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

Two extra switches arrived this morning... let the games begin!! I have already added these two to the spreadsheet if you want to know what they cost. Feel free to update the spreadsheet if you do not agree with final valuations but please don't edit the sell price column. So far though based on what we have done we are up approx. £200 on 8 items.



Been also looking at some no power GPU's... I may give one a repair shot... How hard can it be?
 
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you are on a roll fella! lets hope it continues, u got a link to that microscope? , Been many years since i have done this old repair stuff and my eyes definitely are not what they used to be!
 


Those switches that came this morning, I managed to get the Turquoise one working in about 20 mins, plugged it in, it was only showing 5v 0.05a so probed around m92, found a shorted cap, replaced m92. Put it back together and we are good.

The yellow one is a whole different story.

They said they said m92 was missing but when i put it under the scope this is what I saw:



After about 20 mins of rework:


Then I spotted something we still had a short and its over where they knocked something else:


Now this is a bigger problem as I cant find any data on the chip :(



Let me find a link to the scope and I'll post it up.
 
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[Death] said:
you are on a roll fella! lets hope it continues, u got a link to that microscope? , Been many years since i have done this old repair stuff and my eyes definitely are not what they used to be!
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One scope, search the bay for this:



Mine is already looking used :D

Few thread updates, firstly I updated the OP with the google sheet which I have also updated for the Turquoise console.
 
Spacedeck said:
Are you selling these after repairing? Looks awesome.

So where would someone who's never repaired anything before start?
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Some of them are for me, some of them I am selling. It's more about the doing and sharing for me at the moment than it is really making any money although if you check the spreadsheet I made you will see that the switches in particular have quite a bit of meat left on the bone in terms of a bit of profit, as does a properly sorted game gear, game boy or Atari. Getting started for me was just stumbling across a lot of 3 faulty consoles so I bought them, did a bit of reading up and decided to repair and mod them and that's where it all started a few months back. You don't need any special knowledge and you learn as you go, I am no electrical guru but am learning new stuff all the time about how certain things work, what you really do need are some bare essentials such as a soldering iron, solder, multimeter, flux and a rework station all of which can be had for cheap, I think I spent probably £70 on everything mentioned above so you can be as cheap as you like. For more modern stuff with much smaller components you wont get far without a scope but on something like a game gear your eyes are plenty good enough!
 
pingwing said:
We've been promised 20 switch lites and we expect 20 fixed switch lites :p
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Well I don't disappoint then... Made a lowball (compared to what they were listed at) offer on these:



a little higher than my normal 65 limit but at 69 each there should be some profit in these! Plus that illusive coral one is in there... ive done 2 Turquoise already plus a black and ive got a yellow on the bench so hopefully ill have a full working set :D Think I may need some more ports and M92 chips! I am getting a lot closer on the yellow, managed to reball that tiny chip and its taking all the right power now but just not booting... Next mission work out why it isn't booting.
 
Vince said:
One scope, search the bay for this:

*snip*
Mine is already looking used :D

Few thread updates, firstly I updated the OP with the google sheet which I have also updated for the Turquoise console.
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many thanks for that buddy!, the GBA arrived today, very tidy condition until i got inside, seems some corrosion around, and its blown the F1 (0603) fuse off the board, going to have to wire an inline direct from feed to the pad thats left. The power switch is also inoperative and will need removing and fixing. thats before i can even get to testing the rest :)

gameboy.jpg
 
[Death] said:
many thanks for that buddy!, the GBA arrived today, very tidy condition until i got inside, seems some corrosion around, and its blown the F1 (0603) fuse off the board, going to have to wire an inline direct from feed to the pad thats left. The power switch is also inoperative and will need removing and fixing. thats before i can even get to testing the rest :)

gameboy.jpg
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That really doesn't look too bad! id be tempted to clean up the battery connectors and test with a bench supply :D you can then test the switch with the board out of the housing. To me though that one looks like it will clean up nicely. What you thinking? IPS display? With a decent IPS these sell for silly money somewhere in the £150 region. BTW that F1 fuse looks like the pad is still there, scratch that bad boy back a bit and you should be able to slap a new fuse in. I'd try not to bridge it if possible and put a new fuse in. One other thing Gel Flux make sure you have the Gel stuff, everything else is pants in comparison imo. Ive got liquid stuff as well but that stuff just burns off way too easily and leaves a ton of nastiness.

Really looking forward to the GBC IPS mod and the 3DS tbh, the 3DS will be a total ball ache but im ready for it!
 
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@Maccy can I have another title change please sir, this thread has evolved into something I didn't think it would so the title must evolve with it.

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

Also I thought we used to be able to change thread titles but since the forum upgrade I cannot do it... No biggie but im sure it used to be there at least for me.
 
Vince said:
That really doesn't look too bad! id be tempted to clean up the battery connectors and test with a bench supply :D you can then test the switch with the board out of the housing. To me though that one looks like it will clean up nicely. What you thinking? IPS display? With a decent IPS these sell for silly money somewhere in the £150 region. BTW that F1 fuse looks like the pad is still there, scratch that bad boy back a bit and you should be able to slap a new fuse in. I'd try not to bridge it if possible and put a new fuse in. One other thing Gel Flux make sure you have the Gel stuff, everything else is pants in comparison imo. Ive got liquid stuff as well but that stuff just burns off way too easily and leaves a ton of nastiness.

Really looking forward to the GBC IPS mod and the 3DS tbh, the 3DS will be a total ball ache but im ready for it!
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Ye going to clean up the pad with a fibreglass pen and see if I Can get some contact, got a few nice soft brushes on way for the ipa. Have the fuses on order already :) .

Definitely going to be an IPS screen upgrade if I can get it running nicely, the case is in great condition.
 
[Death] said:
Ye going to clean up the pad with a fibreglass pen and see if I Can get some contact, got a few nice soft brushes on way for the ipa. Have the fuses on order already :) .

Definitely going to be an IPS screen upgrade if I can get it running nicely, the case is in great condition.
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Good to see a few others picking up the tools and repairing old stuff :) - Seems to be a nice community around repair in general and plenty of info out there for most things. Feel free to share any repairs/mods of your own in here at any time :)

About brushes, don't mess around with soft brushes they don't work, straight up use a toothbrush!

Im still looking for cool stuff to fix at the right price but all that seem to be coming up is switches I mean I enjoy a switch but I think im going to be on the lookout for more retro as well.
 
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At the moment I have a snes / mega drive gen 1 and a GBA here , bench supply is dead so waiting on new one arriving tomorrow , should help a lot with the testing. Toothbrushes it is ! . Have some mg chemicals flux paste here. Can’t ever have enough flux
 
Tonight updates are not much really, I put one new analogue stick in the green one and one new in the grey, while I had the grey apart for a proper clean I thought I would revisit that one way charge issue and reflowed m92 again but this time with a lot more pressure on the chip. What do you know, it only went and fixed it! So thats the grey one 100% sorted now as well.

Spent another half hour looking at the yellow one but i'm writing the main board off as that bga is not available anywhere. The screen, daughter board etc are all good so ill have it for parts and as a donor. It's a shame as thats the only thing wrong with it im sure. Still a good £40+ left in parts so after a few more switches or selling on the parts it shouldn't be such a loss.
 
Loving the switch repairs buddy, the spreadsheet is a very good idea :)

quick update on the gba , bench power supply arrived yester so could finally test, bypassed the fuse and switch with direct feed from the supply and it boots great, fuses arrive hopefully tomorrow and I will pull the on/off switch apart today and get that sorted
 
[Death] said:
Loving the switch repairs buddy, the spreadsheet is a very good idea :)

quick update on the gba , bench power supply arrived yester so could finally test, bypassed the fuse and switch with direct feed from the supply and it boots great, fuses arrive hopefully tomorrow and I will pull the on/off switch apart today and get that sorted
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Good news on the GBA. I find that the old Nintendo boards are pretty solid overall, simple and it takes a lot to kill them! The newer boards in the switch not so much. I think today I am going to list the Turquoise and the Grey Lites. We had a few friends over yesterday with their children and they gave them both a proper test drive for a few hours and nobody complained so I recon they are good to go. Plus I can't just keep spending like this without seeing anything come back and nobody needs to own 9 switch lites so it makes sense to shift a couple before the next 5 or 6 turn up.

I did buy one last console last night to make use of some of the parts off of the yellow no fix console. It's just a lite with a broken screen, not sure yet if I will just pop the board in the yellow one or take the screen out of the yellow one. I'll see what housing is in the best condition and go from there.
 
You gotta make some return fella. More cash for more things to repair:D . Roll on my microscope arriving tho , will make seeing these tiny pads way easier.


Definitely no pad on this gba for fuse now I’ve cleaned it up, so going to install on pad that’s there and run a thin trace wire to it
 
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