Cheers to that!
I just got two D/E boards from a friend who bought a Robocop.Someone tried to fix the boards.....what a total hack job.I actually got them cleaned up and working but they don't look pretty as I like.

I'm with you 100%. My other pet peeve is people on Pinside telling beginners how easy it is to solder 20 year-old circuit boards. Bottom line, as you stated, the decision should be well considered because you can easily take a repairable board and turn it into a board that even the pro's won't touch.

That's why you should never replace an IC as a method of troubleshooting. Prove the thing is bad with diagnostic procedures and cut that sucker off the board! Trying to remove an IC intact without the proper gear to try to 'save it if it turns out to be good' will destroy the expensive board instead of the relatively cheap chip.

That's why a lot of testing with probes is vital to a board's (game's) longevity.

As a beginner who wants to be able to do board work, it is not easy
You need good equipment
You need to learn how to use this equipment
This will not happen quickly
You will need practice, lots of practice

Much praise to pinsiders

I'll take poorly done previous work any day over battery leakage. Seems that's all I do anymore is repair previous work that has damaged the board. Battery leakage is so much more devastating and time consuming.

--
Rob Anthony
Pinball Classics
http://LockWhenLit.com
Quality Board Work - In Home Service
borygard at gmail dot com

In an ideal world, you'd never face either, but I agree with Rob that cleaning up traces and pads is easier than cleaning up alkaline.

That is, assuming somebody hasn't soldered down half a dozen 40 pin sockets that they lifted half the traces on, and then you have to remove all the sockets and fix all the traces

I was a beginner with crap for equipment once, and I screwed up a few boards. Guilty as charged! No hate to anyone that does that; but I do suggest you learn with a board that is easily replacable and cheap. WPC DMD driver board? Well, that's gonna be a challenge, but if you roach it, you're out a $100 repro board. Sys 11 (no letter) board like High Speed uses? Well, you can't easily find that one!

That's why I always suggest people go grab some electronics from a thrift store or something that have no real value, and practice on those.

Cody makes an excellent point, don't remove an IC unless you know it's bad. Even if it is bad, you should still be able to desolder it in one piece and have it fall off the board. If you have to cut it out with clippers and then desolder lead by lead, you might need more practice.

Along with learning soldering and desoldering, you should also make a point to learn to read a schematic, read a data sheet, and use a logic probe.

Nobody learns this all overnight. Don't worry. Start small and build on it. Ask questions. Know your limits. Learn. Have fun.

When I used to work on game consoles for a living (now its just a side hobby) there was nothing that mad me madder than some hacj who had been inside before jacking everything up. Fixing other people's mistakes sucks!

I've always advised my students that when they're first learning they should cut the component off first. This removes the point in time (when they're pulling the IC) when most people pull traces or trash through-holes. As they get better they can then skip this step, or in the case of a hobbyist they may just stick with this step forever. I see no harm in it, especially if they don't have a soldering gun/station, which most don't.

The other thing this approach achieves is they empirically learn which leads are easier to desolder and which are harder (gnd, Vcc). Ditto for boards in different states of condition (heat damage, alkaline, etc.).

No matter how many times you tell a student something, it doesn't sink in until they experience it themselves. So while it's nice to say test every lead for solder removal and gently pull the IC (don't pry it with a screwdriver) most will not do the former and will do the latter until they've destroyed a few traces. You gain a much different perspective when you spend an hour lecturing and then go to lab and watch everyone do the exact opposite of what you just said to do.

Of course not all staff agreed with my thinking on the subject.

Uh, oh! I need more practice! I always cut out the bad components and unsolder leads individually. I don't know how you'd replace an IC whole with a 25 watt pencil iron, which is all I've ever used.

And yes, I am guilty of mutilating pads and traces back in the days of yore, trying to remove IC's whole. Hence why I always cut them out now. I don't recall losing a trace or pad since I started doing that, but maybe pulled a couple of loose ones that were on the bottom of the board with no trace (which isn't such a disaster, just tack it top side).

Anyway, thanks to you guys who do this professionally (I'm a shade tree tech) for sharing your experience, knowledge and tricks (there's ALWAYS a trick).

Get a real soldering station, makes a world of difference when you can control temperature.
You don't need a high zoot one, any of these will work fine --
ebay.com link: Hakko FX888D 23BY Digital Soldering Station Includes FX 8801 Iron T18 D16 Tip
http://www.amazon.com/Aoyue-Variable-Soldering-Station-Removable/dp/B00MCVCHJM/ref=sr_1_4
http://www.amazon.com/Aoyue-AO936-AOYUE-Soldering-Station/dp/B000VINMRO/ref=sr_1_14

I have a bad iron and bad technique!

Clip component out.
Liquefy solder by heating solder pad/lead on bottom of board.
Withdraw lead with hemostats.
Remove all leads.
Go back to first lead and heat and suck solder out.
It takes about 2 seconds to remove the lead and 2 seconds to suck out the solder. I've had pretty good luck this way.

I would like to see your technique to drop out a chip like you describe. Impressive, it will be.

My soldering skills are pretty decent, but only having a Weller Butane Iron made it tough to monitor temps some times. Once I bought the HAKKO FX-888D (on the Pinside group buy), my work went from decent to great! It even helped with the desoldering. The right tools for the right job!

Just my two cents!

Rob Bell
Robsgameroom.com

Battery puke is the worst IMHO and many times IF you get the board to work it seems like a matter of time until something else flakes out or acts up. One of the worst I fixed was a Bally board that the Nicad battery leaked cottage cheese down the board. Even after chemical and mechanical cleaning nothing wanted to flow into the contaminated solder on the board. I got it fixed and it lasted about a year until it had other issues. I ended up buying a replacement board ( it was my game ).

Even with the best tools and skill to use them some repairs are not a 100 % success.
Doctors loose patients and not all boards can be saved either.

I'm removing IC13 on a Williams 6A driver board. I clipped out the IC and am using a new Weller WLC100 station.
However, pin7 ,which I believe it GND, is a bear. I can't seem to remove the obstruction in the hole. I've added fresh solder, sucked ..even tried to pull at it using tweezers while heating..won't budge.
Any ideas would be appreciated!

pin7a_(resized).jpg

pin7b_(resized).jpg

I was replacing ram chips in a bunch of WPC boards for a friend and when I got to Shadow, it would not boot. Appears a small trace or two was damaged despite being careful. I had flawlessly done 5 boards the same day, all WPC of some variety - all with no issues. Still trying to find the f ups on TS board. Traces are hella thin and even just using a hot iron to pull back coating can pull the trace! Such a headache I put the board aside for two weeks before I even wanted to look at it. Basically LED 20 and 21 lock on and that's it.

I've damaged traces on a Bally-35 era board and now this but otherwise have had great success. Sucky thing here is that repairing without the fancy vias and pad and trace repair stuff is really tedious. Hoping to get it running without sending to someone else because it is embarrassing but I really think it can happen to anyone. Of course if I can't fix it it completely negates anything I earned on the rest of the repairs and then some so I'm gonna figure it out if at all possible but I do think in hindsight that clipping the legs might have been the better way for this board - you just don't ever know.

I had it set to 4. I'll try 5. Solder melts fine. I think the leg is bent in there. I've added fresh solder to both sides and used desoldering suction tool from RS to try to get it to budge. I even tried to heat the pin 7 of the socket I'm installing on the board solder side and push it thru. All I did was lift the leaf out of the socket..
I got in a Weller TIP #5 today with conical tip so gonna try that tonight.

Sounds easy enough to track down if you were only working on one thing. I'd just check the continuity point to point from the chip/socket to where the trace is supposed to dead-end, and then neatly jumper or otherwise bypass any traces that were damaged. Tedious if multiple chips per board, but at least it's not impossible.

Yeah, I only changed the ram socket/chip but Clive at Coin-Op Cauldron had done some work on the board before including the ASIC socket. Nonetheless I spent a couple hours over the last couple nights checking every trace on both sides, making tiny repairs, etc. Lots of the pins don't trace out in an easily visible way so I took a pic of the area before resocketing so I'd have an easier time finding where to buzz out without flipping the board back and forth and diagramming half the ASIC pins. Going to put power to it today but it's one of those things. I don't want to plug it in if it's still just going to be dead - don't want the let down and then not know where to look. Just sucked to have 5 of these go smooth as silk then one clusterfink the whole day.

Perhaps, though, I should count myself lucky. I'm completely self-taught (meaning I've eaten up every piece of advice I can find and use it every day) but have had growing success fixing machines and boards. I used to want to learn and thought I'd never be able to troubleshoot something complex like this but I've repaired a surprising number of issues and that part always feels great. So today is the day to test my skill.

Well, after carefully checking and repairing every split trace - it works again. In the process I finally got around to setting up an MPU power supply for testing Bally/Stern and Williams MPUs of a couple different eras.

I almost said this earlier as I've done it before but with micro drill bits made for drilling pcbs. Not the first course of action but doable just the same.

I heated up and pulled a small bent wire out of the Pin7 hole late last night but there is still something more in there.
I was able to heat the solder and pull the wire out with needle nose. As liquified as the solder was, it didn't let go easily.
It didn't look like a normal pin like the other 13 I removed.
This PIN7 functions as GND and I do have a small micro drill bit and Dremel. It may come to that. I don't think lack of heat is the issue with the Weller gun. Set on 5, I have created a small pool and sucked out solder, time and time again, top side and underside on this same hole! It melts instantly as I tin the tip and apply it to the pin/area I need to clear.

Didn't have any issues removing all the other 13 pins from the board. I'm just not trying to damage anything here.

That $300 FR300 Desoldering tool looks like a beast! I guess I'm struggling here some based on my equipment but I can't
justify equipment like that unless I planto do a LOT of board work.

This is what I thought, but it has saved me that much in tech bills or aftermarket boards.

My board repair technique is FLAWLESS. I carefully remove the board, pack it up and ship it to barakandl. Never had a problem.

Now that you got the wire out, heat the joint with your soldering iron and use a toothpick or solder pick to push through the hole. Clean up the excess solder with some solder-wick.

We have a winner!

Ew, say no more, I understand completely. Ugh!

Ok..putting the original tip back on the Weller and trying again. I will NOT be denied!

I WON!!!

Board back in game (Alien Poker) and working 100%.

I was finally able to push the last metal "wire" thru with a solder pick while heating then pulling it the rest of the way thru with needle nose pliers! What a beast that wire was!

Thanks TerryB and barakandl for helpful suggestions.

IC13Finished_(resized).jpg

Glad the tip worked for you. This is a good example of why we all should focus on technique before cranking up the heat.

I'm very cautious, but every time I replace the big caps in a WPC driver board (C5 and C11, I think), I pull up traces.

In my limited experience it is shocking how hard it is to work on this old tarnished solder!

I was thinking this too. I still have solder from Radio Shack I must have bought 20+ years ago, long even before pinball.

Does solder get "stale". Does it need a USE BY DATE? I used it in my repair and it seemed a little extra "fluxy"..(Brownish sappy resin)

The solder I used was bought so long ago, the spool only says "ARCHER Rosin Core Solder. The word: Archer has an ARROW tail on the left of the A and a TIP on the right of the R.

I also have a spool of Archer Silver Bearing Solder PN 64-013 which is 62% Tin, 36% Lead, 2% Silver. It is really thin but is this ok to use in this sort of board work?

ArcherSolder_(resized).jpg

The flux doesn't work as well.

Just get new spools of solder. They aren't that expensive. The last time I bought some Kester spools, it was either from Kimco or Stanley supply, since they had the best prices at the time.

Blame it all on my roots, the dang board won't boot
embarrassed but just had to share
The last trace to show, the last pad to go
Big sign that says newbie was there!

'Lost Pads and Pulled Traces
Where the whiskey drowns and the beer chases
My board away, and It's not okay!

I found kester solder (1 lb spools) for $10/each at an auction recently. Bought 2 but shoulda probably bought 10 and sold half of them to pay for the other half.

The problem with your driver board is that ground pin is attached to the ground plane, which covers the entire board. Very hard to heat it all up without enough power and heat transfer.

Glad you got through it!

For ground planes that soak up heat like that, hot air usually works best.

Oh trust me, when a board gives me an issue I throw lots of hot air it's way. I haven't found that pcbs respond to cursing though, at least not yet. Maybe I need to increase the intensity.

I usually resolder the pin, and then my desoldering stations do a good job.

ok that made me laugh