Greetings programs, hope everyone is doing well and staying safe.

I’m in the early stages of fully restoring my sample Funhouse and as I was cleaning the PCB’s, I noticed this one spot on the back of the power supply board, kinda brownish, underneath the voltage regulator (M9030 - LM323K)? All the other boards look great, no jumper wire fixes and all the pins are solid, except one GI one is a little crusty and the connector also shows burn so gonna replace that connector and clean the pin or replace the whole pin assembly.

So is this normal or should I replace this voltage regulator and if so do I get the higher priced ones (Texas Instruments) as I see ones a lot cheaper but my gut says that’s for a reason? The machine was working and has been working with no issues since 2015. It has LED’s but probably going to go back to incandescents.

Another question....While I have the boards out, should I go ahead and replace ALL the caps and anything else? I’ve done several cap kits with consoles and other electronics, Monitors, etc. so I am pretty decent with an iron. It seems some say to others say if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Thanks so much for any help.
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Thanks so much LTG, you are always so quick to help, I really appreciate it.

Would the same go for replacing caps, just leave them unless they visually look bad?

What about replacing the thermal paste as I’m sure it’s not as efficient as it once was?

After my post above, I did find one thread where the only real recommendation was to change the 5VDC filter cap at C5 and C4 just to be safe.

Thanks again, this is my first restore and just want to do everything I can but I am ALL about K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid)

I think I’ll add an ESR meter on my wishlist so that I will be able to test caps while still on the board, just in case for the future.

I appreciate the quick help and advice.

Stay safe

That’s my only concern as it’s always had LED’s since I had it and didn’t realize the dimming wasn’t present until I watched another video as it had been so long since I played it in the 90’s.

The discolored GI connector I’m sure happened because of this maybe but not as familiar with what to look for when using incandescents.

I initially was going to go all out with an LED and GI OCD board but the backbox 455 LED’s just don’t behave the same and worried while these boards will help mimic incandescents, it just won’t be the same. Also thought just using incandescents for GI only and LED’s for inserts and using just the LED OCD but not sure how mixing and matching both types as well as using incandescents in the backbox would affect the performance as the newest versions of those boards specifically state not to mix and match, hence the reason for going back to incandescents but just hope I don’t open myself up to heating or power issues. I don’t keep my games on longer than a day and usually only when playing unless I just want to keep them on for testing.

Thanks again for any and all help.

Any help is appreciated.

Will do, already ordered a new connector and set of pins with my first restore order (the cabinet)

Thanks, and that is very similar to one I bought a few years ago as I couldn’t convince myself to get the Hakko vacuum desolder station as I don’t do this type of work all the time and as long as you clean out that type of desolder pump every now and then, it works great but there is a learning curve to get it to work consistently. Usually when I have old tech (game consoles, monitors and other electronics, I get a cap kit regardless if it’s working as a better safe than sorry method and that way I know everything is new, especially if it’s 30 years old but the majority advice I’ve received is don’t do anything with the caps until a problem arises.

My only caveat is if by me going back to incandescents, if it would be good then to replace all the caps or just a select few.

Thanks again everyone for the advice and input.

Thanks SO much for the advice and input, especially on the incandescent part as that was my only concern and agree with others input I’ve read in other posts where the capacitors used back then were either better built or had less chance of having faulty ones.

So do you think using an ESR meter is safe while they are still on the board? Never used one of these meters but seems simple enough, although my concern is having to short the capacitors while on the board. Do you or anyone else know if this is okay to do? I mean it seems simple enough in terms of just putting an insulated wire with the ends stripped across but with these large capacitors, didn’t know if that could cause issues?

Thanks again for all the help.