What is acceptable in cartridge repair?

[phart010 | 1,708]

What do you think is acceptable when it comes to restoring cartridges? I used to be a pure preservationist, I didn’t think it was ok to do any alterations, only preserve what you already have, keep everything original etc..

But then batteries started dying. Obviously a battery replacement should be considered acceptable to mostly everyone, right?

So where do you draw the line? What is acceptable?

-Gluing down raised sections of labels

-swapping backs of cartridges

-desoldering original chips and resoldering them to matching donor boards

-recoloring labels

-transplanting broken pieces of cartridge shell from Where’s Waldo onto Stadium Events (front side with label)

Edited March 2, 2021 by phart010

[Tulpa | 3,537]

1 hour ago, phart010 said:

But then batteries started dying. Obviously a battery replacement should be considered acceptable to mostly everyone, right?

Sure. Batteries all expend themselves at some point. But the quality of the replacement may cause some concern. If it's a pretty good job I'd say most people wouldn't flinch. A very high dollar game might get some grumbles, but if needed, tape the original battery inside the shell so it's all together.

1 hour ago, phart010 said:

-Gluing down raised sections of labels

Depends on how detectable the repair is. In general, if we're talking a little bit of label lift glued down with that disappearing purple glue, and there's no sign it was ever lifted, it's probably acceptable.

If it's slapdash, or really wrinkled, I think it starts to depend on the value of the game.

1 hour ago, phart010 said:

-swapping backs of cartridges

That's frowned upon, although if the back matches, it's probably undetectable.

1 hour ago, phart010 said:

-desoldering original chips and resoldering them to matching donor boards

Probably not, but it's usually the opposite that happens, as chips are more likely to fail than boards. A failed chip is replaced with an EEPROM with the code. In that instance, I'd probably want the original chip taped inside the shell somewhere so that all the original parts are at least together. But I'd expect it to go for less than one that's completely original and intact.

If the board is damaged, I would think jumper wires, as ugly as they are, would be more acceptable than a swapped board.

1 hour ago, phart010 said:

-recoloring labels

That to me would be label damage, no better (and maybe worse than) a faded label left alone.

1 hour ago, phart010 said:

-transplanting broken pieces of cartridge shell from Where’s Waldo onto Stadium Events (front side with label)

Nope. If a Stadium Events has a hole in it, leave it be. Damage is done. Plus, people would probably already know about it.

 

All of this is IMO.

Edited March 2, 2021 by Tulpa

[phart010 | 1,708]

3 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

Nope. If a Stadium Events has a hole in it, leave it be. Damage is done. Plus, people would probably already know about it.

 

All of this is IMO.

What if a small piece of the shell chipped off from the rest. Would it be ok to glue that piece back on?

[Tulpa | 3,537]

2 minutes ago, phart010 said:

What if a small piece of the shell chipped off from the rest. Would it be ok to glue that piece back on?

I think you're on touchy ground if it's a SE or NWC. The damage to those once they were discovered helps with provenance, and most people want them completely original (even if the years haven't been kind.) So I think you're hurting the value at least a little if you attempt a repair.

Mostly those have label damage as opposed to shell damage, though.

[phart010 | 1,708]

41 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

I think you're on touchy ground if it's a SE or NWC. The damage to those once they were discovered helps with provenance, and most people want them completely original (even if the years haven't been kind.) So I think you're hurting the value at least a little if you attempt a repair.

Mostly those have label damage as opposed to shell damage, though.

OK, let’s forget about stadium events and NWC, since they are special case scenarios. 
 

What if it was Power Blade 2 or some other game of high value that you’d actually play. Would you rather have a broken cartridge shell with the broken piece included, or would you just want the broken piece glued back on?

Edited March 2, 2021 by phart010

[Tulpa | 3,537]

How detectable is the repair?

If it wasn't disclosed and I found the glue marks, I'd be pretty pissed about it.

If I knew ahead of time, and the price wasn't top dollar, and it was a game that I really wanted, I might be okay with it.

Edited March 2, 2021 by Tulpa

[DefaultGen | 5,436]

I swapped my Grind Stormer PCB. Eff it. If it was like a $1000 game I'd probably just leave it dead and original. Virtually nothing with a battery is really worth anything as a collectible, so I'm fine swapping batteries when I play games too.

Back swapping you can't really detect if the correct codes are used unless there's something I don't know. The repaired or shattered cart I've avoid either way, so do with it what you will. I'd just keep it shattered. It's hard to say anything you do to fix a collectible is improving the condition besides some cleaning I think.

[phart010 | 1,708]

@TulpaNo repair like that would be perfect, so you’d obviously see at least a hairline crack if your paying attention.
 

I would always disclose this, but as you know, we don’t live forever, life happens, etc.  eventually everyone’s games will end up with someone else either with or without the disclosure.

Edited March 2, 2021 by phart010

[fcgamer | 4,754]

I've had this discussion with some friends who are all in the Famiclone collecting scene, where a lot of these games are even harder to find than many NES games, often also being improperly stored in tropical environments for long periods of time.

Most collectors get really bitchy about label alterations / restorations, though it also seems to depend on which region you're from.

The technical side is much more interesting though.

When PCBs / chips fail, it is becoming more and more common to repair them, and no one really seems to mind. A playable cart > a broken one. 

Generally, the rarer the game is, the more accepting these folks are of repairs, as there aren't a ton of copies to go around; however, it then is also commonplace for the collectors to keep the old parts too, just to add some sort of validity to their cartridge being original. Similarly, the sale price of such repaired items drops, but sold non-working would be even less.

PCB swaps are the devil in that scene, as it's often detectable, to some degree, to the more informed collectors.

Finally, anyone that hold onto old (dead) batteries, I know that's where I personally draw the line, haha.

I guess what I'm saying is that we are getting to the point where some restoration is necessary; however, sloppy restorations and imperfect matches (cart back swaps, etc) really do more harm than good, since they detract from authenticity, whereas they also add nothing towards functionality to offset that.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

I don't care what people do to their carts as long as they don't falsely advertise them as unaltered.

[phart010 | 1,708]

I’m surprised there is so much of a stigma against pcb swaps.
 

I get it if they are not exact matches with exact same codes matching and everything, then you glitch up some historical information that people are documenting. I personally did this with Darius R on GBA, had a basically identical board and swapped chips, although the revision codes on board were different... I’m a bad guy

But if you have an identical pcb, an exact match, codes and all, is it really any worse than swapping the back half of the shell?

[fcgamer | 4,754]

11 minutes ago, phart010 said:

I’m surprised there is so much of a stigma against pcb swaps.
 

I get it if they are not exact matches with exact same codes matching and everything, then you glitch up some historical information that people are documenting. I personally did this with Darius R on GBA, had a basically identical board and swapped chips, although the revision codes on board were different... I’m a bad guy

But if you have an identical pcb, an exact match, codes and all, is it really any worse than swapping the back half of the shell?

Well on licensed products I would think it wouldn't be as big of a deal. When dealing with Famiclone stuff though, it becomes a huge deal because you run into the situation of old shells with modern PCBs, and things like that. Anything I receive like that goes straight into the trash, that's how bad it is.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,092]

1 hour ago, DoctorEncore said:

I don't care what people do to their carts as long as they don't falsely advertise them as unaltered.

Totally agree.  I actually hacked my Asterix cart to run at NTSC speed once I found out someone on NESDev had done a patch for it: I desoldered the mask ROM in the cart and wired/soldered in an EEPROM so I can play Asterix on my own NES over here in North America.  And even though I never plan on selling it, I put a sticker on the bottom of the cart so that if, for whatever reason, this cart ends up in someone else's hands down the road, they'll know that on the inside, the game is not "original."

[Tanooki | 4,952]

7 hours ago, phart010 said:

What do you think is acceptable when it comes to restoring cartridges? I used to be a pure preservationist, I didn’t think it was ok to do any alterations, only preserve what you already have, keep everything original etc..

But then batteries started dying. Obviously a battery replacement should be considered acceptable to mostly everyone, right?

So where do you draw the line? What is acceptable?

-Gluing down raised sections of labels

-swapping backs of cartridges

-desoldering original chips and resoldering them to matching donor boards

-recoloring labels

-transplanting broken pieces of cartridge shell from Where’s Waldo onto Stadium Events (front side with label)

Honestly this is sarcasm but not, given the currently movie debate is Temple of Doom.

Seriously... Gluing a curling/dried glue label down...definitely.  Swapping, yeah like anyone has lock solid proof what back goes to what cart.  Desoldering and swapping 1:1 boards from a donor...definitely, you're just restoring a defect.  Not sure what you mean with recoloring a label...is that possible?  And if you can take a shattered shell with a high dollar sticker, and transplant that mess to a ghetto cart with a nice shell...why not?  It's still period parts isn't it?  If someone has the raw skill to detach a sticker from the plastic causing no damage to it, and can re-apply that with fresh glue (purple elmers stick is choice!) go for it.  If you can repair a train wreck, do it.

[phart010 | 1,708]

10 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

And if you can take a shattered shell with a high dollar sticker, and transplant that mess to a ghetto cart with a nice shell...why not?  It's still period parts isn't it?  If someone has the raw skill to detach a sticker from the plastic causing no damage to it, and can re-apply that with fresh glue (purple elmers stick is choice!) go for it.  If you can repair a train wreck, do it.

What I meant about transplanting shell wasn’t quite what you described.

I meant like if you had a front shell with label in mostly good condition, but let’s say it got dropped and a corner busted off or something. In this case you could glue the busted off shell piece back on.... or taking it a step further, if you lost the broken piece, cutting a similar sized piece off of a donor shell and filing it to the same size and then gluing that donor piece in.
 

So you would not be tampering with the label.

Edited March 3, 2021 by phart010

[Tanooki | 4,952]

18 minutes ago, phart010 said:

What I meant about transplanting shell wasn’t quite what you described.

I meant like if you had a front shell with label in mostly good condition, but let’s say it got dropped and a corner busted off or something. In this case you could glue the busted off shell piece back on.... or taking it a step further, if you lost the broken piece, cutting a similar sized piece off of a donor shell and filing it to the same size and then gluing that donor piece in.
 

So you would not be tampering with the label.

Hmm I hadn't considered that.  I don't know how hard it would be to break another to then file down to perfection a replacement chip to then glue carefully so it looked right.  I'd think a careful label transplant would be easier.

[phart010 | 1,708]

17 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Hmm I hadn't considered that.  I don't know how hard it would be to break another to then file down to perfection a replacement chip to then glue carefully so it looked right.  I'd think a careful label transplant would be easier.

I’d like to try it just as an exercise, I think I could do it nicely.
 

Although I’m probably not going to do it for my particular game.. After pondering over it, I think I’ve decided to keep everything on it original even if that means missing a small part of the shell

Edited March 3, 2021 by phart010

[Tanooki | 4,952]

I had a corner on one of my MVS carts crack off (pin side), I got a very careful hand with a light touch of super glue gel to pop it back into place.  I mean if you look at it good, you can see if it was fixed, passing glance probably either normal or plastic crazing/cracking look that's superficial.  Ugh it ticked me off when it chipped, one of my few complete kitted carts and the damn sticker matches the box.

[Lincoln | 230]

i've done lots of repairs of various types. 

labels- i've glued several, nothing terribly expensive. most of them have been in terrible shape to start so it was mostly a matter of keeping things from getting totally destroyed. i bought some non-wrinkling glue from a hobby shop and use it sparingly

shells- if you crack or break a chunk off where its visible i think it's reasonable to reinforce or reattach as clean as you can. it'd be extremely difficult to cleanly fix a missing chunk with a piece from a donor shell, but if you can i would be ok with it. i'd still probably not do it on something expensive. if the internal tabs are broken, then do whatever you have to keep it functional.

7 hours ago, Tulpa said:

Probably not, but it's usually the opposite that happens, as chips are more likely to fail than boards. A failed chip is replaced with an EEPROM with the code. In that instance, I'd probably want the original chip taped inside the shell somewhere so that all the original parts are at least together. But I'd expect it to go for less than one that's completely original and intact.

If the board is damaged, I would think jumper wires, as ugly as they are, would be more acceptable than a swapped board.

has not been my experience. mask roms are almost always fine. occasionally the mapper chips fail, sometimes ram, sometime the boards fails invisibly. i've fixed a bunch where the board is physically trashed but roms are fine.

if it's a high dollar title i'll do my best to find the correct rev board to use as a donor. otherwise i'll find something clean that works. it's all still official parts either way. i have thought about buying a donor board for some batman rotj mask roms i have left over, but haven't pulled the gone on that.

in cases where the rom is actually bad, i've replaced the bad chip with an eprom and tacked the dead rom inside the shell. this *significantly* devalues the game though, you might be better off leaving it non working for something rare.

batteries are service parts, no issue replacing them. i usually install a clip as well.  

 

[Lincoln | 230]

Since its topical, here's a current project. Bought this EVO off ebay non working and its pretty obvious why. There's no saving that board. Roms look fine (untested) so they're moving to a Troy aikman board. Its a different rev but the evo cart is pretty well beat already, decent filler copy but not a prize. Actual carts released with this same evo board are pretty sparse. Theres a $10 super fami game that would have worked if i really needed it. Anyway ive got the chips off both boards and its just a matter of soldering them down now, then testing.

[Tanooki | 4,952]

Go for it!  I did it years ago back in the NA days with the classic known turd boards Tengen used on Genesis games.  I had a fantastic copy of Grind Stormer, dead due to the defective boards they used, so I went 15min across town and bought a Menacer cart for $5 and did a transplant.  Worked like a charm for the few years I had it after until I offloaded my Genesis stuff.  The new owner was very happy, didn't have to worry about it melting down.

[austin532 | 467]

Sure if it's possible I prefer to keep the original battery but if needs replacing you got to do it. Otherwise you risk damaging the board. Removing a battery does not de-value a game IMO. They are just generic CR2032 batteries. Nothing special about them at all. If they said Nintendo on them I could see why people would be upset.

[Tanooki | 4,952]

I think most people other than the most probably should be on meds OCD types would get mad about a battery replacement.  Given the age of even the youngest batteries being a few GBA games in the early 00s, you're looking at stuff going back to 1980s with Zelda forward.  The fact that a lot of them still DO work and haven't leaked is incredible, but when they go, they go.  It's better to just have a new one in there so you know your work is safe, and in some cases, some few games are battery parasites like the Pokemon GBC games with the RTC that suck em dead within a few years.

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

This topic is getting me in the mood to just sweep through my whole collection all at once and install battery holders in all of them.

[austin532 | 467]

I've never seen a coin cell battery leak. They do pop though under extreme temperatures or possibly if they get too low. Which will lead to board damage like this.