irrexpr
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Hi guys, I caught the bug to try making music on gameboys. Since I'm always one to ease myself into things (*snerk*) I bought a pile of busted gameboys, a couple of working ones (still en route) and carts for nanoloop, lsdj and mGB, along with a few other things. I got carried away.

Anyway, I'm working on triaging and repairing the borked consoles. So far...

1 CGB - corroded terminals (fixed), booted up and works! Yay, just need to fix the broken speaker.
1 CGB - No signs of life, even after terminal cleaning. I suspect a bad switch, but unfortunately the one triwing screw in the battery compartment will not come out. It spins freely, but I can't remove it. I've tried prying at it, gluing a screwdriver to it (superglue didn't hold), my smallest pliers are still too large, I just can't get it out. Any ideas?
1 MGB - suspected cold solder or corrosion on power switch. I cleaned the switch with alcohol and the thing fired up and worked fine, but then stopped working again. I just need to fiddle.
1 GBA - yellow light blinks once when I flip the power switch, no signs of life otherwise.
1 DMG - massive corrosion, basically either dremel it off or replace them, on the terminals, but it's a moot point because when I got inside it had some significant water damage. This is probably a parts device.
1 DMG - once I cleaned the acid goop off of the battery terminals it fired right up. The video is kind of weak, so this is probably a candidate for cap replacement,  but it also has both vertical and horizontal lines in the screen. The horizontal lines aren't terrible, so I may work on this guy sooner rather than later, to get practice and maybe get a more working console. I can deal with not seeing a line or two of the edge of the screen.
2x DMG - terminal corrosion, cleaned up and then the only thing I get is a red light, no sound or video. Caps, maybe? I don't know.

I have no way of powering these aside from batteries. I have some USB to Gameboy power cables on the way from Kitsch, so we'll see if I get any different results with those. I'm not overly concerned about getting a pile of junk, I got these because I like trying to repair consoles (both my PS3 and my 360 were trash picked repair jobs, now working great) and am trying to get more into electronics stuff, and because there as the off chance that I could get a handful of working systems. I'd be thrilled if I could get one or two of the DMGs working, but I figure if I can get 3 or so of the 8 into operational condition I'd be ahead of the game pricewise.

Anyway, does anyone have any pointers to repair any of these? I've tried googling around, but haven't gotten very far. The red light DMGs and that stupid screw on the CGB are the parts that I'm focusing on. Just hoping to tap the experience here.

Thanks guys, looking forward to when the rest of my goodies arrive and I can start making music on the real hardware.

Koji-Kendo
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"1 CGB - corroded terminals (fixed), booted up and works! Yay, just need to fix the broken speaker."

---> Best replacement speakers I have ever used are NDS/GBA-SP or DS Lite ones. The DS Lite ones are the loudest and clearest of those on a CGB above mentioned speakers alone can be obtained cheaply from ebay, around $3 or so and usually in a set of 2 which is cool.

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"1 CGB - No signs of life, even after terminal cleaning. I suspect a bad switch, but unfortunately the one tri-wing screw in the battery compartment will not come out. It spins freely, but I can't remove it. I've tried prying at it, gluing a screwdriver to it (superglue didn't hold), my smallest pliers are still too large, I just can't get it out. Any ideas?"

---> Oh yes, dirty power switch. Try using an old toothbrush with a little rubbing / isopropyl alcohol, blow in the exposed section, move switch to opposite side, blow out that side too. Compressed air works well with this method as well. Some motion after it dries and it should be good to go. :-)

Now to get at the switch with that apparent broken off internal hinge, I would recommend pulling the back shell away from the front and have someone use that tri-wing on the screw while you're doing that.
Other than that you may have to just rip it right off, but since beater GBC shells are probably going to start piling up somewhere (it comes with the hobby), shouldn't be a big loss. Especially after cooler, new replacement shells can now also be had from online in way cool colors like smoke black and clear neon orange.

Great questions.
Oh and welcome to Game Boy refurbishing. It can become addicting! :-)

Last edited by Koji-Kendo (Sep 16, 2014 6:36 pm)

irrexpr
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Thanks!

At this point, ripping the case off might be the way to go. I've tried tweezers and an IC extractor to grab it, but no dice. I tried wedging stuff in there to pry the case apart, but it still just spins. I also tried drilling it out, but as soon as the bit caught the thing would spin at the same speed as the bit. Frustrating that I'm being defeated by a tiny screw that is probably worth a penny. I'll see if anyone else has any ideas before I go hulking my way in. Maybe JB Welding a nail to it or something...

I'll have to find a good source of GBC shells, and probably the caps too. I've seen DMG cap kits, it'd probably be cheaper to source them from Mouser or similar, but there's a LOT of caps in there, so I'm not sure if it'd be worth the effort to save a dollar.

I love trying to repair things. Sometimes you lose, but it's always awesome when it works. Of course, the more of these I get working, the more of them I can mod, so that'll be an even deeper rabbit hole smile

Koji-Kendo
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I love bringing Game Boys back from the dead too.
CGBs are my current favorite since they are so easy to take apart, repair, mod, customize and reassemble.
It's the first GB I ever bought with my own money so there's a special sentimentality that goes into every one of them I bring back from the dead off of ebay.

This is the most fun hobby I've ever had and it's great that it basically pays for itself. :-)

Last edited by Koji-Kendo (Sep 18, 2014 3:41 am)

irrexpr
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Welp, I had a learning experience last night.

The postmortem - The stuck screw on that CGB was probably never coming out. The screws go through the back shell, through the PCB, and into molded pillars on the front shell. The screw in question was somehow (likely the battery acid) welded to the pillar, which had then snapped off of the front shell. When I went to pry the case apart, the pillar got pulled through the PCB. It doesn't look good, Broken traces, mostly just to the audio and power jacks at the bottom. I'm thinking I'm going to have to write this one off and use it for parts.

On the plus side, it's speaker worked fine, so I pulled it and put it on the other CGB, which now is perfectly working (aside from the missing battery cover). I had also bought a DMG-07 to tear apart and use the connectors on a arduinoboy build, but I'll likely desolder the link connector from the busted CGB and use that one, instead. it's also "modded" now, which a purple front and teal back. High tech, am I right?

Kind of irritated about that. I really don't know how else I could have gotten in, though. Access to the screws on the PCB was blocked by the stuck shell. The only thing that I can thing of is possible using a much larger drill bit to just overkill the screw out of there, but there's a very real chance that would have gone into the PCB as well.

Anyway, that makes 2 dead an 1 working out of 8. The MGB is close.

Any ideas on those red light DMGs?

Koji - once I get these working I may have to buy another lot and go for round 2 smile Maybe recoup some costs by re-selling.

On the minor, non-catastrophic failure front, I need better soldering gear. I have a 15W Weller and a 35W radio shack irons, the radio shack iron apparently has a dead tip, which meant that when I was trying to reflow the solder on the side of the MGB switch it just wasn't working. I also don't have a fine enough tip. I may just have to pick up a new tip or two until I can afford a soldering station.

Koji-Kendo
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No idea on the red light DMGs.

What country are you in 'cause I just found a seller on ebay who has quite a few CGB motherboards, ships to U.S. and Canada, says they're good to go but with no speakers for $2.50, $3.50 shipped which is a great price.

Good thing about your dead CGB is the lcd screen is probably good to go, so it would be good for front-lighting.
The rest of the parts will surely come in handy if or when you start to refurb / mod for profit.

I find that people particularly love a well done CGB front-light mod.
I always do mine with a kitsch-bent front-light, internal pro-sound, upgraded speaker, nice shell color combo or new shell from lee_chan (ebay) and a custom, white sticker.
Of course I also like to sand down the i.r. cover for an extra touch, but that's my thing.

Oh yeah, replacement solder iron tips can be found on ebay for around like $5 shipped for a set.
Generally with this kind of work, you spend a little to get the ball rolling, do good work and you won't regret it. :-)

irrexpr
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Koji-Kendo wrote:

No idea on the red light DMGs.

What country are you in 'cause I just found a seller on ebay who has quite a few CGB motherboards, ships to U.S. and Canada, says they're good to go but with no speakers for $2.50, $3.50 shipped which is a great price.

Good thing about your dead CGB is the lcd screen is probably good to go, so it would be good for front-lighting.
The rest of the parts will surely come in handy if or when you start to refurb / mod for profit.

I find that people particularly love a well done CGB front-light mod.
I always do mine with a kitsch-bent front-light, internal pro-sound, upgraded speaker, nice shell color combo or new shell from lee_chan (ebay) and a custom, white sticker.
Of course I also like to sand down the i.r. cover for an extra touch, but that's my thing.

Oh yeah, replacement solder iron tips can be found on ebay for around like $5 shipped for a set.
Generally with this kind of work, you spend a little to get the ball rolling, do good work and you won't regret it. :-)

Ooh, good call on the ebay boards, looks like about 6 bucks shipped. I'm in the US. I'll need a new speaker and shell, as I cracked this one, so maybe 15 bucks to get it back up and running, and that'd probably eliminate whatever issue the existing board had pre-hulk-smash. A bit pricey, but I think still within the realm of what they'd cost otherwise, and it'd give me a bit more to play with. Might bite the bullet and go for it.

The tips are cheap, might source them locally until I get a temp controlled station. I like having nice tools, but it's about a hundred bucks for one of those. Considered I think I burned out this current tip in one shot, it might be worth it sooner rather than later.

I need to either get an ESR meter or figure out how to test caps on a board with a multimeter, I suspect that's the issue with the red light DMGs. I've seen others on eBay with the same issue, so if I can isolate the issue I might have some other victims.

bitjacker
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Alive and well in fucksville

i once removed a free spinning screw from a ds lite  by heating it. pushed right through! it is not ideal...

irrexpr
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bitjacker wrote:

i once removed a free spinning screw from a ds lite  by heating it. pushed right through! it is not ideal...

I noticed wink I honestly didn't expect the whole pillar to come with it, I was expecting the screw to break free of it's socket and come out that way. I heard that nice, distinctive sound that PCBs make when they crack and...well...

I'm not sure if heating it would have helped, unless I heated it enough to melt plastic, at which point I'd have to heat it enough to get the plastic on the far side of the PCB to be soft, which would probably have damaged components on the board. I considered tacking it down with super glue and trying to drill through that way, but it probably wouldn't have worked either. Maybe just melting the case near the head of the screw?

Now that I know what was the cause of the problem, I really don't know how I would have done it without damage. I MAY have been able to get a hacksaw blade in there to cut through the screw, but that runs the risk of cutting other stuff. Drilling with a large bit may have done it if I was really careful. I couldn't get it free enough to spin the case to get to the PCB screws.

If I encounter this again, I'll try something different.

Koji-Kendo
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irrexpr wrote:
Koji-Kendo wrote:

No idea on the red light DMGs.

What country are you in 'cause I just found a seller on ebay who has quite a few CGB motherboards, ships to U.S. and Canada, says they're good to go but with no speakers for $2.50, $3.50 shipped which is a great price.

Good thing about your dead CGB is the lcd screen is probably good to go, so it would be good for front-lighting.
The rest of the parts will surely come in handy if or when you start to refurb / mod for profit.

I find that people particularly love a well done CGB front-light mod.
I always do mine with a kitsch-bent front-light, internal pro-sound, upgraded speaker, nice shell color combo or new shell from lee_chan (ebay) and a custom, white sticker.
Of course I also like to sand down the i.r. cover for an extra touch, but that's my thing.

Oh yeah, replacement solder iron tips can be found on ebay for around like $5 shipped for a set.
Generally with this kind of work, you spend a little to get the ball rolling, do good work and you won't regret it. :-)

Ooh, good call on the ebay boards, looks like about 6 bucks shipped. I'm in the US. I'll need a new speaker and shell, as I cracked this one, so maybe 15 bucks to get it back up and running, and that'd probably eliminate whatever issue the existing board had pre-hulk-smash. A bit pricey, but I think still within the realm of what they'd cost otherwise, and it'd give me a bit more to play with. Might bite the bullet and go for it.

The tips are cheap, might source them locally until I get a temp controlled station. I like having nice tools, but it's about a hundred bucks for one of those. Considered I think I burned out this current tip in one shot, it might be worth it sooner rather than later.

I need to either get an ESR meter or figure out how to test caps on a board with a multimeter, I suspect that's the issue with the red light DMGs. I've seen others on eBay with the same issue, so if I can isolate the issue I might have some other victims.

I just got a few of those CGB motherboards from honest_gaming_unlimited on ebay and they are all immaculate, just like in the stock photo.
They also have LCD screens alone but for $16 I'd rather hunt down battered CGBs for them.

Have you had any luck with those red light only DMGs..?
Only tested a couple of them so far but all they need is a couple pieces of wire to connect to a new speaker and they're ready to go.