Say It Again, Centaur echo board repair - SAY WHAT!

[Homepin]

I had a member approach me as his SAD4069 chip on the Bally "Say It Again" board in a Centaur had carked it - a very common problem as it turns out.

These chips are LONG obsolete and rumour has it they were all faulty from new and some say they disintergrate from the inside??

I trolled the web looking for ideas and found a couple of people had come up with some clever fixes for the problem but again, all using either obsolete parts or very complex methods.

I enquired of a semiconductor factory I do some business with in PRC and they are sending me some samples of a product they make that is CURRENT production - so that's a good start.

My fix (if it works ) will be a small plug in PCB and NO soldering or modifications. The old adjustments on the main board will become unused and the new adjustments are on the daughter board.

I have made up a prototype (looks horrible as the finished board will be double sided and therefore won't have jumper wires everywhere like the proto) and here it is - waiting for the sample chips to arrive.....

If all goes well I will put it into production even though there is probably a pretty limited market even worldwide??

[humpalot]

With a total of 5250 centaurs (1 & 2) made there might be a reasonable size market, out there. Plus that chip was extensively used in guitar effect pedals.

Well done

[Arcade King]

What

[Homepin]

What

say you

[Homepin]

Well the sample chips arrived today and I set up the prototype board on the bench with a small hand mic input and a switch to bypass the board. I'm pretty happy with the sound and the two adjustments allow a very wide range of effects that (to me anyway) sound very much like the original.

I'll send off the protype for installation in a machine and see what the owner of the machine thinks? If that pans out OK I will have a batch of boards made.

Here is a video of me first speaking a few phrases used in the machine and then the same phrases with the sound effect enabled:

[humpalot]

Nice work.

Hopefully the tester has one to compare the sound to

[Homepin]

I hope so

I forgot to say that the sound in that video doesn't do the actual sound justice - it sounds much better in the workshop.

[Mango]

I reckon put one of those into a darth vader helmet and you would sound awesome!

[swine hoont]

I had to play the video to see if you sounded like the "AMERICAN DAD" dude, for some reason I thought you would LOL.
Its good to see you really put in the effort to keep these games going - even the proto board looks good.

[humpalot]

OK just a quick update after doing the testing, as I'm sure Mike will add more later.

A huge thanks to Mike for taking on this project.

I've tested the "Say What" board in my Centaur. I can confirm that the board replaces the SAD chip on the original "Say it again" board and sounds great.

Up to now I have been using an aftermarket repro board which is way smaller than the original and looked ugly. Mikes "Say What" allows me to put the original board back into the machine and the sound effects are every bit as good as the repro.

I can imagine a heap of Centaur owners jumping at these when they are made available.