ProtonX | 69 Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 (edited) Figured I’d showcase some of the more obscure or interesting stuff or interesting ways that I end up repairing. 1st off, I repair tons of things, but am self taught minus some electrical training from work. Always open to better and faster techniques and suggestions. I’ve debated making some video about repairing stuff, but never got around to it. Edited January 28, 2022 by ProtonX 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProtonX | 69 Posted January 28, 2022 Author Share Posted January 28, 2022 (edited) Anyways, this was a cut DS game. I’ve seen tons of these- I believe it was to field destroy defective or promo copies (as I’ve fixed tons of Pokémon NFRs). Honestly, this probably wasn’t worth the time to fix, but just seemed fun. Sorry- I didn’t take a before picture of the board, but as you can see on the back, it was cut. The pins were repaired with solder to close the gap, and cut flat with a blade. The 2 broken traces have thin wire connecting over the damaged PCB. Lastly, the shell was a cheap retail game, and the sticker was swapped. Not a collectors copy- but it plays. Edited January 28, 2022 by ProtonX 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RH | 4,895 Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 I've done this too! I fixed a copy of Super Princess Peach and I had a box of about 20 sliced demo discs. Most were crap games though, but it was a fun experience. I even bought some cheap reshells (clear to show they were placements) and moved the labels over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
croagunk | 798 Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 So cool! I didn’t know they did this to demos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProtonX | 69 Posted February 3, 2022 Author Share Posted February 3, 2022 Here is another more extreme cartridge repair. The pins were broken off the side of the chip… for some reason. Sorry- I only thought to take a photo after I pulled the chip, but as you can see the original board and chip were heavily damaged. Using a donor board- I transplanted the chip, then using a dremel tool, I ground away the top coating of the chip to expose the metal connections. With some thin wire I basically replaced the missing chip legs. After giving it a new battery- it works great! 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProtonX | 69 Posted April 20, 2022 Author Share Posted April 20, 2022 Fixed a GameCube Megaman controller. Sticks and cord were damaged beyond repair. Replaced the cord with an OEM GameCube controller black cord and the thumbsticks with changeable Xbox One Elite metal ones. Also cleaned the shell in an ultrasonic cleaner. Attached some before and after photos. Nothing crazy- but a fun little repair. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProtonX | 69 Posted June 29, 2022 Author Share Posted June 29, 2022 I’ve got to start taking before pictures. Here is a Pokémon Silver that wouldn’t boot. It had 3 bad traces and needed a new battery. Now it’s back up and working. I use a light to highlight the bad/missing traces- doesn’t work all the time, but it’s good to see the really bad ones. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMR | 518 Posted June 29, 2022 Share Posted June 29, 2022 Nice work. I've fixed a lot of stuff myself also. One of my favorites was a TG16 that wouldn't work and after opening it up I found that someone had replaced all the electrolytic caps with ceramic disks. Obviously it was attempted by someone who just didn't understand what they were doing. A good youtube channel to check out for this kind of stuff is RetroRepairs. I've learned a lot of cools stuff watching his channel. https://www.youtube.com/c/RetroRepairs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProtonX | 69 Posted June 29, 2022 Author Share Posted June 29, 2022 Yeah- i love repairing things. I mostly enjoy carts. Here is a photo of the Pokémon carts fixed in just the last couple weeks. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki | 4,929 Posted June 29, 2022 Share Posted June 29, 2022 Damn, can't remember the last time I saw that many of those in one place, but it was before the prices went to utter crap. I can only guess how you got that many to fix. If my math isn't too far off that's around $2000 worth of pokemon carts in that little space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProtonX | 69 Posted June 29, 2022 Author Share Posted June 29, 2022 (edited) 10 hours ago, Tanooki said: Damn, can't remember the last time I saw that many of those in one place, but it was before the prices went to utter crap. I can only guess how you got that many to fix. If my math isn't too far off that's around $2000 worth of pokemon carts in that little space. Lol- yeah, it’s not as cheap as it used to be to get nice batches of them anymore, and usually the easily fixed or battery replacements are already gone from the lot. I wholesale them to a local store for a fair bulk price, so I’m not quite getting max profits, but don’t have to directly deal with any customer returns- and can fix the warranty items without have to deal with shipping. Edited June 29, 2022 by ProtonX 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki | 4,929 Posted June 30, 2022 Share Posted June 30, 2022 3 hours ago, ProtonX said: Lol- yeah, it’s not as cheap as it used to be to get nice batches of them anymore, and usually the easily fixed or battery replacements are already gone from the lot. I wholesale them to a local store for a fair bulk price, so I’m not quite getting max profits, but don’t have to directly deal with any customer returns- and can fix the warranty items without have to deal with shipping. Well however you get them to keep the feed going to that store where it is worth the effort and potential rarer return effort, that's great. I wouldn't mind having a poke turnover around here, but I don't see people paying for it even if I could feed a stream to a shop or two I know around here which aren't corporate based. The thing is as you know, it would need bulk, that's the problem, as just a few the margin would be thin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProtonX | 69 Posted July 1, 2022 Author Share Posted July 1, 2022 (edited) This was one of the worst fixable gameboy games I have had in a while. All the chips needed have the solder connections redone, 4 pads were bad, 2 chips legs were rotted. I wish I had a donor for this, but haven’t been able to find these boards cheap for a while now. Anyways- wasn’t worth the time- but it was a decent challenge. Some of the soldering isn’t great, but I didn’t care- no one who buys this game is going to look at the solder joints… Edited July 1, 2022 by ProtonX 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProtonX | 69 Posted July 5, 2022 Author Share Posted July 5, 2022 Finally finished the next batch of gameboy games. I still have a seasons that won’t save- and I haven’t figured out how to fix that yet (got a Pokémon yellow with the same problem), somehow power isn’t getting from the new battery to the right spot… Anyways after a good bit of time and chasing dead traces- these copies of ages and seasons were brought back to life. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProtonX | 69 Posted July 14, 2022 Author Share Posted July 14, 2022 This wasn’t really a repair, just more of a cleaning with great results. Got a few Hanshin Tiger GC controllers the other day and this one was scuffed up really back. Here are some before and after. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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