I wasn't blaming the part for the fault of backwards insertion. My dismay is that Clay's device is not repairable at all by anyone other than him.

I've long ago accepted the fact that I can't please everyone, all the time. ;-)

What happens if Clay doesn't want to service the devices? This has already happened in the case of the Multi Pacs.

A little different situation there, but again I'd like to clarify something, Kev... I will happily replace the custom IC on the MultiPac with a swap for the damaged one and a $7 replacement charge. I've maybe done that once (I don't remember it, but it's probably happened). What I *won't* do is distribute any Namco code anymore. There are ROM images of the MultiPac on the net though.

Look at what great lengths people have gone to decrypt, dechipher & reverse engineer arcade stuff now for the benefit of all. I can understand Clays intention to protect his work but it negates my ability to repair it.

Cracking code for MAME is one thing-- wrapping up a few grand in parts and PCB's and inventory (and having to operate as a business-- industrial insurance, income taxes, and licensing anyone?) is quite another. My kits are aiming to be easy to use and reliable. I can tell you that I have an EXTREMELY low return rate (well under 1% on the 284's/285's or any of the other kits for that matter), so I'm fairly confident that I'm succeeding.

I've had another unit of Clays fail, a Sync Buss Controller that I know what not plugged in backwards. The only thing I could find was a stuck data line but I don't understand how this could blow out the chip and I know it wasn't a short to higher voltage as I troubleshoot with +5 only until the board is up & running then finish the audio section, then do AC.

I dunno, Kev... I've got a couple places that have bought hundreds of those boards over the years (literally) and I've never got *one* back from them. On the other hand I've had a couple people buy <10 and roast 2-3. Those instances have generally been attributed to "operator error" (don't plug DC modded boards into AC supplies, that sort of thing). You could cut the power line on the PCB and put a 4.7V zener in there or something in there to try to stop any spikes... Given the number that I've shipped over the last three years if there was a significant problem I think I'd be seeing the pattern by now. I doubt that people are roasting them at $15-20/ea and not complaining... (My website address and name is on every card, so I don't think it'd be hard for even 2nd or 3rd hand owners to find me.)

$7.00 is a reasonable price for a repair but if I have an option for an equal replacement part that I can repair versus a part that I must ship out for repair, the choice is clear.

To a non-solderer the Clay part & repair service is probably a good deal but your are dependant on a soul source provider/servicer.

I'm happy to have an option now with Mark producing TTL style replacements & if I get strap down holes in the next revision I'll be estatic.

I'd definately stick with Mark's boards in your case, Kev. Some people will prefer smaller, lower power, solder-masked PCB's with a higher level of integration. Like you said, it's good to have options. This whole thread is a little irksome to me because it seems to give the impression that these things drop like flies when the simple fact of the matter is that they don't. It's very reminiscent of our technical support people at work-- all they hear is complaints about failed units all day, so they think that everything we build it crap. Well, in the same amount of time that they issued 100 returns for dead MP3 players, we had shipped 300,000. The overall defect rate is quite low. I sure wouldn't be selling the same design 3 years down the road if I was getting peppered with returns and complaints... -Clay