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Hardware Mods - the thread of "wtf is shorting out this time?!"
I think the worst part of it is, look at that first picture, at the soldering I did under the kapton tape. It's pretty good! I think the mod would have worked fine had I not dripped solder and had a meltdown. Dammit.
Emailed Christa Lee who worked wonders on my PC Engine CD and she thinks she may be able to repair it? She'll have to see in person of course, but here's hoping she can work her magic.
Emailed Christa Lee who worked wonders on my PC Engine CD and she thinks she may be able to repair it? She'll have to see in person of course, but here's hoping she can work her magic.
Becksworth
Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
Can joycon drift just "fix itself" if you don't use them for several years? I busted out my OG grey ones looking for the best ones to use for my new sticks and case and they seem to be working fine now. Wondering if whatever combination of dead skin/body oils/plastic shedding from the sticks that had gunked them up originally has since dried up and broken apart or something...
@Becksworth My understanding with stick drift is that it literally wears plastic away, so it shouldn't magically fix itself, but who knows, maybe some hair got stuck in there or something and has worked itself out. Either way, if it's working for now, enjoy, but it'll probably drift eventually haha
Becksworth
Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
Well, it was a pain in the ass, but I got gulikit sticks put in and the shells changed on my chosen joycons (mostly, decided it wasn't worth prying the zl and zr button assemblies out of those middle pieces and reused thoses instead of the new middle piece, so the bit between the shoulder buttons is off color). Honestly the ribbon cables weren't the issue for me, despite my general big handed clumsiness. It was getting the face button back in place, and them staying in place while I get everything else back inside.
Initially I thought I broke the gyro sensors somehow on both my joycons, but it turned out I just needed to recalibrate my right analog stick post stick change out (guess Tears of the Kingdom disables gyro when you tilt the right analog stick and it was BARELY detecting that). The sticks work like regular Switch analog sticks. The benefit there is peace of mind I can play the new Katamari Damacy game without worrying if I'm going to break them I guess. Will need to play an appropriate game to see how the dpad works out, but it's still the joycon buttons underneath, so keeping expectations in check. The color turned out fairly good. It's not exactly Nintendo Red (TM), but close enough you wouldn't notice unless you had the two sets of joycons side by side. It's white plastic painted red, though, so a deep enough scuff might leave a noticeable white mark on there if I'm not careful.
Hopefully these hold up pretty good, because I'd rather not have to do all that again...
Initially I thought I broke the gyro sensors somehow on both my joycons, but it turned out I just needed to recalibrate my right analog stick post stick change out (guess Tears of the Kingdom disables gyro when you tilt the right analog stick and it was BARELY detecting that). The sticks work like regular Switch analog sticks. The benefit there is peace of mind I can play the new Katamari Damacy game without worrying if I'm going to break them I guess. Will need to play an appropriate game to see how the dpad works out, but it's still the joycon buttons underneath, so keeping expectations in check. The color turned out fairly good. It's not exactly Nintendo Red (TM), but close enough you wouldn't notice unless you had the two sets of joycons side by side. It's white plastic painted red, though, so a deep enough scuff might leave a noticeable white mark on there if I'm not careful.
Hopefully these hold up pretty good, because I'd rather not have to do all that again...
Becksworth
Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
More dpad talk. Having to retrain my brain after years of using separated directions buttons on the joycons to not tap them individually, but to rock the center like you would a traditional dpad. It's still lacking a proper pivot point, but the dpad smartly has an inward grove that approximates it and guides your thumb to pivot from it. And you should as pressing the square tips of the relatively small dpad hurts after awhile.
Becksworth
Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
Tried adding another set of gulikit sticks on my other pair of drifting joycons, and after testing everything to verify it worked, as I was putting the last screw back on my left joycon it got jammed halfway in and the head stripped. It was one of the top ones too, so the minus/select and shoulder buttons felt mushy as the screw wasn't holding them in place properly.
Took it to a repair place after failing to get it out myself, and they were afraid they would tear the casing if they tried any harder to get the screw out. I ended up getting a super glue pen and used a little bit around the loose edge to seal it. It seems to have worked, though that's probably the last time I'll be able to do any part replacements on this joycon.
Took it to a repair place after failing to get it out myself, and they were afraid they would tear the casing if they tried any harder to get the screw out. I ended up getting a super glue pen and used a little bit around the loose edge to seal it. It seems to have worked, though that's probably the last time I'll be able to do any part replacements on this joycon.
Absolutely epic bork job, easily the worst attempt at modding I have ever done, and of course, on a $400 device with an $80 screen mod. It is beyond repair, too:
I don't entirely blame myself for this, since it happened so fast and just happened to drip in one of the WORST POSSIBLE SPOTS, but as I was soldering one of those wires and pulling my iron away to sheath it and move on to the next wire, a blob of solder just plopped under those pins (I mean, it is my fault, but I was not flailing around and had to get the iron away from the board somehow). I tried to free it/repair the bridges with flux paste, solder sucker, and wick, but couldn't get to it, so as a last ditch effort, I tried my heat gun and absolutely ruined everything:
That ribbon cable may be repairable, I wouldn't know, but it doesn't matter, because even if it is (and I don't think it is), the board is cooked. I lost a tiny component somewhere and I don't think the chip is soldered back into place appropriately. Best case scenario somebody on eBay wants this board for parts. Can't bring myself to start listing it at the moment.
Gutted.
Christa Lee is a miracle worker:
She had to recap it (apparently twice, for some reason? Dunno why), replaced the coils, lifted several chips, removed everything with a footprint bigger than an SMD cap, and is waiting on a headphone jack from Aliexpress to replace the stock one since something during the repair broke it, but otherwise it's in great working order and I'm not out an expensive damn machine. Even with the cost of this repair I've still paid less overall than a fully working recapped one goes for on eBay (barely), so it's not a complete and utter loss. What a relief!
It has arrived safely and in great working order! Soundretro.co is Christa's website if you royally fuck up a mod like me lol (or just need work done you don't want to do yourself)
Had to adjust the saturation and brightness pots on the LCDDRV board to make it look right (Bonk was deeply red which is not correct lol) and it looks correct now. I don't blame Christa for not adjusting those... she had a hell of a time fixing what I did, I imagine she wanted the thing in the mail ASAP lol (though she didn't say anything of the sort, I'm projecting here)
EDIT: God, and just her wiring is nice. I am still clearly an amateur in that department lol
EDIT: God, and just her wiring is nice. I am still clearly an amateur in that department lol
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100% this. There's no shortcut to getting good at wiring. You just have to do it a lot, and suck at it, and eventually you'll suck less and less until you turn around one day and realize you somehow got good when you weren't paying attention.
Phantoon
I cuss you bad
If it's the power board I think you can get more modern ones to replace it. It may be rescuable
I don't know if this Virtual Ribbon kit and install service is permanently on sale (as of this post, $118.75 plus shipping) or I just got lucky today or what, but I will be shipping my Virtual Boy in for repair this week. I plugged in my Virtual Boy and it's having display issues for sure, and I just don't trust myself to be able to install this without destroying my Virtual Boy.
I'll report back how it goes.
I'll report back how it goes.
Virtual Boy got to repair center today, so no update there yet. Glad it got through the crap weather...
But wow, people weren't kidding about the failure point for the 32X being those damn ribbon cables. I got a new 32X off eBay today, and it wasn't working well at all at first - it would either boot to a pink screen, not boot at all, or get a few screens into a game before freezing. I'd had replacement ribbon cables for my last 32X that I couldn't use because no matter what I did, I couldn't remove one of the cables - I think a previous owner glued it in or something, because I pulled hard enough on it to tear it, and it still didn't come out. So that one's busted. However, putting the new ribbon cables into the new 32X fixed everything - every game boots fine and plays well without freezing. And I changed my setup so I can easily remove and set aside the 32X if I want to play some Sega CD off the Mega Everdrive Pro.
If only the 32X put out s-video like my Genesis does... There are some ancient videos on YT about it but I don't think it's really worth it for the very few games I'll actually ever play on the thing...
But wow, people weren't kidding about the failure point for the 32X being those damn ribbon cables. I got a new 32X off eBay today, and it wasn't working well at all at first - it would either boot to a pink screen, not boot at all, or get a few screens into a game before freezing. I'd had replacement ribbon cables for my last 32X that I couldn't use because no matter what I did, I couldn't remove one of the cables - I think a previous owner glued it in or something, because I pulled hard enough on it to tear it, and it still didn't come out. So that one's busted. However, putting the new ribbon cables into the new 32X fixed everything - every game boots fine and plays well without freezing. And I changed my setup so I can easily remove and set aside the 32X if I want to play some Sega CD off the Mega Everdrive Pro.
If only the 32X put out s-video like my Genesis does... There are some ancient videos on YT about it but I don't think it's really worth it for the very few games I'll actually ever play on the thing...
Wait... is the video signal the 32x outputs not just using the Genesis as a conduit? I have a triple bypass in my Genesis, but I've never done anything with my 32x. Does that mean when I'm using the 32x (even if I'm not playing a 32x game) the video output is compromised? I feel like I absolutely should know the answer here, but I've never heard it discussed, honestly.
Sarge
hardcore retro gamin'
Yeah, someone had to have glued it in, my 32X systems had the opposite problem - both had their cables slide out on me. I had one that didn't work at all, the other was sketchy. Once I reseated the cables it was all good, no freezing to be had!
As far as I know, the 32X takes the RGB from the Genesis, and then overlays its own, then the 32X converts to whatever you've got hooked up. I don't know what kind of quality that puts out if you're using RGB. Apparently the composite still looks decent enough coming out of a 32X.
As far as I know, the 32X takes the RGB from the Genesis, and then overlays its own, then the 32X converts to whatever you've got hooked up. I don't know what kind of quality that puts out if you're using RGB. Apparently the composite still looks decent enough coming out of a 32X.
Sarge
hardcore retro gamin'
According to RetroRGB, you should just be able to use a Genesis Model 2 RGB cable to get it out of the 32X. The patch cable coming from the Genesis to the 32X should be tapping the RGB lines.
www.retrorgb.com
32x
Sega 32x 32x Video Output The 32x has the same video output port as the Genesis 2, 3 and CDX. To get RGB from it, simply use the same RGB cable you'd use with a Genesis 2, as described in the Genesis RGB Cables section. 32x with Genesis 2 / CDX If you're using a CDX, Genesis 2, or any com
www.retrorgb.com