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

Joxeon said:
I loved my GG when I was a kid but I lent it to a friend and he broke the screen somehow. :(
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Sounds a bit like my mates one I have here... IF you drop them there is a single glass layer that is about half a cm bigger than the screen both ends (ill grab some pics later), the idea is the cathode tube sends light into that glass layer to illuminate the screen.. its fragile and will break on a drop, wherever it cracks it will take the screen out in that location. The problem is the old screens solder directly to the board and are glued in place holding about 70 pins to the board so a drop in replacement on these just isn't possible, it's best to just remove the high voltage rail entirely but of course it is always risky removing 20 odd components from the main board, you really don't want to get it wrong and some of the parts are very small.
 
theone8181 said:
I've just been googling as I went down the gameboy route. It was definitely the better console (outside of battery life:p), suspect it cost a fortune though.
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I'd say my original Gameboy was probably my most played console. It was a great birthday when I got it.
No idea what ever happened to it though. Guessing it was thrown out by parents in a house clean. :(
 
Emlyn_Dewar said:
I'd say my original Gameboy was probably my most played console. It was a great birthday when I got it.
No idea what ever happened to it though. Guessing it was thrown out by parents in a house clean. :(
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I also had the game boy, then the bameboy colour, then an advanced.. I think I stopped there but im going to pick up some broken gameboys to play with :)
 
I've never done much in the way of handheld fixes, other than re-shelling a DS and replacing my PSP's analog stick.
I feel like I've watched hundreds of videos of people fixing things though. Might be fun thing to learn, as the used app here has loads of old stuff on it.

Feel like I'd be rubbish at soldering though, would probably break things worse than before I'd been let loose. :D
 
Emlyn_Dewar said:
I've never done much in the way of handheld fixes, other than re-shelling a DS and replacing my PSP's analog stick.
I feel like I've watched hundreds of videos of people fixing things though. Might be fun thing to learn, as the used app here has loads of old stuff on it.

Feel like I'd be rubbish at soldering though, would probably break things worse than before I'd been let loose. :D
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Soldering is easy the trick is use tons of flux. just slap it everywhere! clean your iron often and have some brad available to clean up any mistakes. some tweezers help when doing smd's.
 
Inspired by this thread, I picked up a battered Game Boy Light for just over a tenner of the used app here. Will see if it is salvageable when it arrives.
The Game Gear can be had for about the same, but think that would be biting off more than I can chew going by Vince's work!
 
Vince said:
Soldering is easy the trick is use tons of flux. just slap it everywhere! clean your iron often and have some brad available to clean up any mistakes. some tweezers help when doing smd's.
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Though my old Antex was an absolute trooper - even a mid-range temperature controlled iron can improve things as well.
 
Rroff said:
Though my old Antex was an absolute trooper - even a mid-range temperature controlled iron can improve things as well.
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I have a rework station, hot air / temp controlled iron but didn't get any of it out for this. I did use some hot tweezers to remove the transistors though as they are a pain to move with a standard iron but not impossible, I was just saving a little time :)
 
Emlyn_Dewar said:
Inspired by this thread, I picked up a battered Game Boy Light for just over a tenner of the used app here. Will see if it is salvageable when it arrives.
The Game Gear can be had for about the same, but think that would be biting off more than I can chew going by Vince's work!
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Interested to see how you get on :) I'll probably pick up some old gameboy consoles to have a play with at some point. I was expecting the psp to be broken so started work on that but turns out there is nothing wrong with it which to be honest is slightly disappointing so all I have at this point is a potentially broken DS XL but even that shows signs of life under the bench supply so suspect that may work as well once I put a charger to it.

Honestly there is so much info and parts available out there on the Game Gear that it's a good starting place for a project like this and a well restored upgraded Game Gear will also return more than the parts if you decide to sell. I worked out total spend as

£50 - Screen
£8 - Cap kit
£15 - Broken Game Gear
£20 - RetroSix Case
£5 - Buttons
£9 - 3 games

So not massively cheap but a console with all the upgrades etc mine now has goes for approx £150 to £200 so I'm likely not out of pocket if I wanted to sell.
 
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Vince said:
Sounds a bit like my mates one I have here... IF you drop them there is a single glass layer that is about half a cm bigger than the screen both ends (ill grab some pics later), the idea is the cathode tube sends light into that glass layer to illuminate the screen.. its fragile and will break on a drop, wherever it cracks it will take the screen out in that location. The problem is the old screens solder directly to the board and are glued in place holding about 70 pins to the board so a drop in replacement on these just isn't possible, it's best to just remove the high voltage rail entirely but of course it is always risky removing 20 odd components from the main board, you really don't want to get it wrong and some of the parts are very small.
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Yeah I was only 11 at the time and wasn't going to attempt a repair so I told my friend he had to buy it off me since he broke it.
 
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