The Nintendo Virtual Boy - Very Real Surgery
-
25-03-2024 3:45pm#1
I finally got a few hours spare today to be able to concentrate on a big repair. @Quigs Snr sent me his Virtual Boy to have a look at, and it has been sitting in the press for a few weeks waiting on me to give it some attention - well today's the day! The problem is the usual issue with these, dead screens. The system runs and plays sound, but the all important visuals are completely absent. Let's take a look...
^^ The Virtual Boy. There's a lot that has been said about it, but whatever your feelings on it, it's a unique and important piece of Nintendo history.
^^ In terms of the visuals, it's as dead as a door nail.
^^ On the underside, there are x8 security screws to remove before we can have a look inside. x4 are easy to access, but the other x4, are quite deeply seated...
^^ ...so deeply seated, that neither of my screwdrivers will reach down to release the screws. Balls, defeated at the first hurdle!
^^ Looking in my multi-bit set, I see there's an extension, and a smaller gamebit piece. However, the extension only fits the larger diameter screwdriver...so a mix/match of the two, and I might be in luck...
^^ Boom, nice one, it reaches.
^^ We're in. Quite clean, neat and tidy...nice job Nintendo!
^^ The offending parts on show here. The ribbons exhibit two problems. Often they'll appear visually ok, but have lost contact with the lens pcb (that's the story in this case.) Or, the ribbon itself will show signs of pitting all along the tracks within, but these ribbons look fine. Either way, they've got to go...
^^ Not relevant here, but an interesting view of the mirrors used to create the three dimensional affect here.
^^ The Virtual Ribbon Kit, in all of its glory. This is a complete, and permanent replacement kit for the Virtual Boy ribbon cables. It's beautifully designed, and the quality of the parts and components is exceptionally good. The Virtual Ribbon purple pcb gets fitted with one of the new ribbon connectors, then an led and a resistor, and then it's soldered to the existing LCD PCB, and finally joined to the Virtual Boy with the new ribbons. Let's have a look...
^^ Two screws, and the original LCB pcb is removed. The old ribbon cable is still attached with some white silicon that we've to cut through...
^^ Once we cut through this silicon, we should be able to peel the ribbon away from the old pcb
^^ Incision made...
^^ And voila, the old ribbon peels away extremely easily from the pcb. It's obviously really badly bonded at this stage in time, and no force at all was needed to remove it. Importantly, you can see that the connectors on the pcb are still layered in adhesive that has long since set.
^^ The trick therefore, is to burn away this old adhesive, while tinning the connectors at the same time...
^^ I bought a tube of this flux specifically for this job, as it'll come into play later on when things get tricky. For now, we'll apply it over the old adhesive...
^^ Flux in place, I'm now ready to pass my soldering iron over the adhesive and pins. This will burn away/melt the adhesive, and it'll tin the pins at the same time.
^^ Done. That worked splendidly well. The fumes though, good god....bleugh....
^^ Due to the process involved, solder will glob in these two places. We need to wick this away as it'll prevent the Virtual Ribbon pcb from sitting flat.
^^ A pass with some wick, and the globs are done. Apologies the orientation keeps flipping, I tend to use the soldering iron in my left hand a lot!
^^ Now that the original lens pcb has been prepped, we're ready to assemble the Virtual Ribbon kit.
^^ Large solder pad on the right hand side is now prepped with solder...
^^ That prepped pad needs to meet with the underside of the connector where there's a small tab.
^^ Right hand side done, and the pins are pads are perfectly aligned....I'm quite happy with that alignment.
^^ A closer look. This should mean we've no headaches later on when we go to solder up these pins.
^^ Left side large pad now soldered to the ribbon connector.
^^ A generous passing of flux over the pins, and we're ready to drag solder this together...
^^ Slightly too much solder used, but the magnification makes it look like way too much. It's actually perfect to the eye, no bridges, and good solid joins.
^^ Next up, we need to fit the LED and the Resistor. Yes they are there, that's a screw for scale....these parts are absolutely tiny, and I mean properly tiny...
^^ Squint and you'll see them!
^^ Dreadful pic, apologies. I actually forgot to take a proper picture of them so this is a cropping of a later pic. Resistor and Diode in place. The Diode is a diagnostic LED, that lights up Red if all is good with the connections.
^^ The optional EZ Mount. This will not only protect the original LCD lens during the work, but it'll also align the Virtual Ribbon perfectly to the original LCD pcb while soldering them together. I'd strongly recommend adding this to anyone buying this kit, as it's an optional extra.
^^ Ok, back to it, and the most difficult and tricky part awaits....soldering the old LCD pcb to the Virtual Ribbon pcb. A generous helping of flux is applied here to the original pins that we tinned earlier...
The arrow on the left shows the EZ mount covering up the LCD array. The right most arrows show what we're doing here...we've to solder the topside pins and the original pins that are exposed at the bottom. The Virtual Ribbon PCB pins are on both sides of the pcb, so in theory by soldering the exposed pins on the bottom here, the solder should flow between the two boards are make the proper connection. The flux I used is a no clean flux obviously, because once this is done we won't be able to clean it from between the boards, and it's also nice and tacky. The other flux I have is no clean liquid flux, and the viscosity means it'd just run off the board.
^^ All done. So nice and neat, but what I can't show you here via a picture, is how many passes with the iron, cleaning with IPA, checking continuity with the meter, no connection, reflux, reflow, reclean, recheck cycles I had to do. This took quite a while, but eventually, there was perfect continuity between pins top and bottom.
^^ Well, that's one done....time to do it all again with the other lens. Obviously there's no need to show this all over again, the process is identical.
^^ And, boom. Both Virtual Ribbon PCB's are done. Time to reassemble and test.
^^ Screwed back into place.
^^ Two brand new, fresh and durable ribbons to use.
^^ Ribbon in place. The obvious mis-alignment here is a known thing, it relates to the manufacturing of the connectors. It's not a problem, and problems tend to arise when one tries to straighten/align the ribbon so it's looks visually better - in that case, I'm happy to leave it exactly like this, it looks wrong, but connectivity wise, it's perfect.
^^ The other end of the ribbon then connects directly into the Virtual Boy motherboard.
^^ Lenses slid back into place. The plastic on these lenses is quite brittle, and there's a few pieces of them rattling around inside the Virtual Boy. Nothing is chipped on any visual parts of the lenses, it's only the sides of them that you cant see. They still slide and lock into place perfectly, so no issue here.
^^ The offending pieces. There's one or two more in there, but I'm reluctant to rattle the whole thing when it's open and loose, it's perfectly fine as it.
^^ Ok, lets assume the position and test this puppy out...
^^ Yuus! It works, and it works perfectly. There's a really nice image from the screens. It's nigh on impossible to get a decent picture with my phone, but you can see both left and right screens are now displaying perfectly.
^^ Red Alarm, this game alone has made me want a Virtual Boy. Thanks for that Quigs, I now want a PC Engine GT and the Virtual Boy....thanks a lot man...
^^ A Beauty shot to close. Enjoy it Quigs, it was an interesting and fun repair. I'd only ever seen the videos of this kit, so it was nice to get some first hand experience doing it!
Post edited by Inviere on12
Comments
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
