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

It's not a Sega without some sonic...



Man these screens are just so nice... hopefully our second donor arrives today and we can button that up as well.
 
NutritioN said:
Yes mate! So does anything from my original GG still persist? :D
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Yea some of it :D I did do some testing with my 'silly' scope on your main board and im fairly certain that its a gonner, the crystal isn't working as it should, some of the data lines specifically the read and write lines are dead and are not trying to read data from the cart (probably because the ASIC B is shot) plus your SD ram was dead and ASIC B was dead, its also possible the VRAM is on its way out as that sort of periodically works... Power board, audio board and some of the main board parts persist in the new one. Remember I'm not buying working ones here to repair what we have so im sort of mashing faulty GG's together at this point :D
 
Just discovered something amazing I didn't know about: you can repair or replace the rubber conductive pads on controllers!

I never entirely understood how the contact pads work on things like gamepads and remote controls - assumed the PCB had some kind of conductive pressure material. Now I know the black rubber pads are carbon impregnated it all makes sense!

You can either buy new conductive rubber discs by the bag and glue them on, or a special paint to repair the existing ones. I'll be doing my heating thermostat first, the "go hotter" button is worn out :D

https://www.catmusic99.co.uk/page/remote_restore_faq
 
LuckyBenski said:
Just discovered something amazing I didn't know about: you can repair or replace the rubber conductive pads on controllers!

I never entirely understood how the contact pads work on things like gamepads and remote controls - assumed the PCB had some kind of conductive pressure material. Now I know the black rubber pads are carbon impregnated it all makes sense!

You can either buy new conductive rubber discs by the bag and glue them on, or a special paint to repair the existing ones. I'll be doing my heating thermostat first, the "go hotter" button is worn out :D

https://www.catmusic99.co.uk/page/remote_restore_faq
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Thats actually good to know you can get the paint... I had to buy a new membrane for a controller for testing as the carbon had literally worn off of it.
 
Vince said:
Thats actually good to know you can get the paint... I had to buy a new membrane for a controller for testing as the carbon had literally worn off of it.
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I've just done the reading on 3 products and read all the critical reviews, then order the one above. Apparently good prep is key.

I'll report back when it's arrived!
 
NutritioN said:
Yes mate! So does anything from my original GG still persist? :D
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I should have some pics of it all back together and cleaned up for you tomorrow or Friday. I will put it all in a new case for you so I don't have to snap parts of the original case unless you want me to? I was going to give you a second shell for it anyway so if you tell me what you want to do ill just do exactly that that. Should be back in town relatively early next week to hand it over. Here is a little vid of your board/screen/audio in my shell (because USB power) and pre cut shell/screen shims.


Game gears are stupid loud sound after a decent recap, they do an amp for them, totally unnecessary :cry: Ill get that right alignment perfect and move it over just a smidge before I transport it to your shell. won't lie the newer board feels a lot better on the buttons and I have no idea why. I have quite a lot of footage of the repair, not streamed so will put that up soon.
 
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teenwolf said:
how much you charge to replace a switch screen bud ?
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Screen and digitizer? Buy me the parts and ill do it for free/a beer :D. I'd replace the digitizer just because tbh, they are cheap and it will look like bran new if it's got some scratches. :D parts total on an LCD and Digitizer is about £35 ish.
 
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Another switch lite enters the fold...



Backlight circuit failure as is common - somebody has had the digitizer and screen out so this one should be interesting.

These screws aren't even from a switch :cry:

 
Bit of long screw damage, some issues with the backlight circuit and a clueless person taking it apart before... 30 mins later we have life.



Going to have to stop expecting switches to pose a challenge these days... need to find something harder :cry:

Edit: didn't even get to what was wrong with it... somebody snapped a load of the connectors board side so I replaced them all like this...





With ones from one of my donors.. seems to be about all, water damaged at some point in its life so swapped out some corroded ribbons and reflowed areas I could see were once effected. And that was about it. Reassembled using correct length and correct screws :o

Still waiting on second donor GG...
 
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Something a bit different - in all the repairing / swapping between devices I managed to break my ammeter, this is the second time ive broke the same ammeter in the same way. Last time because I didn't think I could fix it properly I bought a new one as they are only about £6 on ebay...

Broken Ammeter...



Its pulled itself off the pins but pins are still there.


Soldered back on.



Was focusing so much on the microscope I forgot to move the lcd out of the way and slightly burned the edge



It's working but I clearly still have a lot to learn.
 
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[Death] said:
looking sweet buddy, which screens are you using in them? i have my eye on 2 of them on the bay at mo :)
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They are mcwill clones from alix there is a working link some posts back if you search on for the term "Alix Link" you should find it :) Cant recommend an MLCC recap and these screens enough. They have all been really nice quality even if they are tricky to fit. Some kits now have all pre cut ribbon cables etc. One thing i like about the mcwill vs say the benvenn is that the lcd board handles brightness rather than needing the 35v rail as a reference rail like the former as it's fairly common to have 35v to 5v shorts on the board so if you take off all the 35v like you do when fitting these then you don't have to work out whats wrong with 35v and where.

I will say though whatever you do stay away from any hot air on these boards. I just dont think they are that robust a board, they are thin and flimsy and the vias are like 30 years old and waiting to go pop. Now ive technically done 5 fixed 3 broke 2 but still think another one might be salvageable do we think we should try and possibly fix another.
 
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NutritioN said:
Looks smashing. Yeah I'm in on Monday.

So what was the run down of what it took to get it to this state? Was my board just too fishy? :cry:
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Yea your board was indeed a bit too broken. I mean with a ton more time I could probably have worked out exactly what traces and vias were broken and found some replacement ASICS / SDRAM but at the end of the day if we have that much damage it starts getting to the point where you are throwing a lot of time at it and any number of things could be broken. I think my best bet might just be to write off my old board and your old board but im going to put yours back into "normal looking ish" condition with your shell on it so you can keep it as a ornament. it will never work again but why not have some fun.
 
The chips came for the unpatched switches dock. I guessed m92t55 was likely the issue so ordered that. Replaced it today and we have the whole thing now working:







Now I need it gone :D so have offered it in a wanted thread on here but otherwise it's going on ebay.
 
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