Handheld Hijinx Vol 8 - The Saga Game Gear...
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27-03-2024 4:07pm#1
Preface - that's not a typo in the thread title! This is a LONG thread too...
I happened upon yet another Sega Game Gear, non working, for a decent price....so me being me, yeah, I'll pick it up, chances are it's dodgy caps. It was in pretty rough cosmetic condition also, so a case of nothing to lose here really given the cheap price. This all started last year (I can't even remember the early part of the story, the pics are unfamiliar to me it's that long ago), and finished today. Obviously it was on & off for a lot of time, but it's probably the longest, most frustrating, most annoying project in recent memory....so let me explain why....
^^ The Game Gear in question. I took the pic at an angle here to show how the shell is pretty badly scratched & scuffed.
^^ Same story around the back...this Game Gear has seen some stuff in its day...
^^ Hmm, someone left the batteries in it & they've leaked. Never a good sign...
^^ Time to test, just to confirm non operation...
^^ Ok, as expected, the screen appears dead. I can hear the game running in the background, so the issues here are likely only screen related. Good, these are usually 'easily' fixable. Lets open it up, and get eyes on what's going on inside.
^^ Oooh, not good....there's electrolytic fluid leakage from leaking capacitors & buildups of crud everywhere, over almost every component. Yikes.
^^ This stuff is nasty, it conducts current between components, and spreads its corrosive hand everywhere it can go.
^^ The battery board was hit with spreading corrosive acid also. This poor Game Gear, man, what a rough life. Let's see if we can treat it to a fresh start...
^^ These original capacitors need to go immediately. I've gently heated them here with the hot air station, just to release the adhesive that holds them to the board. Once they're warm, I use a small pliers to gently tilt them up. From here I've much better access to whats left of the solder pads underneath, in order to remove these caps without stressing the pads too much.
^^ With the cap standing vertically, I can add some new flux to the pads, and pass the hot air gun over them. With any luck, the original solder will reach melting point and I'll be able to slide these caps off. Thermal transfer is difficult with so much crud covering the pads, so I'll need to be patient, keep the hot air station moving, and not stress the pads by trying to remove the cap before it's ready to fall off.
^^ A while later, much hot air gunning, much fluxing, and adding fresh solder...and all caps are removed. This mess really needs to be cleaned up now with IPA and q-tips.
^^ Mercifully, all of the existing pads appear to be in tact, and look like they might clean up nicely.
^^ A full, and thorough bath and scrub with IPA to remove all that crud. Then re-fluxing, and braid/wicking of the solder pads for the capacitors....some time later, and somehow they're all brand new looking. There's hope...
^^ The pads come up very very nicely. They're ready now for new capacitors.
^^ A serious layer of IPA over the whole board. This dries off quickly, and the crud will be all gone.
^^ I give the power board a submersive bath in vinegar, followed by a rinse of IPA. This will remove all of the corrosive build up, and the IPA will then dilute & remove the vinegar which in itself can be harmful if left in place.
^^ Power caps desoldered...
^^ The board is now clean, corrosive free, and ready for new caps.
^^ Bizarrely, the sound board appears unaffected by leaking caps. I've never seen a mainboard so bad, and a soundboard with no leakage. Capacitor lottery really, but either way, these original sound caps are going.
^^ Hot air gun again, and all five caps fall off.
^^ Board cleaned with IPA, and is now immaculate.
^^ In terms of replacement capacitors, I've gone with the Retro Six ceramic cap kit. No more leaky mcleakerson here. They're solid state caps, and there's only three values of caps needed for the entire job.
^^ Standard electrolytic capacitors come with the kit for the power board.
^^ Position C11 is first up...
^^ Sorry for the pic quality, the lighting wasn't great here. Basically you solder one of the pads with some solder, then slide the cap on while keeping the solder molten, get the position right, and let the cap set in place. Then simply solder the other pad, and that's all there is to it.
^^ C11 done. A few more to go...
^^ They're lovely neat caps when in place, which means no fiddling with trying to fit electrolytic caps to surface mount pads, as most Game Gear kits will have you do.
^^ C68, it can be awkward to solder this one without burning the blue connector block. You'll also notice I must have let the iron hit the brightness wheel here. It's worse than it looks, I took a micro-file to it and was able to level out the top of it perfectly. The sides were fine thankfully.
^^ Done, same process as all the rest.
^^ These 1uf caps are really quite small.
^^ All done, fully recapped mainboard.
^^ Sound board recapped. Some people say you shouldn't use ceramic caps in the audio circuit, but I remember testing this out before, and I really couldn't hear a difference. I'm happy to have the security of solid state caps in this place, and it's not as if the Game Gear is audiophile grade stuff to begin with.
^^ Power Board recapped here, so that's the whole console cleaned down, and all caps replaced.
^^ Reassembly for testing, hopefully that all does the job...
^^ Ahh, boo. It seems the screen itself is dead in this unit, and it'l require replacement. There was always a chance this would be the outcome. It's ok, I can live with that, time to order up a few bits....
^^ Another full disassembly...
***** So at this stage, I've bought the following: *********************************************
x1 Game Gear Clean Screen Kit (presumably a 3.1 version board because the instructions for fitting prior versions don't exist on the website) - https://retrosix.co.uk/Game-Gear-CleanScreen-Kit-v3-1-IPS-p548367509
x1 Game Gear Replacement Shell (no mention of correct useage with an LCD screen on product page) - https://retrosix.co.uk/Game-Gear-Shell-Cream-White-p231813324
x1 Game Gear Replacement Screen Lens - https://retrosix.co.uk/Game-Gear-Glass-Lens-Black-p141380224
x1 Game Gear Clean Juice Battery & Power Kit - https://retrosix.co.uk/CleanJuice-USB-C-Battery-Pack-Game-Gear-p394380822
x1 Game Gear Clean AMP Duo Stereo Sound Board - https://retrosix.co.uk/Game-Gear-CleanAmp-Duo-Stereo-Audio-Amplifier-p598604394
x1 Set of Game Gear Power and Audio Replacement Interconnects - https://retrosix.co.uk/Game-Gear-Power-Audio-Motherboard-Cables-p475957379
x1 Set of Game Gear Buttons in black - https://retrosix.co.uk/Game-Gear-Buttons-Black-p231806377
x1 Set of Silicon Rubbers for the Dpad & Buttons etc - https://retrosix.co.uk/Game-Gear-Rubbers-c54000905
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^^ Ok, so all the parts arrive a while later, & in order to fit the screen kit I bought, a few things need to be removed. The website wiki doesn't list instructions for anything other than the 3.0 & 3.1 Cleanscreen kits, so I'm assuming because it's only a few weeks later, than I must have the 3.1 board, and I proceed with those instructions. I didn't have a 3.1 board, as we'll see later....ultimately it's my fault I should have been more diligent with the instructions....but the boards REALLY should have the version/revision marked on them, and the instruction page needs to have identifying images between all the different versions. Anyway, at this stage, I've started down the wrong path & have removed some components related to the screen dimming and power generation circuits as per the guide - https://www.retrosix.wiki/cleanscreen-v31-game-gear-va012
^^ The original screen has to be removed (who'd have thought!), so we need to remove the ribbon from the mainboard. This ribbon is soldered on, so we don't want to just rip it out as we risk pulling up pads and traces that way.
^^ Instead, we position the old screen in such a way that it flexes the ribbon upwards. Then we pass the hot air gun over the ribbon pads, and they release and pop up out of the way all on their own.
^^ In a matter of seconds, the old screen is cleanly disconnected from the mainboard.
^^ Nice easy removal.
^^ We then remove the L2 inductor, as this is only ever needed for generating higher voltages for the old CFL tube (now removed.)
^^ Finally we remove these small components, as per the guide.
^^ The Clean Screen kit. It's nicely packaged, and comes with Quick Ribbon solder ribbons (a set for both version Game Gear types.) It's well packaged, and has a quality feel to it.
^^ The Clean Screen itself. This is the driver board for what'll be the new LCD screen. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this is a v2 board, and not a v3.1. So I didn't need to remove the x4 small SMD components shown above for this board.
^^ It comes with 3D Printed brackets which secure the screen on one side, and retain the Clean Screen board on the other side. Four screws holds it in place.
^^ The guide says to manually solder the PClock wire, and not use the ribbon for this.
^^ We also need to provide HSync and VSync, which come from the old screen ribbon connector, and get fed to the Clean Screen Board (though this caused me untold trouble due to a lack of instructions for my board.)
^^ PClock on the Ribbon is then masked off, because we're using our own wire for it.
^^ Left ribbon soldered into place. It's not a beautiful fit, but it's ok. The position on the ribbon for START isn't great in terms of alignment, though it's quite cramped there to be fair.
^^ PClock on the right hand side soldered directly to the board.
^^ Nice ribbon work here I must say. These are quite tiny so it's nice to see it very accurately fitting like this.
^^ That's the board screwed in and almost all connections done. I only need to bring up Hsync and Vsync now from the old ribbon connector...
^^ I went ahead and soldered Hsync to the H pad, and Vsync to the V pad.....which isn't correct, see further down.
^^ Screen slides into place, and we're almost done (!)
^^ While we're this deep in, let's proceed with fitting all the rest of the parts. This is the Clean Amp Duo, it's a full replacement sound board designed to accommodate stereo sound. Sure, the Game Gear only had Mono right? Nope, the headphone jack offered stereo sound, so with this board, we'll have stereo from the main unit without using headphones.
^^ Nicely designed board, again, a quality feel to it.
^^ Replacement power/sound interconnects. The old ones tend to cause issues with the Clean Amp when used with higher volumes, they're old, twisted, and worn out...these new ones have a much nicer electrical pathway.
^^ We need to remove the old interconnects, beginning here with this power connector.
^^ Out with the old...
^^ ...and in with the new.
^^ Rinse and repeat for the sound interconnect.
^^ It's also recommended to run a bypass wire (the small blue wire seen at the top here.) This bypasses the audio trace on the mainboard which is apparently poorly designed (it's prone to signal loss, changes in impedance, and is very indirect in order to account for the gap in the pcb where the screen goes. This bypass wire allows a much better electrical path things to work better.
^^ I have a thing for white handhelds, and this one looked nice on the storefront. It's not a 'brilliant white' which I'd have liked, but is a more cream-white. Still, it looks well, and should look quite nice when the buttons, screen, and lens are all in place later on.
^^ New buttons, dpad, silicon pads, and screw set.
^^ Stereo speakers fit into place. There's an audio extension cable in the kit to allow for the further distance the now-stereo speaker has to travel.
^^ Buttons, Dpad, and silicon pads all in place...
^^ Screen lens in place....it's looking better now...
^^ This is the Clean Juice board. A complete replacement power regulation and delivery board. You can see there's two connectors for two rechargeable battery packs we'll fit soon.
^^ Mainboard slots into place in the new shell. It's not a great fit all things considered, there's some resistance to it that I can't quite see from the topside....but we'll find out later what it was.
^^ The Clean Juice Battery Packs, these slot into where the battery compartments are in the shell, and route up to the Clean Juice board which is responsible for also charging them.
^^ In order to fit them, we need to remove the battery springs and the associated cabling.
^^ Done.
^^ Battery packs installed, and cabling for them routed neatly to the Clean Juice.
^^ The old link port cover...
^^ The new link port cover!
^^ Ok, time for its inaugural test run...fingers crossed...
Post edited by Inviere on2
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^^ aaaannnnd....nothing. The screen lights up, and dims via the wheel as it should, but there's no image on screen. The game runs with audio, but the image is completely missing.
^^ I spend hours, hours fault finding, reflowing the ribbons, continuity testing, looking for schematics, voltage testing, etc (the left most resistor even fell off at this point due to being exposed to soldering iron heat, it's back on here but its upside down which doesn't affect its operation.)
^^ Eventually the ribbon melts on me, they're not great durability wise...more of a one-and-done component really, and I'm forced to remove the ribbon and bypass everything manually as can be seen here with the blue spaghetti.
*** The real kicker though, is that after trawling the website, the wiki, youtube, and eventually Discord....it turns out that Hsync and Vsync are NOT supposed to be soldered to the H and V pads respectively, but instead to the DAT4 and DAT5 pads on the CleanScreen board. Talk about obtuse, I'm not taking the blame on that one, that really needed to be made clean somewhere other than a kind soul on Discord filling me in. Anyway, the damage is done now, the ribbon is useless, and I've rewired everything up manually. After an out-of-shell test, I confirmed the screen is working. Let me put it all together now to get a photo of it working...
^^ Both halves poised together...
^^ Shell screwed together....almost there now....
^^ Lol, an actual lol happened here, because if it didn't, I'd have put my head through the Game Gear by now. Sometimes, you just have to laugh. Remember that resistance I felt earlier when putting the mainboard into the new shell? Yeah, it turns out that you've to cut a particular screw post out of the new shell because it interferes with the LCD (the screw post accommodates use with the original screen, not a replacement lcd.) Now, wouldn't that have been a nice mention on the product page, or the cleanscreen instructions, or, well, anywhere?? Ok maybe I should have investigated the cause of the resistance further, but you can't see it when the mainboard is down, and while everything does sort of fit, it also doesn't fit well enough to survive screwing together. I'll take the blame on that one, but I feel its justified to ask for this to be highlighted somewhere when buying the shell/cleanscreen kit.
This screen is destroyed. At this stage I've had enough of this crap, and I reorder a whole new Clean Screen Board and replacement Screen, at least this time I know I'll get a 3.1 and all of the published instructions will be relevant. Really pissed off at this stage.
^^ The Clean Screen 3.1 board, now installed and all cabling done. Time to test...
...and testing shows....a black screen. Nothing, no image at all. The backlight works, the game is running but no image. This job feels like a hidden camera show at this point, surely Jeremy Beadle is about to jump out and tell me I've been framed at any minute now??
Well, queue hours more diagnosing, fault finding, reflowing, continuity checking, researching the internet/youtube/retrosix wiki. Nothing, no info anywhere on this matter at all. Well, except Discord again. We're weeks later now, and another kind soul informs me, after I'd reached out for help Princess Leia style, that there were some batches of 3.1 Clean Screen boards which left production without being programmed. I'm sorry to curse, but FFS, I've lost countless hours on this job now due to a catalogue of issues, some my fault, and some not. This one isn't on me. This is a quality control issue. I get in touch with Luke from Retro Six, and he issues me a replacement Clean Screen board. This will be the third one going in (the original v2, the un-programmed v3.1, and then this replacement 3.1)...
^^ This brings us up to today. The replacement Clean Screen in hand, time to install it.
^^ The second set of ribbons from Clean Screen #2 has now perished due to testing, reflowing, and checking. So this needs to come out...
^^ Of course, it took a pad with it it. So that'll need to be repaired also. It comes down from the CPU above, so a small jumper wire will do the job.
^^ Please let this one work...
^^ Installed into place...
^^ I've no ribbon for this Clean Screen, so it'll be a manual install....great....all pads tinned...
^^ Missing pad bypassed...
^^ Also, one of the tiny resistors succumbed to the constant soldering/desoldering of ribbons, and showed infinite resistance on the multimeter. Thankfully I've got a donor Game Gear here I can steal one from.
^^ I'll take this resistor here as it's the easiest one to get to, and they're all the same values...
^^ See it??
^^ Yeah, it's there alright. These are TINY.
^^ And now it's installed into place.
^^ Manual install done. This one is nice and neat, because I know it'll be permanent.
^^ The right side ribbon bottom end is chewed, but I need a section of the top for the Csync connection. The ribbon brings the Csync from the mainboard to the Clean Screen, but I can't tell WHERE on the clean screen the Csync goes to (maybe it's not even needed?), so I can't run a manual wire bypass. I'll cut the ribbon, and use the top half to do the job, as that's as much of it as I need.
^^ Done. Csync now fed to the Clean Screen via the ribbon snipping.
^^ Screen fed into place....please god let this work...
^^ Time to test...
^^ Oh thank god....thank god....thank god. I'm sick to my teeth of working on this, and the components aren't going to stand up to any more desoldering. The image scaling for embedding in the thread here is causing the banding-esque blotches, in person, it's crystal clear.
^^ Glorious. There's stereo sound, and crisp, clear visuals.
^^ There's several display modes to choose from. Raw pixels...
^^ Horizontal scanlines...
^^ Vertical scanlines, more akin to the natural Game Gear look.
^^ Grid effect.
These are all heavily zoomed in, and look cack on the thread. To the natural eye, they all look quite nice. I'll prob stick with the vertical scanlines which best recreates the natural Game Gear look. Unfortunately though, on the current version of the Clean Screen, they don't persist reboots 😣
^^ Lets finish this job off in style. An Everdrive GG X7....top o' the line.
^^ I went for the clear model, so it wasn't as noticeable in the shell.
^^ A branded Micro SD card.
^^ I like to use Disk Part to fully clean any new cards.
^^ Time to format...FAT32 is the order of the day...
^^ Done. Ready for files...
^^ Everdrive OS transferred over to the card.
^^ Time to transfer all of the legally owned Game Gear backups over to the card now....
^^ I personally sorted them all neatly and into an organised fashion like so...
^^ Almost there....almost....there...
^^ Looks great, not too noticeable at all...
^^ Power on test seems to go ok...
^^ Diagnostics check out...
^^ Oh sweet lord, it works....it's all working...blurry pic, but that's because of the sheer speed of Sonic & Robotnik 😊
^^ Final check....
^^ Boom, gtfi-there. To say I'm happy here is an understatement. I'm happy it's over, I'm happy it all works, I'm happy I've a lovely looking working Game Gear with a modern screen and an Everdrive.....I'm just happy...happy.....happy....
Peace Out!
Post edited by Inviere on13 -
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This job was actually cursed. I woke up yesterday morning to a washing machine that was tripping the RCD (that caused my Unraid server to initiate a 28hour parity check by the way.) I opened the machine up and seen a hose had come off the back of the drum, so I got that back on....then set about with the final sections of the above thread.
Finished the repair as shown, went to post the thread....
^^ The final sting in the tail....had to split the thread up into two, which causes weird spacing issues etc.
In light of the washing machine fiasco, I've gone ahead and bought a UPS for the server. Been putting it off way too long.
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One final addition I had forgotten to show...
^^ The charging port is a lovely USB-C port, that comes with a 3D Printed retainer. Perfect fit.
^^ Amber charging light is visible through the shell when the Clean Juice is charging the batteries...
^^ The light goes off then when the batteries are fully charged.
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