Popeye Runs

Popeye isn't our first solid-state machine, but this one has proven more challenging than the rest due to the soldering required to make the circuit board repairs. Mostly, Popeye was working, but there were a few playfield switches not registering. After successfully narrowing down the problem to a bad U20 chip on the CPU board, I decided to try replacing the chip myself. But the chip wasn't socketed, it was soldered directly onto the PCB, and I have never tried removing one of these before. I made a mess of it. I managed to remove a good portion of the pads and old traces (which were already in pretty bad shape) right along with the chip, and made things measurably worse. The replacement chip costs 95 cents. The replacement CPU board that I ended up buying cost me $150.

Still, it was probably for the best that I had it replaced. The old board had obviously already been repaired more than once, corrosion damage was visible underneath the leaking battery holder, and there were lots of wires jumpered from place to place on the underside of the board. The new Rottendog replacement board fixes the grounding problems that were inherent to the original design, and places the battery holder remotely to prevent any future corrosion damage. Best of all, the connector pins are all new - it was worth the replacement. All I needed to do was move the original game-specific chips (all socketed, thank god) to the new board, and everything worked like a charm.

So after putting on the backbox and legs, the Popeye was open for business. The garage arcade was a hit with the younger crowd. Alex's job over the next few weeks is to play Popeye as much as possible to shake out any problems. He is OK with his new assignment.