[GohanX]

Not an arcade PCB, but for my first mod I decided it was a great idea to try to install a debug bios into my Neo Geo home system, despite not having a clue about soldering at the time. Screwed the system up, but thankfully jkurtz bailed me out.

 

[arbormatt]

Not arcade related but a few years ago I was at work with a 30+ year veteran tech doing a pm on a million dollar tube laser. We were getting around to cleaning the main cabinet with compressed air. He was about to start working and I said “Hey probably a good idea to kill power and let the caps discharge”. His response was “ In thirty years I never had to do that shit”. Needless to say we ended up getting a new $20,000 module. So, don’t feel too bad guys. I have tons of stories about people messing up extremely expensive stuff.

 

[SuperMegaUltra]

You guys are making me cry with these horror stories!

 

[OMFG]

Not a PCB issue, but earlier into the hobby I cracked the neck of a Toshiba CRT when rotating my Windy's CRT. I was not happy.

 

[wataru330]

Not a PCB issue, but earlier into the hobby I cracked the neck of a Toshiba CRT when rotating my Windy's CRT. I was not happy.

What tube did you end up replacing the Tosh with?

 

[Neo Alec]

I have Hook amd Desert Assault boards that stopped working. Haven't had time to diagnose.

I have Arabian Fight, Violent Storm and Silent Dragon that arrived working partially. I would still like to fix them.

Others that I doubt are working that haven't been verified recently:
Karate Blazers

My Simpsons board needs to jiggled to removes lines from the video.

 

[pixeljunkie]

Not a PCB issue, but earlier into the hobby I cracked the neck of a Toshiba CRT when rotating my Windy's CRT. I was not happy.

been there. done that. it hurt my soul

 

[mmsadda]

Snapped a neck board on my Mr. Do's Castle (just a WG 19k49xx) because I thought it'd be smart to remove a 19" monitor for transport *facepalm*

Smoked a color drive transistor while trying to sort out the monitor pinout on my previous Aero Table. Really glad I had the foresight to user a junker PCB for testing that.

Also, I think I managed to NOT kill a Pork PCB by drunkenly putting the JAMMA edge on backwards. That was several years ago

 

[Reclaimer]

Ahh, the drunken backwards JAMMA install. I’ve been there and haven’t been punished for it yet.

This whole thread is making me nauseous though.

 

[The_Chosen_One]

been there. done that. it hurt my soul

Common problem, Adam did it to my Windy before I bought it off him. Advice I always give Windy owners. Don’t rotate em