Thread by @eric_conrad, My son asked me to teach him to solder in June. Here's [...]

My son asked me to teach him to solder in June. Here's a result of his handwork: he replaced 25 capacitors on this 39-year old 100-volt Japanese monitor yesterday

Here are before and after photos. Will show how we got here in a thread 1/X #Conradsarcade

https://twitter.com/eric_conrad/status/1274761829626138629?s=20

https://twitter.com/eric_conrad/status/1274761829626138629?s=20

I bought this Nintendo Vs Unisystem upright about 20 years ago (I think I paid $150)

I got it as a Dr Mario (great game). The system is designed to handle a variety of games by swapping PCBs (or eproms)

My son loves Super Mario Bros, so we ordered that PCB off eBay

2/X

We also ordered an eprom programmer and UV light drawer eraser.

Eproms (one "e") are erased with light, hence the term "flashing"

My son took lead on the eprom stuff, and I took lead on soldering (we cross-trained each other) 3/X

First eprom programing victory: programming Tetris and replacing the chips on the Super Mario Bros board.

The monitor was washed out (due to ancient capacitors), and we had to crank the brightness up to see the game. But it worked. 4/X

We decided to repair the Popeye monitor first, since it was totally dead. Didn't want to risk killing a damaged (but working) monitor due to a mistake

I did the soldering on Popeye's monitor (same model). Here's the thread I posted a few days ago 5/X https://twitter.com/eric_conrad/status/1288165230040821762?s=20

https://twitter.com/eric_conrad/status/1288165230040821762?s=20

Emboldened by our (eventual) success on Popeye, we took on this monitor

Monitors can carry 30,000 volts and need to be discharged. We left Popeye off for days before discharging

This one was on minutes before. Listen as 30,000 volts passes through the screwdriver in my hand 6/X

My son replaced the 25 capacitors on this one. Lots of desoldering and soldering.

I'm proud to say he's now a much better soldering than I am, and knocked this out in record time

7/X

There's lots of work involved in repairing a 1981 arcade upright

I replaced the base while my son soldered. The black-ish boards are original, and some savage nailed in two-by-fours to keep it standing

I tried to finesse it with a pry bar, and eventually went medieval 8/X

We also installed an 8-in-1 multigame, so this PCB can now play these games: Mighty Bomb Jack, Excitebike, SMB, Clu Clu Land, Tetris, Battle City, Skate Kid, Ice Climber

You can cycle between them by pressing the P1 and P2 buttons simultaneously 9/X https://highscoresave.com/nintendo-multi-vs-lite-multigame-kit/

Nintendo Multi VS Lite Multigame Kit

The Multi VS Lite is a Nintendo VS Multi Kit compatible with games that use the EPROM sockets on the VS PCB. This Kit allows you to remove your…

https://highscoresave.com/nintendo-multi-vs-lite-multigame-kit/

We reinstalled the newly-recapped monitor, and here's the moment of truth

My son nailed it first shot

The image is washed out because we previously cranked up the brightness. It's showing Ice Climber (one of the 8 multigames) 10/X

Here's it is playing Tetris, with the brightness turned down to normal.

11/X

The picture looks amazing in person (recording an analog screen with your phone creates some synch issues)

Here are a few of the multigames

12/X

#Conradsarcade is getting there, with three fully operational games

The Kung Fu Master is an Irem M62 system, which supports a bunch of PCBs. My son's playing Moon Patrol

That upright needs some cosmetic work, and we'll recap that monitor as well 13/X

That leaves Millipede as our biggest challenge. It's completely dead

We have two PCB boards. One does nothing, the other beeps due to a RAM error. No other signs of life.

I'll keep everyone posted on our progress 14/14

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