Even without recapping the power and sound board on the blue Game Gear, it worked. I figured that since I had it open, and I had the parts for it, I should just go ahead and do it.
The power board had through-hole components; the sound board had SMDs. Both my desoldering station and hot air rework station were deployed. It's a nice stack.
I started by recapping the sound board. Using the technique from Voultar, I used hot air to remove all the SMDs from the board. I covered the plastic connectors with foil to avoid melting them. It was a challenge getting the SMDs soldered on, but using Voultar's technique made it easier.
I used the desoldering station to get the 3 capacitors off. After removing the old caps and cleaning the area up, I put the new caps in. Really a simple process.
There was some battery acid corrosion on the bottom of the board. It was mainly on the ground plane. I scraped it off, cleaned it up with some alcohol, and used some of my daughter's black nail polish to protect that area.
After getting the boards recapped, I installed them back to the Game Gear. Before I powered it on, I though I should try to get rid of some of the battery acid corrosion with alcohol and a fiberglass pen. I got majority of it off, so I powered it on to test.
The first power on I got power and sound...but no picture. I thought the cleaning I did might have messed it up, so I immediately checked everything in the general area I was cleaning up. Powered on...still nothing.
Rechecked and resoldered all the new caps I installed...nothing.
Checked a few points for something not connected...nothing.
At this point, I figured that I should just reflow that section of the board. So I got the hot air station ready to go. I hit a few spots on the board to reflow, but then I noticed something. I used my magnifying glasses to check some of the points and on one IC, I found a stray wire in there. I took it out with some tweezers and BOOM! It worked once again!
I sometimes wonder if the heart attacks and oh crap moments are worth it. Regardless, it's working. The SMD caps was a good test for me since the next recap project has a lot of them. The future of this Game Gear is uncertain; I'm either gonna leave it as is, or swap out the screen for a better LCD screen by McWill. I also have 2 others that need attention. I may just try and get them working again or try to consolize at least one of them.
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