Virtual Boy lens repair...DONE!

And I may never want to do that again, LOL!

In all seriousness, it wasn't as bad as I though it was gonna be.

A little back story:

At this past PRGE, a friend of mine traded a nice lot of Super Famicom stuff (including the console...that I really wanted to add to my collection), for something he really wanted; a Virtual Boy.

Excited as he was, he got it home and tested it. To his dismay, it was faulty. The left lens wasn't working.

I offered to repair it for him. I went looking for fixes and the "oven" fix was the main one that pops up. Now, I've heard of baking electronics to get solder joints to reflow, so I wouldn't mind doing this for him, but there were some hiccups.

First off, I didn't have a screw bit that would be able to reach in the far recesses of the VB. Because he really wanted it to get repaired, he offered to order the proper screwdrivers that would work for this particular case (pun).

Second, the whole oven thing. Backtrack to what is really holding the lens on. Nintendo used glue to hold the joints in place for the flexible ribbon cable that attaches to the lens (pics to follow). After so many years of not being played, the glue loses its adhesiveness (wow that was a word), thus losing the connection and having either lines or no screen at all, which was the case for this particular VB. The oven fix simply reheats the glue so you can re-adhere the connections together. This, of course, is a temporary fix since the glue can lose its adherence again in the future.

Enter another technique that has better staying power; the solder method. Upon reading about it, it's basically soldering the traces from the ribbon cable to the lens' board. In order to get to the traces in the ribbon cable itself, you have to remove some of the protective covering from it.

Now, the main fix has people using lye to dissolve the covering to expose the traces. I wasn't up to going out just to get some chemical that I was probably gonna use just for this particular project...well, maybe two since I was thinking about making my own bars of soap, but I digress. So knowing this, I was gonna give up and go with the oven fix.

Enter good ol' YouTube. Someone does the same method, but don't use any lye in the process. They just burn off the covering with the solder!

BAM!

So, fast forward to slow shipping from HK and a tendinitis flareup, I finally was able to tackle this thing tonight...with its fair share of headaches.

Workstation, ready to go.

After getting the lens out (sorry, no pics), I went to work. I effed up a bit, seeing that this was my first adventure doing this...well, the results were...

See all the brown nonsense below the cable? That's was the remnants of the melted covering.  

After the first time with this, reinstalled it to the VB and powered it on with a game in it. It finally showed an image, but it was garbled. I pressed along the newly soldered area and it changed the image to something clear, then garbled, then in the wrong position, but readable. 

To make it short, I had to take it out and take out some possible solder bridges on it. Ugh. It took some time until I finally had the image matching what was on the working screen. 

YAY!butitwasaprematurecelebration...

After starting Teleroboxer, some lines were visible, to much of my dismay. 

Worse yet, right screen went bonkers as well.

...FML...

Opened it back up and soldered the right lens.

This one I feel I did a better job on. The camera flash is playing tricks; there are no huge globs of solder there. 

After getting the lenses reinstalled, I tried again. The right lens went back to working with no lines, but the left one was still being a pain. Since I didn't secure it down yet, I took my soldering iron and went over the ribbon again and combo'd it by pressing on the traces. Eventually, whatever glue was there helped grip on or the solder flowed where it needed to, so I got a nice, clean, 3D image.

...NOW we can celebrate.

I just put it back together and now I'm running tests with a game in there. I'm trying to see if this fix has staying power. 

I'm just happy I could repair something instead of effing it up. 

On a side note, I myself love the Virtual Boy. It had some great games in its time, and I'm glad to see that there's a nice homebrew community following it. Play testing my friend's VB tonight reignited my love for it...but I don't think my old eyes can handle it any longer than I was able to way back when. 

There is a VGA mod for it...I may just try that in the future.

Atari 2600 Jr. and Coleco Gemini AV mod on the horizon...

I've been meaning to mod at least the Gemini for several years now, but I could never find a schematic for the TIA chip (where you need to tap for video signals). Well, back in 2013, another blog I've been following had some of the pinouts "guessed" out (meaning that he's tested the points and they're pretty darn close to what the OG Atari TIA chip was.

It's now 2015. Searches yield more information. I found and updated pinout that I can use. I've decided to go the mod board route through Electronic Sentimentalities. I may try to socket the TIA in the Gemini in order to not worry about cutting resistors, but I guess there's no harm if I try cut the resistors anyway.

There was also a retro gaming swap meet the other week, so I managed to pick up an Atari 2600 Jr. It was kinda clean (the usual dirt and a small chips), but only today was I able to really check it out. Come to find out that the nubs that press the cartridge clips on the 2600 games broke off. Without that, most of the games that I have won't work.

...damn...

I did have some games that didn't have the clips on them and the console worked fine in all it's RF glory. At least that's good.

I took the Jr. apart for cleaning. I looked at the top cover where the cartridge slot was, contemplating on how I was gonna fix it. I grabbed a cart that didn't have the clips or the protector and found that there's a way for me to fix it. When I get around to it, I'll take pics of the fix.

In the meantime, I have other projects laid out, including the one I mentioned at the beginning of the year. I have a SNES cleaning to do as well as a Virtual Boy fix that I have to research.

First post of 2015!

And I got nothing. LOL!

Well, in terms of digging, I found a one hand controller for the PSOne and Animal Crossing: New Leaf for 3DS.

Through forums, all I got so far was Super Smash Bros. Melee. Excited because it's not a Player's Choice one. All I need is the 3DS Super Smash Bros. and I've got a decent collection going!

Only one mod in the near future coming up; an audio mod for one of those SCART to Component adapters.

Hopefully 2015 will be a little more productive for me...Well, we'll see...

Packed it all up...

...for now. Holidays approaching quickly, and with our home hosting Christmas Eve dinner, need every little inch we can get. So I put my work table away, packed the soldering iron back in my kit, and wondered how the heck I ended up with so much junk there.

LOL!

This may or may not be the last post of 2014, but for sure, all mods and repairs are sidelined until next year.

Really rare that I support a Kickstarter thing, but...

This is one to support!

I couldn't help myself. I met the guy who's making this thing at PRGE in October. He had a box with an NES he was toting around that time. Well, I guess I know now what's going on.

Worth a look and also support. Get those old consoles working again.

Fami PPU socketed and something else...

I had a moment the other day to start on that Famicom project, removing the PPU and putting a DIP socket in it's place.

Now, I knew that there was limited room up there, but DAMN, it's a tight fit. So tight that I can't use the eject mechanism anymore.

sigh...

I have to get different caps to replace the hodgepodge of caps I was using for it prior. Now, I know that the socket might have to come out, or I have to modify that eject mech somehow, but I think I may have to get possibly even lower profile socket pins...eBay it is for both then.

Anyway, the jailbars didn't disappear, so more work to be done there...although, I may just keep it as is since I have my Twin Fami...Eh, we'll see.

I also managed to mod the RGB to VGA adapter I've been meaning to do for a long time.

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Took some trial and error and, at the end of the night, I still didn't get it right. After going to bed, I figured out that I got the Green and Blue lines switched around. Easy fix, but gonna do that later.

I had an unstable image, though. The image would shift once in a while. It might have to do with the sync signal, so I may have to relook that as well. There is a sync stripper there, and I did manage to follow the Mmmonkey tutorial well to fitting that inside the adapter. It may also be the monitor I was using since it was the one that rotates from landscape to portrait, a little off kilter and maybe that was setting it off? I dunno...

I managed to find a Model 2 Genesis V3 out digging today, one of the better versions of the model 2.

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I just got it cleaned up and tested, works fine. Swapped out the LED for a yellow one (changing all my Sega LEDs to yellow), and it looks great.

Couple of things to be done before the end of the year...

...which is steadily approaching here. I just tried the homebrew hack for the 3DS and I have to say that there is much potential in that thing. I'm eagerly awaiting a more improved Virtual Boy emulation in the future.

One thing I'd like to attempt is getting my Famicom cleaned up, PPU socketed and hopefully make the jail bars in the display disappear.

The biggest one I want to do is a re-hash of the TG16. I want to plug up the holes (similar to what I did with the Master System a while back), get an RGB amp installed in it, and clean up the ugly mess of wires, including the region mod I did in it....oh boy, huge aspirations there.

I haven't lost sight of selling pre-modifed consoles either. That's just pushed back until the New Year.

I was about to invest in an NESRGB, but there was an announcement of a possible future HDMI adapter/mod/something for the NES that may come up in the next year...I think I might wait for that...at least for my Twin Fami.