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

Emlyn_Dewar said:
Good luck fixing that mess! :eek:
I still love my Vita.
Dragon's Crown is a great one to show off the OLED screen. I still don't have any issues with my screen, despite the age.
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It shouldn't actually be as bad as it looks.. And it looks bad:





I count 12 completely ripped traces and a snapped leg on the charge port, the charge port should have 21 pins not 20 and you can see pin 21 (or it might be pin 1 it's 21 or 1) snapped off. First thing I did was went hunting for a pinout to see what the port actually does as I'm pretty sure it doesn't need 21 pins for charging, this is what I found:

Console End:


Dock End:


So pins 4 to 15 are totally useless unless you own the vita dock which means for charging you need pins 1,2,3,(the first 3 are debatable) 17, 18, 19, 20 & 21. Or to put it more simply it's a usb2 connection. I will clean it up and jumper it a little later and see what we get. Ideally I would get a new port in but I think ill just jumper this port at first and see if we get any life - If we get life after the initial jumpers I could jumper all 12 traces.

So really all I actually need to do is this:

 
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Turns out this pin was also snapped in the port:



I tugged on it a bit and it just fell out....Thats a usb data line and i need that pin so now I guess I have to wait for a new charge port from china :o
 
Well the vita is in parts in a box until things turn up luckily I have all kinds of other toys either here or turning up tomorrow...

A bit of retro...



Opened the advanced and had a quick look. Fuse F1 is blown and the power switch was badly corroded on just one leg. That pad and trace sadly came away with the switch but the via it runs to is there and clean so I'll run a jumper from the via to the port, the inside of the switch was a state.. I cleaned it but it still doesn't work. New switches available cheap in the UK so I should be able to get this one working in a few days.





In the end I bypassed both the switch and the fuse and put some power to it.. works perfect. So I'll grab a new switch and clean it up ready for it's ips conversion.. same story with the gameboy that works but the screen is junk and not worth trying to save.
 
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So little trick, I ran out of Enameled Magnat wire for running jumpers but lucky for me I had some old fans and at the core of those we have 0.1mm magnat:



Jumpered the fuse and power button:



We have life! I guess now I just wait on a fuse and new power button :)

 
Nice condition yellow lite to add to the mix. I'll do a proper video on this one...



Honestly though the ammeter tells me it's likely water damaged (0.1a draw). Not a major issue but could be interesting. I'll tear it down a bit so I'm not spending the start of the video waffling while I break into it.
 
I was right about water damage and have recorded the first half of the repair during my lunch break - Second half of the repair tonight!
 
chroniclard said:
Interesting stuff. :D How many working hand held consoles do you have now. :cry:
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A lot! but I did batch sell 20 or so lites in the run up to xmas! Right now I have 3 OG switches, 2 unpatched and 2 lites then a load of other ones. :cry:

Some are just bench bound as well while I wait for parts - Waiting for parts from china is the killer!
 
Emlyn_Dewar said:
How much are the Gameboy IPS screens setting you back in the UK?

After the last failure, I've got a couple of Gameboy Lights coming @ £27 for both (listed as parts/repair) but got a video of them both working. Shells are destroyed, and screens are past it, but GBL IPS is about £28 off Taobao. And shell only a tenner.
Will be delayed until stuff is reopened after new year, but will get some pics posted.
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I paid £27 for case and screen delivered that was the same for the pocket as it was the GBA :)

Same as you likely I am buying from China so delivery times are obscene.
 
Switch repair part 1 it's an hour long unedited video of me waffling and making a fair amount of mistakes! My apologies but if you want to see a really corroded switch this is the video for you!


Should be live soon as youtube are processing!
 
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Emlyn_Dewar said:
Great price for case + screen. :)

I’ve got an everdrive clone on the way too as don’t fancy paying the prices I’m seeing for genuine English language games… :eek:
I weep for my small but reasonable collection being sent to landfill in a clear out by parents many years back. :’(
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I know right, they are really expensive :( - Collectors market is crazy!
 
Right switch repair part 2 - Another hour long unedited video :(


Ill do a separate video on the sd card slot at some point today or tomorrow.
 
No need for a video on the switch card slot. I did a very quick reflow...





There we have it yellow switch now 100% working and reading sd cards every time. I'm going to give the board some white vinegar wash while it's out and another check over for any dull joints but it's ready to rock.
 
randal said:
Nice! Does the game cartridge slot suffer from the same issue?

My son's Switch has started throwing errors when changing games, but being Nintendo blowing into the cartridge slot seems to fix it :D
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Game card slot can be changed stand alone and yes they do suffer from stuff getting in the slot and corroding it. Best thing to do is cover a cart in ipa and just shove it in and out of the slot 20 or so times. That will sort it out. Otherwise you can just buy a cart slot!



The switch lite ones are different to the og switch ones.
 
randal said:
I'll give the IPA trick a go, if not I've just checked the iFixit guide and that looks easy enough to replace and 25 squid from China. Win.

Cheers chap!
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If you need one I can sort you cheaper and faster than £25 from china :) Plus it will be a genuine slot rather than a repro.

Have 2 spare lite slots and a spare OG slot.
 
randal said:
Oh sweet, thanks. It's an OG Switch, the Oh-est of Gs!
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Then you need one of these type, the one at the bottom..



They have a more complex pcb with an IC on it that the lite doesn't have. This one was the one that was in my dead cpu donor switch. I paid like £60 for that switch and its screen is now in one of the unpatched switches. It's IC's are distributed between a few switch lites here in the UK and its mainboard is now in Texas in the US as somebody needed all of the caps around one of the bigger Max IC's.
 
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kinger8938 said:
Some nice work in this thread!

I've got a GBA that I really want to do the IPS screen mod to but haven't a clue what I need/where to start!
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Then keep watching as I have an ips kit coming for one. When it's here I'll share a link and show what it takes to fit it. I think they are a simple enough install.
 
Well my niece liked the yellow switch so the yellow switch and 4 of my games have now officially been stolen :cry: Ori, Mario party, Crash Team Racing and Minecraft are no longer, probably fine as I haven't played any of them anyway but im out of pocket on that one as well now! I just can't say no to the niece and nephew. Ill let the niece test drive it for a bit and she will no doubt tell me if it plays up. I had it for all of a day after repairing it :cry: Got another couple coming so all is well and lets be honest the half interesting one is the custom one anyway :)
 
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