STTNG sound issue

[dschulpius]

I'm not really a sound board guy but if I know what is wrong with a board I can generally fix it. I have a Star Trek Next Gen sound board that has staticy, distorted sound as soon as the game is turned on. When the volume is turned almost all of the way up it cleans up somewhat.

I really don't want to shotgun replace all the caps and Amp if I don't need to. However if that is the best way I will. No doubt with the board being as old as it is the caps must be nearing the end of their life and drying up. Could someone take a look at the attached YouTube vid of this issue and give my your opinion? Thanks!

[hawknole]

Reseat all your ribbon cables if not already done and if no luck then yeah probably a rebuild

[JimB]

had a similar issue with mine and swapped it out with a pinsound board.   Easy fix.

[dschulpius]

Thanks for the advice guys. I already reset the ribbon cables with no change so I guess it time to warm up the soldering iron. LOL. I guess I'll start with the caps.

If anyone else has any other advice I'm all ears.

Thanks in advance.

[Richie107]

Chris Hibler has a video on a similar issue with Funhouse. Recapping is the best attempt and cheapest also

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQQ76mPhjJ8

[dschulpius]

Thanks for the link. The sound board that Chris is fixing in this video is a Williams Pre-DCS sound board but the message seems to be the same, Caps.

I've actually been digging around the web looking and watching anything DCS Sound Board related. I found a bunch of stuff from Chris Hibler like you pointed to that has really helped. It looks like the problems arise with the caps going bad and the through hole solder pads ripping open. When the holes rip open we lose connectivity between the top and bottom of the board. 

So I'm about half way through recapping this DCS sound board with the major electrolytic capacitors. I've removed all the big and little Electrolytic caps.

As far as the 5 small caps at  C15, C18, C19, C32, C41. I'm going to replace these with 1uf, 100v Electrolytic caps but I'm still waiting om them to arrive. I know 100v is way bigger then I need but I ordered wrong and these will work just fine. As I understand it you can go bigger on the voltage but not on the uf.

I've already removed and replaced the two big 10000uf, 35v caps at C20 & C21. This is interesting; when I removed these big snap in caps I was real carful not to pull them out while the solder was cooling. Ripping them out with cool solder damages the through hole plating and we lose connectivity from top to bottom of the board. I heated them up much like Chris H shows and worked them out slowly when the solder was molten. Even after being this careful I found that I had no connectivity in 3 out of 4 of the holes for these two big snap in caps. Before I soldered in the two new caps I used some small stranded copper wire and patched them while making sure I still had enough room to get the leg of the cap through the hole also. I simply ran the wire through the hole, fanned it out a little and after scratching off a bit of the green trace covering, I soldered the wire to the big trace the holes are attached to. I then inserted the big cap and soldered it in.

So, here's my thoughts on why I had the damaged through holes at the two big 10000uf, 35v caps at C20 & C21. I've read a few posts on this problem that this same sound issue started when people have moved their pin from one place to the other. Along with these caps being heavy and old I have a shaker motor in my STTNG that I installed many years ago. I think the shaker motor has simply helped to damage these holes. The holes were torn open before I even started desoldering these caps. Hopefully the jumpers I've installed will keep this from happening again.

I'll update this thread when I have the smaller caps installed and the board tested. Thanks for the help and insight so far. 

[Richie107]

Check out this video, it shows he uses rivets to repair what you are talking about. When the trace lifts away from both sides etc. its at 2:00 into the video where he shows the bag of rivets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCn-LOo_6SQ

[dschulpius]

Check out this video, it shows he uses rivets to repair what you are talking about. When the trace lifts away from both sides etc. its at 2:00 into the video where he shows the bag of rivets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCn-LOo_6SQ

Thanks for the link! I actually saw this in my research and was amazed at Chris H's ingenuity. Brilliant and simple! I've always used wire bridged through the hole from one side of the board to the other and this has worked good for me. However I can see how using the proper sized and type of rivet would make a better and stronger repair if done properly.

[CUJO]

Strange, I've had a ST:TNG for 12+ years now and have never even heard some of those sound bites play...

[FUNWIZ]

During Attract mode, press the following sequence:
Both flippers to start, then tap left flipper 8 times, right once, five more on the left, right once, five more on the left, right once, six more on the left, then two on the right.

[dschulpius]

Well, I replaced all the blue caps on the board and the two large one also. No change. I still have the sound issue. I decided to stop replacing parts. As commented earlier, The traces and pads are really fragile on this board. I guess my next steps would have been replacing the two amps on the board and a few of the chips. I do have the parts but I have found a different solution.

I have a pile of old boards from many different pins that I inherited over the years. I dig around them and found a nice looking DCS sound board. It had a mixture of roms installed from different games and was tagged as having a electric circuit issue. I thought "what the heck" and popped the old roms out and installed the roms from the STTNG DCS sound board. I put the new board back in the game and it works perfectly now! No issues except the sound was a little tinny and weak. I decided to clip out the two capacitors at C37 and C45 as is recommended to do on all these DSC boards and that really enhanced the sound. I'm a happy camper now.

I may send the bad board out for repair. It looks like The Coin Op Cauldron charges a little over $200 to repair these. That charge is the highest repair price he does. That tells me this is a touchy board to repair if he charges that. I would like to have a working back up DCS Sound board on hand as I have several pins that use this board. I may pop for a pinsound board but those are sooooo pricey. More then twice the cost of getting the old one repaired.
Thanks guys for the help on this.

[NaplesPinball]

Get the new game rom that just came out for STTNG! Fixes a lot of stuff and adds some extra sound effects!

[CUJO]

Get the new game rom that just came out for STTNG! Fixes a lot of stuff and adds some extra sound effects!

Got a link please?

[NaplesPinball]

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sttng-owners-club/page/174

[dschulpius]

Thanks. I'm going to get that. This looks great!

Like I said above, I may still send this old board out to see if I can get it fixed. It's nice to have extra working boards for these old works of art.