Pinball Modding Group
Beaming your Pinball to another dimension
PGM Section
PGM1 Motherboard Battery Replacement
How-To Workshop
All PGM1 motherboard owners should really pay good attention that their battery is not leaking since that destroys that lovely piece of hardware. Here is an example of an acid motherboard, where some conductor tracks have been destroyed.
Originally, a VARTA battery with 3,6 Volts, 70 mAh is doing the job, but that job can also be fullfilled by a standard CR2032 one, which is easy to find, less expensive and can better be replaced with a new one.
Required stuff
o 1x Soldering Station with solder
o 1x Desoldering pump
0 1x New CR2032 battery
o 1x CR2032 holder
o 1x Phillips screwdriver
o ca. 20 minutes
Step 1
First we will open the case of the PGM board by removing the 4 screws, located on each corner of the hardware. Then gently remove the plastic case. Take special caution to the intermediate connector board, which is sometimes a little bit stuck in the case. At the end, we should have a nice and naked mobo on our table.
Intermediate Connector board
PGM1 Motherboard
Step 2
Next we will carefully unsolder the old battery, which is, in my example, located on the right lower corner of the board. If the old solder is hard to remove, just put some additional solder on it and then use a desoldering pump to remove it.
Step 3
In the following step, we have to unsolder a resistor with the reference number R24 with 470 ohms and a Diode, referenced as D2. The location of the diode is near the dip switch box.
Diode D2 Position
Resistance R24 Position
Step 4
Now it´s time to solder our new component: the CR2032 holder. So simply push the 2 legs through the corresponding holes on the motherboard and please take special attention to the polarity: Plus is always on the outer side !
CR2032 Holder installed
Motherboard with new battery
Step 5
Nearly done! Screw the plastic cage again onto the motherboard with the 4 screws. Last but not least we have to set the configuration since all the data has been lost by replacing the battery. Set the DIP settings as shown in the picture, install the board into your arcade and switch it on. Then set the date, time and all other settings as desired and you are done !
André Banderas
DIP Settings for first start
DIP Settings Decoded
PGM2 Motherboard Battery Replacement
How-To Workshop
It seems that IGS learned their lesson and didn´t use the Varta battery anymore. Instead, they switched to the CR2032 solution, which is much more better, safer and easier to handle. Unfortuantely, they installed the battery into each gaming cartridge instead as into the motherboard. The result is that you have to change some day every battery on every gaming cartridge which is quite annoying.
If the battery is empty and you start the game, a note will be displayed and informs you that the battery is empty. Then you have to turn off and on again the board and hope, that this message will not appear again. If yes, that might end into a loop.
Step 1
First we will gently remove the cartridge from the motherboard. Carefully pull the game from each side a little bit up till it has been detached. You can put then the motherboard away since we do not need it in that scenario. Turn the cartridge onto the other side and check the pins that there are no damages. A damage can happen if you pulled the cartridge too strong from the motherboard so that some PINs maybe got bent as you can see on the right picture, so fix that first.
Just the game cartridge
Bent PIN to be repaired
Step 2
Remove slowly the plastic case. Sometimes, that case is a little bit stuck into the other one. After that, take the motherboard out of the other case and turn the board onto the other side.
Open cartridge case
Game motherboard
Step 3
Now simply replace the CR2032 battery with a new one and you are done. In my case, the battery had only 0,02 Volts, which was definitely not enough. Last step is to reassemble the board again, install the game into the machine and power it on. You should then get a message from the BIOS with the message:
"Battery check.........PASSED !!"
André Banderas
PGM1 Graphic glitches
Troubleshooting
The glitching graphics are sprites, generated by the "A" and "B" ROMs. It is most likely a fault with the "B" ROMs, either a dodgy soldering connection or some oxidation on the connector. The "B" ROM stores which pixels are visible, and the start address of the graphics in "A" ROM. The "A" ROM stores the pixel data.
The scrolling graphics come from the "T" ROM on the program board.
If you look on the ROM labels, they are starting with Axxx, Bxxx, Mxxx or Txxx.
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Regarding the error message, there is something wrong with the security ARM7 (asic 27) on the cart. It could be faulty work SRAM.. or the ARM7 / ASIC 27.
The SRAM can be replaced, but not the ASIC 27 / ARM7.
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