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

Well nobody wanted this Vita really so don't mind if I do!



I better not win everything I am bidding on otherwise I shall be skint :cry:
 
[Death] said:
love my vita, got it with a damaged buttons, fixed them all up and works ace :) , sorry been away a bit, found myself in hospital with some chest pains! , signed off work 3 weeks now so guess plenty of time to work on stuff
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Not the covid? Hope you are feeling better dude! Good to see you back!
 
[Death] said:
wish it was, have abnormal ECGs, heart rythem is strange! awaiting chest pain clinic to see me.

ah well back to retro stuff , good times :)
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Ahh mate I hope it all works out! Least you now have 3 weeks to potter about - Not that that is really any consolation.
 
Gots me another switch:



£60 offer accepted and this is the one I am going to do a full recording of the process :D simply because I have all the spares you might need and shouldn't need to wait for parts.

I have 3 spare donor boards, spare m92's, spare ports, spare BQ's - I must have enough parts to repair this bad boy in a single video!
 
Tonight I put franken switch into one of the broken grey chassis so I could test everything. I did change over a few connectors on the daughter board from one of my donors which I forgot to take photos of but here we have it...



Everything works exactly as it should so when the chassis and mod kit get here we are ready to go!

I have decided that I'm going to spray/ modify the silver shroud. I have a spare shroud so am going to have a play about with that at some point tomorrow. I have started to buy bulk switch repair parts from China, yesterday I bought 20 charge ports, 20 m92's and a ton of new analogue sticks in different colours. Charge ports in the UK go for £2.50 plus postage, from China I managed to source them for only 40p each. Same goes for pretty much everything else. I bought the k10 60 degree pots for the switch controller earlier in the thread, again I just grabbed 10 of them as they are cheap in China but almost impossible to source here.
 
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Decided to have a quick look at that 1050ti I have to see what it's doing. It had a 12v short to ground on vcore power delivery. I was hoping it was just a mosfet that failed but it appears to be a 12v directly to the gpu short :( I don't think gpu cores much like 12v.


End of the line for this little 1050ti... I can take the GPU off of the card to see if the short goes away if anybody is interested?
 
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Working on some designs as well for my see through switch... At first I was all lets do a fallout type design, then the board came out much cleaner than I thought so I started playing with other more nintendo type designs... most of the back is covered by a flimsy silver shield so I started having a little play about with that:









Still not entirely sure what I want to do with it but the shroom with a fan in his head could be pretty cool - I did a quick photoshop mock up let me know what you think. The actual shield is only in first coat so I will address the areas that need it on second coat like just above his head to the right etc.
 
NutritioN said:
Hey Vince. Got my Game Gear screen and bits over from China. Just waiting on the capacitor kit. Would you still be interested in fitting / restoring it?
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Of course dude - If you swing me a trust ill send you my address, send it all over in a box and i'll hook you up :D I will also jump it to the top of my queue as ive been patiently waiting to do another game gear! I will also do a video and detailed write up on your one with photos so you can address any quality issues as we go :cry:
 
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[Death] said:
Well that looks amazing , 3d printing yourself?
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No this is just me throwing some paint over the original silver shroud. I was going to get rid of it entirely and design my own "but" im sure nintendo have the airflow sorted better than me and also given that I ended up fixing the dead pad, replacing every burnt connector etc on the console I thought perhaps a more clean build still with a mod chip but also some custom designs inside.

Here is the part before spraying:



The designs are just me playing around with line art in photoshop :D but whatever i decide ill probably template it out and make it real. I've baked the part now for an hour or so, so i'm just giving it some prep for a second coat of white. All my current consoles are blue/white and custom so this switch will be the same. Design wise I just want it to be different to every other one you see.
 
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DIABLO said:
Surprised there is not people doing this for a living just snapping all these consoles up.
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There probably are but I think the real money is really in repairing them for others. I'm picking switches up for around £65 delivered for lites and 80/90 for a proper console but remember there is always a possibility of soc damage etc so you can straight up lose out. Whereas I could take no risk and just repair other peoples consoles on a no fix no fee (well I probably couldn't I have no formal training and am teaching myself). Even though I have a 90+% sucess rate on switches I am still not confident enough to be working on somebodys pride and joy. When I own them there isn't any attachment if I don't fix or I mess something up. If they are other peoples then there is more in it. Mind you ive sold probably 20+ switches and nobody has complained yet.
 
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been doing a bit of painting on the rear heat shield....



Still needs a lot of work but it is getting there! I mainly need to clean up edges etc but you get the idea!

And with his fan shroom:

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Mods aren't just all about the soldering you see! Sometimes its about the little cosmetic things that add a bit of fun.
 
Look what we have gents... Something different! A cheeky Vita has appeared. First problem, it has a proprietary charger I do not have one. Second issue port looks mashed. Finally if I plan on using it, it's cosmetically (bar the screen which is actually very good Ignore the smudges and grime in the pic) in horrible condition so we are going to have to spray the frame.



A bit more exploring tells me this is an oled model which is good. A charger should arrive tomorrow. Once that is here we shall see where we are at.
 
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[Death] said:
Loooove my vita , it’s sat on me bedside table . Oled too . Hopefully u can get that fixed up
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We shall see later on tonight. Charger should be here today so I'll be interested to see if it works.

If not tye charge port looks a bit tatty so I'll look at replacing that first and work from there. Pics to follow!!
 
[Death] said:
Ordered some zinc and nickel anodes . These heat shields on older consoles gonna look brand new
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Nice! I hadnt even thought of renewing that - somebody went ham on the vita...



All but 1 pin disconnected and loads of trace damage... looks like ill be repairing some traces!! This is a reminder to people if you have literally no idea just leave it alone! Give it to somebody that has at least a bit of an idea.
 
[Death] said:
Oh jeez . People need to learn how to hot air / solder and not just rip it apart
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I know it sucks! I count probably 10 traces that I will need to run jumpers for :( Should be interesting though and of course its tiny, tiny so ill need to make use of my new micro pencil :D What I am not sure about is if there are any other missing components... looks like perhaps some smoothing caps might be missing.
 
[Death] said:
...snip

Should be the same board if oled! I fixity have some nice pics for reference
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Thats the board for sure. I will start with the charge port and see where we get, compared to something like the switch there are barely any components on this thing. Ill get that port off later and share the carnage... I'm fairly confident I can fix it though, I mean they didnt even tin the port before trying to put it on :eek:.

I'm just hoping that they didn't get too carried away elsewhere on the board. time will tell :D
 
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