Re: Lunar Lander help

This may not be the problem with your machine, but is was a problem with
a LOT of early Atari games. Check any socketed ICs. What you're
looking for is ICs with gold plated leads plugged into sockets that
aren't gold plated or the opposite combination.

Worst case I ever had to deal with was an Atari pinball that blew almost
ever solenoid, almost every solenoid driver, and 22 ICs all because of a
gold/nongold combination on the processor. When the processor locked up
it first turned on all the solenoids. Most games I saw this in would
work right for one to two weeks if the IC got moved in the socket (broke
through the oxidation) and then would get flaky again.

I know I've said all this before and haven't been taken all that
seriously in the past, but this has happened to me on about a half dozen
games.

Also another bad combination, regular (60/40 or 63/37) solder used to
solder gold leads. NOT reliable. On gold leads use solder with a 2%
silver content. Any other soldering should use 63/37 preferably, 60/40
if that's all you have. 60/40 isn't that bad usually, but with 63/37 it
is very difficult to get a cold solder connection. This all has to due
with movement during the "plastic phase" of the solder...I won't bore
you with the details unless someone really wants to know.

63/37 is available at Radio Shack as "high tech solder" and I think they
also have the 2% silver solder. Rosin flux only, NO plumbing solder, NO
low-lead solder, and never ever "liquid solder". Don't laugh, I've read
about people using "liquid solder" for repairs, the only problem is that
it doesn't conduct electricity!

Joel Rosenzweig wrote:

>After reading Commander Dave's LL back door sheet that describes the self
>test procedure, I realized that I was running the test incorrectly. I had
>powered up the game with the self test pin grounded, but the back door sheet
>says to enable self test after the game has been powered up. If I run self
>test after powering up the game, the full self test runs and I get the
>indicated video display, just like what Dave Fish decribed. If I enable
>self test prior to power up, the self test starts at the second stage, and
>no video is displayed. I have no idea if that's normal or not, but that's
>my story and I'm sticking to it. Fortunately, the game continues to behave
>itself right now, but I can't rule out flaky 4016's. It will be interesting
>to see how long it lasts in this condition before reverting back to the
>defective state.
>
>Thanks to each of you who provided feedback.
>
>Regards,
>Joel-
>
>
>

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
** To UNSUBSCRIBE from vectorlist, send a message with "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the
** message body to vectorlist-request@synthcom.com. Please direct other
** questions, comments, or problems to vectorlist-owner@synthcom.com.
Received on Mon Jun 23 01:39:40 2003