Vince's Ebay Repair Thread - (Console Repairs & Mods)
- Thread starter Vince
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- lets repair things
Still a hobby although It does make a nice little bit of pocket money each month. I could quite easily turn it into a job at this point I feel but have no intention to just yet as sometimes that just sucks the fun out and puts you on somebody elses timeline. For me its more about the learning and doing something interesting outside of what I actually do for a job.
Oh god I somehow tagged the wrong user.... my bad dude... It was getting very late as I was putting that post together last night
- The 1070 is due for a revisit this week so ill update when I have it on the bench again.
Soldato
- Joined
- 1 Oct 2006
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- 13,900
Yep, it's been brilliant thanks. Not missed a beat, currently being used as a Pokemon Quest dedicated console!
Man of Honour
Thread is still amazing. Love it.
Soldato
- Joined
- 9 Dec 2010
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- 7,387
Beast lad, get the photo's up!
Remember my mk1 lynx? It got some upgrades:
I have another 2 mk1's to restore but all 3 are in this similar super condition so all are getting the BennVenn IPS upgrade and all the power reworked before being listed
I have another 2 mk1's to restore but all 3 are in this similar super condition so all are getting the BennVenn IPS upgrade and all the power reworked before being listed
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Well I have 2 more and they are both as good as this one...
a 16bit colour screen handheld in 1989 seems totally crazy to me. The Lynx was truly ahead of its time.The second one is stripped down and ready for the same treatment but I got a faulty screen that I am waiting on a replacement for. The third one is all original so OG screen etc.
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Got another mk1 lynx in... was a no power console so I fixed the power delivery on it but I made a bit of a mess up and didn't realise this one was missing a button and some other bits of the case were a bit grim when I bought it. Turns out you can't buy spare buttons for an old atari anywhere 
Which is a massive shame as the internals are now very solid.
Which is a massive shame as the internals are now very solid.I decided I wasn't going to go the full hog on the MK1 that isn't prefect so simply got it working, tracked down a new button, not an easy task at all but thanks to some atari forums/discord I found somebody with a spare
She is back together and working now so am happy with that. I am going the full mod on another one I have here so hopefully will finish that today/tomorrow.
Will probably grab a mk2 as well when a sensible one comes up!!
Got some mods to do for other customers including a dmg bivert/backlight mod and a advance ips so I'll share those up as I go as well
She is back together and working now so am happy with that. I am going the full mod on another one I have here so hopefully will finish that today/tomorrow.
Will probably grab a mk2 as well when a sensible one comes up!!
Got some mods to do for other customers including a dmg bivert/backlight mod and a advance ips so I'll share those up as I go as well
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For those that are interested this is what we are working on tonight: (please excuse the dirtly keyboard full of flux and filth... I will be stripping it down, replacing some broken LED's and giving it a spruce up in the coming weeks... Will also share that repair on here )
This is a DMG bivert and backlight kit, Biverting basically consists of first inverting the LCD image data using a logic chip, then using polarization film rotated 90 degrees to invert (or revert) the image again, bringing it back to normal. The result is an original dot martix screen with much better contrast when using a backlight. Results to follow
)This is a DMG bivert and backlight kit, Biverting basically consists of first inverting the LCD image data using a logic chip, then using polarization film rotated 90 degrees to invert (or revert) the image again, bringing it back to normal. The result is an original dot martix screen with much better contrast when using a backlight. Results to follow
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I am planning to hit that this evening. The backlight for the DMG was faulty so ive finished that mod but awaiting the replacement backlight. All 3 mk1 Lynx consoles are finished. So I think I am basically ready to hit the backlog
Here is a little teaser...
We have to remember here to abide by the forum rules, I have the go ahead to share the install but as for anything else please don't ask
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Mod chip install is going to come in a few parts, you will see why
This is going to be quite picture heavy and ill be honest is a pretty sketchy install in general, chances of messing something up somewhere along the way are pretty high so lets get into it.
In the pic below i've just started the install, you can see ive removed the cpu/ram shroud, and ive cut away part of the shroud, you need to do this as there is a trace below the shroud that connects the cpu to the emmc, in this pic ive already scratched back the pcb just beside the cpu to reveal the trace and via and loaded that up with solder, I have also connected the first part of the mod to that trace:
The rest of that section is pretty simple that flex taps into the 3.3v rail:
It also connects to cpu resistor for clock at point A, Point D here is connected to that trace I stripped back above between the cpu and emmc and there are also a few anchor points connected up, point C on this flex we will return to later.
I probably picked the wrong night to start this as i've broken both my fine bent tips so im hitting the whole install with the knife tip, here is the tip against the smallest pad, using this top for the job is the equivalent of finding the hardest game you know and sticking it on hardest difficulty. Really I should be waiting until some new fine tips come but its been waiting too long:
Ok so that's the first section done, next up I hit up the cpu, for this it's another flex cable, we need to solder directly onto the caps on top of the cpu, now this isn't my prettiest work but ill probably come back over it with a finer tip:
Regardless everything here tests perfect so its time to move on So far so good!
Next up we need to slip that little flex pad in the image I used to show you the size of the iron under the 158 ball emmc bga module and flow it onto a specific ball under the chip. basically we need to line it up and hope! So I lined it up:
Hit it with the rework station and as I was flowing it in, disaster struck:
Its pulled in way too far and murdered the bga emmc, I tried to boot the switch between every flex and this one she is dead. So only one thing for it, I have to remove the emmc:
I then reballed it:
And put it back on, I'm not going to lie I was pretty tense at this point but I threw the board back into a chassis and success!
So with my emmc now sporting leaded solder I went in for attempt 2:
It flowed into place perfectly! So that's basically everything I'm doing tonight. All the major lines are in place for me to do the final wiring tomorrow. It was all going so well until it wasn't that little mistake took about 40 mins for me to correct as the only stencil I have for the nand is @randal stencil and its a proper annoying stencil to use so about half of the balls were done by hand using the stencil to create 0.3mm balls and manually putting them into place and reflowing them.
This is how it looks right now:
Part 2 will come probably tomorrow as all I need to do now is run 2 wires and fit it up. If I have done it all properly we should be able to mess about with it a bit
What I learned tonight is this, if you have never done any bga work its probably best not to attempt this mod.
This is going to be quite picture heavy and ill be honest is a pretty sketchy install in general, chances of messing something up somewhere along the way are pretty high so lets get into it.
In the pic below i've just started the install, you can see ive removed the cpu/ram shroud, and ive cut away part of the shroud, you need to do this as there is a trace below the shroud that connects the cpu to the emmc, in this pic ive already scratched back the pcb just beside the cpu to reveal the trace and via and loaded that up with solder, I have also connected the first part of the mod to that trace:
The rest of that section is pretty simple that flex taps into the 3.3v rail:
It also connects to cpu resistor for clock at point A, Point D here is connected to that trace I stripped back above between the cpu and emmc and there are also a few anchor points connected up, point C on this flex we will return to later.
I probably picked the wrong night to start this as i've broken both my fine bent tips so im hitting the whole install with the knife tip, here is the tip against the smallest pad, using this top for the job is the equivalent of finding the hardest game you know and sticking it on hardest difficulty. Really I should be waiting until some new fine tips come but its been waiting too long:
Ok so that's the first section done, next up I hit up the cpu, for this it's another flex cable, we need to solder directly onto the caps on top of the cpu, now this isn't my prettiest work but ill probably come back over it with a finer tip:
Regardless everything here tests perfect so its time to move on
So far so good!Next up we need to slip that little flex pad in the image I used to show you the size of the iron under the 158 ball emmc bga module and flow it onto a specific ball under the chip. basically we need to line it up and hope! So I lined it up:
Hit it with the rework station and as I was flowing it in, disaster struck:
Its pulled in way too far and murdered the bga emmc, I tried to boot the switch between every flex and this one she is dead. So only one thing for it, I have to remove the emmc:
I then reballed it:
And put it back on, I'm not going to lie I was pretty tense at this point but I threw the board back into a chassis and success!
So with my emmc now sporting leaded solder I went in for attempt 2:
It flowed into place perfectly! So that's basically everything I'm doing tonight. All the major lines are in place for me to do the final wiring tomorrow. It was all going so well until it wasn't that little mistake took about 40 mins for me to correct as the only stencil I have for the nand is @randal stencil and its a proper annoying stencil to use so about half of the balls were done by hand using the stencil to create 0.3mm balls and manually putting them into place and reflowing them.
This is how it looks right now:
Part 2 will come probably tomorrow as all I need to do now is run 2 wires and fit it up. If I have done it all properly we should be able to mess about with it a bit
What I learned tonight is this, if you have never done any bga work its probably best not to attempt this mod.
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Soldato
- Joined
- 1 Oct 2006
- Posts
- 13,900
You skill and patience never fails to amaze me!
Considering I had only turned this oled on the once to set it up I was a little gutted on the emmc. I wont lie its was a bit of a sketchy moment and I knew straight away... I really didn't want to be reballing it but these are the risks you take on something like this. At a guess id say 99% of people fail at 1 of 3 points. Either the emmc, the clock point or the command resistor seem to be where most fail. Some also fail at the tiny caps on top of the cpu as they are tiny as well. It's an install littered with places that can trip you up! I'll finish it today at some point and you can all point and laugh at me for making a meal of it.