Vince's Ebay Repair Thread - (Console Repairs & Mods)

Man of Honour
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Nice looking keyboard too.
You got pics of the finished article?

Not quite yet, its still in a state of many pieces, I did get it all back together then realised only one of the two camera modules I have works (the really water damaged one doesn't) and that I had fitted the wrong module. So I now have to tear it down again and getting the ribbon cable for the screen through the hinge is all kinds of nightmares so I put t to one side until I was more awake! I'll likely have it all back together today at some point so will do a before and after pic of the 3 consoles :D

Keyboard is a Ducky Year of the Dog, great keyboard :D
 
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These things are super fiddly! especially the top screen cables.

I re-shelled my sister's old DS Lite many years ago, after she broke the hinge. It was god awful!

Last week due to a bit of a knock, my 3DS broke. Taking it apart was a bad enough, but putting it back together... So fiddly. Clean and rebuild didn't fix either, and didn't know what part would need replacing.
With the cost of a working one, it's easier for me to get rid of my old and upgrade to either an XL or n3DS. :D

It's a cool collection right there. Many good titles on all those systems, and the PSP flexibility opens up so many platforms.
 
Man of Honour
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I re-shelled my sister's old DS Lite many years ago, after she broke the hinge. It was god awful!

Last week due to a bit of a knock, my 3DS broke. Taking it apart was a bad enough, but putting it back together... So fiddly. Clean and rebuild didn't fix either, and didn't know what part would need replacing.
With the cost of a working one, it's easier for me to get rid of my old and upgrade to either an XL or n3DS. :D

It's a cool collection right there. Many good titles on all those systems, and the PSP flexibility opens up so many platforms.

Weirdly I've been scouring ebay looking for more things to fix and on that list is a DMG gameboy and also a 3ds! Right now i'm building this Chinese led clock which has about 200 tiny little LED's to solder...

gif upload

I'm about 100 112 led's in and have a long way to go (I counted, 176 left) ... There are also no instructions and all you get are a bunch of parts. With no instructions and seemingly none online I've spent quite a lot of time probing about on the board trying to work it out. If I put my meter into diode and probe about im fairly sure ive got it right :)

Here is my work on it so far!









A few things of note, I bought a blue one but its clearly green. Next up there are a load of tiny resistors and caps that im not entirely sure whats what and what goes where so if it works when im finished it will be a minor miracle... ive also killed 2 led's in 100 as they got stuck to my iron or flew across the room when i was trying to pick it up with tweezers so i hope there are some spares :cry:

I've still got probably 160 of those tiny led's to solder.
 
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Associate
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Ace work! I've been thinking about this recently as I've still got my original childhood boxed GG and games.

I think the sound still works, the screen powers on but is broken. Was going to do the screen replace and see where that took it in terms of functionality. But if you fancy another project and come into London sometime...
 
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I re-shelled my sister's old DS Lite many years ago, after she broke the hinge. It was god awful!

Last week due to a bit of a knock, my 3DS broke. Taking it apart was a bad enough, but putting it back together... So fiddly. Clean and rebuild didn't fix either, and didn't know what part would need replacing.
With the cost of a working one, it's easier for me to get rid of my old and upgrade to either an XL or n3DS. :D

It's a cool collection right there. Many good titles on all those systems, and the PSP flexibility opens up so many platforms.

Rolling up that poxy ribbon cable to feed into the hinge. Ugh.
 
Man of Honour
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Ace work! I've been thinking about this recently as I've still got my original childhood boxed GG and games.

I think the sound still works, the screen powers on but is broken. Was going to do the screen replace and see where that took it in terms of functionality. But if you fancy another project and come into London sometime...

The sound board will 100% be shot, one of those caps on there loves to leak and was bad on both of the ones I have done so far. I'd be happy to do another one :D If you buy me a screen and cap kit Id be more than happy to make it work for you, the smd cap kit is a bit more expensive but you get a better result at the end. :D The second game gear I did was not only cleaner but only took me about an hour and a half or so.
 
Man of Honour
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Rolling up that poxy ribbon cable to feed into the hinge. Ugh.

It's also really easy to catch a ribbon cable on the inner metal shall part which over time gets sharp as the console opens and closes... killed a screen that way... was going to repair the ribbon cable or use one from one of the two other smashed screens I have but instead bought another £10 screen :D might open up one of the spares and see if you can replace just the ribbon. The DS though in general is not fun to work on.
 
Man of Honour
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I re-shelled my sister's old DS Lite many years ago, after she broke the hinge. It was god awful!

Last week due to a bit of a knock, my 3DS broke. Taking it apart was a bad enough, but putting it back together... So fiddly. Clean and rebuild didn't fix either, and didn't know what part would need replacing.
With the cost of a working one, it's easier for me to get rid of my old and upgrade to either an XL or n3DS. :D

It's a cool collection right there. Many good titles on all those systems, and the PSP flexibility opens up so many platforms.

FWIW the fuses on these are sort as ****, I blew fuses on mine seemingly by doing nothing. There is a fuse on the main board as the first component after the charge port, put a meter across that, then on the daughter/charge board there is a fuse on the input to that as well if either of them are gone it won't turn on. Also a smashed top screen can cause a flashing red light and the unit not turning on. What does your 3ds do just totally dead?

Right now mines got a bit or wire bridging the input on the daugher board :cry: I even blew all the spare fuses I had on this thing while testing so id say they are pretty fragile.
 
Man of Honour
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It was blue light with no other activity. Most videos said this was wifi card, but mine was not the same issue unfortunately.

So I finished the LED clock... looks like I got the polarity of every LED wrong so all of them need swapping around :cry: I swapped one column around and I recon it will be all good once done!
 
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Man of Honour
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So with everything done, and you can't photograph the thing clock because of the LED poling rate of 32khz, so part of it always looks broken in a photo...



Anyway with no toys to play with I had a look and I found a new one tonight :D



Listing says no signs of life no power. Should be interesting.
 
Man of Honour
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@Maccy - I can't change thread titles anymore :( Can you change this to Vince's Ebay Console Repair Thread - (Bought a broken Game Gear on Ebay - Restoration and Mod Thread)
 
Associate
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I'd be interested in getting the parts and then sending the lot to you to take a look. Seeing conflicting opinions on the cap type to get - you mention SMD but sounds like the sets you can get aren't really like for like. I'll find out what version GG mainboard I have anyway.

Oh, and well done on the clock LEDs :p
 
Man of Honour
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I'd be interested in getting the parts and then sending the lot to you to take a look. Seeing conflicting opinions on the cap type to get - you mention SMD but sounds like the sets you can get aren't really like for like. I'll find out what version GG mainboard I have anyway.

Oh, and well done on the clock LEDs :p

Search ebay for this: Game Gear Replacement Capacitors Repair Kit Sega All SMD Power Audio Screen - And get it from the seller rotrosix :) This is the cap kit to go for and works for both board types!

The screens I used, also from ebay and a seller called stem-gaming... SEGA Game Gear LCD Screen. HighLit Full Display, Adjustable Brightness. - Ive also worked out a bracket to 3d print that perfectly aligns the screen :D
 
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