I have a few posts I’m behind on, but here’s a quick one on a Data East Star Wars -03 CPU corrosion repair. It had fairly extensive corrosion damage in the upper left quadrant of the board.
Almost all of the reset section, the 6802 CPU chip, down from that to one of the 6821 PIA’s, and even some on the lower left connector and one of the TIP102’s were hit. Affected components were removed, sanded down to bare trace, neutralized, cleaned, repopulated (socketed chips), tested, and then sealed.
These jobs take more time than meets the eye on the surface. I’ve got two other corrosion repairs on the bench right now. One, on a rare System 8 pinball board, is extensive. Some days I question whether these jobs are worth tackling with how tedious and frustrating they can be, especially when I have a few piling up on the bench at the same time, but there is some gratification is bringing a rough board like this back to life.
