+xucaen Posted January 22, 2020 Share Posted January 22, 2020 I have two kaboom! carts, one works great, the other doesn't work. The non-working one does various things when I turn it on. I have cleaned it, as I do with all my carts, but cleaning doesn't seem to help. Since this is an extra, I thought I'd take it apart and look at it to see if there is anything obvious wrong with it. I am looking for tips and advice on what to look for, and - this is the important one for me - I need to be able to take the cart apart without damaging the label. The label is actually in pretty good condition and I don't want to ruin it. I looked on youtube, but found nothing specific about repairing Activision carts or removing the label safely. I'm hoping I can get some tips and advice on how to go about this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+xucaen Posted January 22, 2020 Author Share Posted January 22, 2020 I found this after a few more searches on removing labels. I guess I'll try the hair dryer. Once I get it open I'll post some pics if I see nothing obvious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+xucaen Posted January 22, 2020 Author Share Posted January 22, 2020 Hair dryer worked! Looking at the board, I see nothing obvious. I don't see any broken solder joints. Can the shield be removed without further damaging the chip? I don't suppose I could get a repro rom to practice my soldering skillz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bah Posted January 23, 2020 Share Posted January 23, 2020 yes the metal shield is easily removed even with side cutters. Try checking continuity from each edge connection pad to the chip pin. You may get lucky and find a bad solder joint. Kaboom is only 2K in size. a 2716 could be programmed but you have to add a 74ls04 to invert A12 to use as CE on the new chip. You also have to cut pad 20 free from 5V and ground it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+xucaen Posted January 23, 2020 Author Share Posted January 23, 2020 I took the shield off. I can't find any info about this chip on the web. The chip has 0782 written on it, so my guess is that this was a custom chip designed just for Activision. The wikipedia article for MOS Technology shows a list of chips they made, and they have a 2K chip called the 6540, so I suppose this could also be a variant of that... Ah well... Here ends my exploration. I am no where near being able to burn a simple eprom, let alone being able to add a 74ls04 (hex inverter??). My Kaboom! is officially kaput! Thank you for your reply. This has been a fun rabbit hole to explore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 reflow all solder and put solder in empty vias, scrub the crap out of the fingers. That's worked for me in the past. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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