Handheld Hijinks Vol 6 - Sir Lynxalot

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Not so long ago, I made a restoration/repair thread on an Atary Lynx II I'd took a chance on from eBay. I was able to get it working again, but the completionist in me kinda needed a Model 1 Lynx to complete the set. So here we are again, another thread, another broken Lynx from eBay (sold as not powering on), and a couple of replacement parts to try bring some life into this old cat once again.

^^ The Model 1 Lynx. A larger, more sprawling beast than the Model 2, but this is the one I remember from childhood. I never owned one, and in fact, only ever got to see one in action once or twice MANY years ago as a youngling, but this is the version that ticks the nostalgic box. Here it is anyway, all the way from Italy, and externally and cosmetically, it's in great shape I must say. It needs a good wipe down, but there's little to no actual damage on it.

^^ The full repair kit (capacitors and power stage components) was bought from plus1pxl on eBay. They're presented in a very nice way, all labeled perfectly, and even come with a few jellies to chew on whilst working away! What more can you ask for!

^^ Ok, enough jabbering, time to get to work. Onto the mat, tools out, This Week in Retro podcast on, lets get to it!

^^ Hmm, the first sign that not everything is as simple as it looks. I don't think the Lynx had warranty stickers covering screw holes.... Someone's been into this Lynx before I fear...

^^ It opens quite a bit easier than the Model II, and x4 screws later, we're in. There's definitely some alarming signs here...can you spot them?

^^ This capacitor is definitely NOT a factory install. It's lazily soldered on top of the pcb, and not through the vias as it should be. Hmm, not good. In fact, you can see the via is missing altogether here, and someone has soldered the negative leg of this capacitor to the pcb itself. This is a break in the circuit straight away, as the capacitor isn't soldered onto the underside as its supposed to be. Actually, ALL of the caps are soldered to the topside of the pcb, and NONE of them are passing through the vias. A very lazy effort this one, whoever is responsible for it. The cheek then to put a warranty/tamper sticker on the case!

^^ There's this very weird liquid then, absolutely everywhere, covering the pcb, and even gooped between components too. I'm not sure what it is, but this is a shocker of a repair effort.

^^ You can see it more clearly here, pools of this stuff between components.

^^ The single factory fit capacitor on the board in place, obviously because it was too difficult for the previous 'repair tech' to unscrew the knob on this potentiometer to access the cap, so they just left it. OR they didn't see it, but the standard so far is that low that I'm inclined to believe the former.

^^ Here's a better picture of the missing via, now that the cap has been removed. I'll bridge the new cap with the snipped capacitor leg, just for a bit of added strength and obviously proper conductivity.

^^ Now that I've removed all of the old caps, it's time to remove the power stage components. The old MOSFET removed here

^^ A small bit of Kapton to protect against any heat gun damage. I've to remove Q13, Q4, and R56 here. Thankfully they're all in a convenient location to remove, and all nice and close to each other.

^^ Power stage components removed. The transistors and resistor are quite small.

^^ That's all of the old components removed. I've given the whole PCB a washdown in 99& IPA here, to remove that unknown goopy liquid, whatever the heck it was.

^^ I'll work in reverse now, so the new power stage components will go in first.

^^ Done. A little more solder than I'd like, but doing this with the naked eye it's harder to be absolutely perfect with the amounts given the tiny sizes. I see here in the zoomed photo that the resistor on the left hand side isn't sitting on the pad perfectly, and the solder has run underneath it. I did test with the multimeter post-fitting though, and it's making the correct connections, so I'm happy to leave it be.

^^ New MOSFET in place, plenty of flux, a healthy amount of solder and a clean with IPA.

^^ New cap in place, put THROUGH the via like it's supposed to be, and a little capacitor leg added in the middle pic to give things a little more strength. It's not very aesthetically pleasing, but it's strong now, and functional according to the multi-meter.

^^ The board is now recapped, and the power stage components are all replaced. I've left the legs on the new components here as you can see (the pcb isn't floating!), just incase I need to reposition any of the caps for correct fitting into the shell. I've been caught out with stuff like this before, and AFTER I'd cut the legs off, giving me precious little scope for adjustment.

^^ Time to close this up, and test it. It's hard to be confident when someone has been in here poking around, who knows that they've done to it.

^^ Ok, back together, ready for the moment of truth...

^^ Okaaaay, it's powering on...that's at least some progress....

^^ Success! It's working perfectly. Look at that passive matrix 90's screen in all its unresponsive glory 😎 (Click the images for full size, the reduced size has introduced some lines on the image which aren't there in person)

^^ The FLIP function, and all of the buttons seem to be working away perfectly too, nice.

^^ All wiped down, and ready for another 30 years service with any luck!