Dead game! Did you fix it?

[izarate]

Several things:

My first Genesis + PBC

Before:



After:






My first Saturn & Genesis 2

Before:



After:
Cold solder joints reflowed

New switch

Testing

It's Alive!!!


Genesis 2

Yeah, it's the same one

[Ed Oscuro]

Amazing thread, I especially like the cleaned-up Genesis units.

I would add something, but my particular talent seems to be taking rare hardware that works -> creating rare hardware completely disassembled into many pieces and forgetting how it goes back together.

[understatement]

vary nice that Genesis 2 looks just like the top loader when i got it. Did you Armor All the Genesis and Saturn or is it some other cleaner?

[R.Sakai]

I would add something, but my particular talent seems to be taking rare hardware that works -> creating rare hardware completely disassembled into many pieces and forgetting how it goes back together.

Thank god, Now I can tell my wife I'm not the only one

[Game Freak]

Amazing thread, I especially like the cleaned-up Genesis units.

I would add something, but my particular talent seems to be taking rare hardware that works -> creating rare hardware completely disassembled into many pieces and forgetting how it goes back together.

i'm with ya bud.

i'm no good at fixing things (i never soldered before) but i DID put a DVD player in an NES once, and it worked for a while, til i shorted out something

[skaar]

I should have taken pictures of my Neo candy cab when it got here - a 1/16inch thick nicotine layer on the damn thing, we found all kinda nasty crap inside.

Neat thread.

[understatement]

That killer instinct cart looks all to fulmiliar, I think I have some Jag carts that have the same look because I got tired of destroying the label to open the cart. Why put screws under a label!

[Darkman2K5]

Hey guys, quick questions, what tools do you use to open carts, and what do you use to clean the consoles? Thanks in advance, those are some really nice clean-up jobs.

[jb143]

I didn't take any pictures but the ones that come to my mind now are an NES, an Odyssey2, 2 Intellivisions, a gameboy, and a Lynx. There may have been others.

In and right after college when I had more time on my hands I used to find and repair broken electronics all the time from yard sales, thrift stores, and dumpsters. Mainly things like DVD players and TV's. Even a big screen TV I got for free. Some I kept, most I sold.

To open a cart you use a gamebit (security bit to the hardware world) and generally a q-tip and rubbing alchohol to clean with, though there are plenty of other tricks out there.

[understatement]

Hey guys, quick questions, what tools do you use to open carts, and what do you use to clean the consoles? Thanks in advance, those are some really nice clean-up jobs.

gamebit/security bits come in two sizes 3.8mm is Nintendo and the 4.5mm is Sega and others if you get both you should be set for most carts/systems


as for cleaner I use alcohol for it all inside and out but I'm quite curious to know what izarate uses that genny is so shiny

[Steve W]

I recently bought an Atari 2600 (Vader) with a bunch of cartridges from the back room of a used furniture store. The 2600 was filthy to say the least. I have no idea what the previous owners had done to it, either left it in their leaking attic since the early '80s or it was in a flood or three. The motherboard was rusted and dirty, so I wiped it down with rubbing alcohol to clean the junk off of it, I scrubbed the case down to take a few layers of grime off it, replaced the generic Radio Shack power supply that didn't actually work and gave it a couple decent joysticks. Works like a champ now. I love the Atari 2600 - damn near indestructible.

[izarate]

My Neo Geo AES:

Before:


Had to take a button from a Neo Geo stick for the reset button. Apparently it was used as an arcade since it had several wires inside that didn't belong. I later learned that it was a Jamma adaptation. Had to replace the audio caps since they were gone. I had to make a power supply and AV cable too.

After:




MUSHA:

Before:




After:




I've repaired several other things but these four are the highlights. Almost all of my Sega hardware has been refurbished in some form (broken power/reset switches, re-calibrated Cd-pickups, cold solder joints, etc). Several of my SNESes too. I also got a TG16 but it was working fine, just needed a good cleaning.

I've also "repaired" several cartridges (i.e. cleaning the contacts) that were dead acording to the previous owner. Sometimes they need a new capacitor or battery, nothing fancy. In fact 50% of my collection has been salvaged from somewhere and repaired/cleaned. The most recent was this KI Gold cart:






After a good cleaning and restoring a couple of contacts with a bit of solder: