I replaced the PS1 laser assembly late last year with aliexpress well reviewed new replacements. They were 25 euro each, but are very fussy in what they read. So junk basically.
In the past, I ended up buying cheap (at the time) PSOne consoles which seemed to have easier lifes than PS1 consoles. I think there is only one type of PSOne laser unit but a few for the original consoles, so which PS1 units can take a PSOne unit you'd need to research. For that authentic'ness (turns out, you need to due to a slightly different shape), you can remove the grey laser unit cover and use the PS1 cover :)
Have any of you gents had any luck recently replaced the laser in a PS1? If so, got a link to where you bought it?
I have a PS1 that isn't reading games, fiddled about with the laser pot but it's definitely on the way out.
All of the options available online look to be aliexpress specials..which I imagine would be quite poor in quality.
Edit - after a bit of reading around it looks like all replacement laser units are indeed junk. Apparently regreasing the tracks/rail on the unit might actually work. Will give that a go.
I think the way that it worked last time was that I marked it as for service and repair when I sent it over so that he wouldn't get charged.
He did he repair and filled out the appropriate info on the invoice including UK vat paid.
Then when I got it back I had to pay local taxes on it.
Can get a bit expensive but worth it to get it to an expert.
He's awaiting new flyback stock so I'll have to hit him up again in a few weeks.
He's also flabbergasted as to why removing the vga cable would have caused the flyback to go kaput as all that should have happened is that the screen should have just auto switched from 33khz back to the default of 15khz.
If I didn't love that machine so much I'd be selling it at this stage 🤣
Can I ask how does it work sending to grant now with brexit?
I've been using a Spanish company but it's quite expensive.
So curiosity finally got the better of me and I got in behind the Blast City and undid the CRT maintenance hatch and I figured out what the issue is. There's arcing directly at the bottom of the flyback. Looks like the flyback is toast. Again, no idea how disconnecting the VGA cable would have caused this to happen. Now, do I send it back over to grant for another repair or do I try to see if I can get a suitable flyback replacement and attempt the repair myself?
edit I've just sent a message to Gunblade over on UkVac to see if he'll take a crack at it. UUUUUUGH. People aren't kidding when they say that these Wei Ya chassis are shite lol. I still don't understand why disconnecting a VGA cable would cause such an issue. I've asked him as much. I guess I'll see what he says.
The offer stands man, that looks rough 😕
Ah man don't worry about it! Absolutely everything you've ever modded for me still works 100%. Even mad stuff like that home made Nomad charger for the battery pack.
I think this was one of the first things and it might actually have been up to 15 years ago. So could just be natural entropy from the caps being old again.
It's gas when you start thinking about 'new' mods and fixes you had done approaching the age the original replaced components were.
Time stops for no man!
Jesus, was that my work before I learned to properly solder?? I remember doing a GG for you a long time back, and bypassing a trace on the sound board I think (along with caps).
If that was my work, buy a ceramic cap kit for it and get it back to me, I'll redo it on the house.
I've a Gamegear that was recapped ten or twelve years ago. It does that thing now when you switch it on it comes on for a second and then turns off.
Did a bit of googling to see what the solution might be and a guy had some luck rechecking the caps and giving them a bit of a clean.
So I opened her up and... Holy moly, corrosion town!
Really bad on the audio board. I managed to clean it all off and the traces seemed fine. (Pic below is pre cleaning)
Still no booting.
Turned my eye to the power part of the board and found the problem. Every single cap here has leaked to some degree. Quite a few traces destroyed.
Can really see some of the trace damage here at R52 and R42.
Edit - I checked against some main board scans and it looks to just be that R52 trace thats gone.
The caps themselves all actually look fine. No bulging or anything. Seems they were lying flat and touching the PCB - where they made contact with the board caused corrosion.
Going to keep cleaning it up and see what I can do. It's just a random Gamegear I picked up many moons ago so should make a good sacrificial lamb to test out my new iron!
I was actually looking at that very site earlier believe it or not. If the converter cable doesn't work or isn't suitable for whatever reason I'll just recap the original PSU.
For those with more experience than I: can I discharge the caps by shorting the legs together?
I don't want to accidentally shock myself when removing the original caps.
Suggestion that ATX conversion will do it, but they aren't adjustable if ever needed - info.
I think I replaced the PSU fan in my Naomi cab when I got it, it was super noisey (along with the mainboard system fan and *PU fans)
Speaking of the Naomi Driving Cab, turns out the Sega Sun PSU won't power up my Naomi board by itself as it only seems to be outputting 9v on the 12v rail. 3.3v and 5v are fine. I'm not finding an adjustment pot for the 12v. I assume that the only way to sort it out is to recap the entire thing, yeah? I've gone ahead and ordered an ATX to JVS PSU adapter cable and will use an old ATX PSU that I have knocking about to power the NAOMI but I won't get that until well in the new year as the Ebay shop that I bought it from is off until the new year.
Speaking of dielectric grease, is this suitable for a crt?
https://amzn.eu/d/7VvTAfp
Ohh and regarding the blast. You can get a jamma loom for it and I do have one, you just need an adapter to adapt the db-16 adapter into jamma.
You don't need a complicated device to do this either as the video signals are pretty much the same as VGA. 31khz jamma is just 480p at 60 FPS. The video signal is the same you just need to change the clock source with an adapter and use something like a pass through adapter to inject it into the jamma loom, basically.
The tube definitely isn't cracked and I didn't have both monitors hooked up at the same time. All I had done was disconnect the vga from the Naomi board and it started cracking.
I was basically trying to use the blast's PSU to power up the Naomi board itself as the Naomi physical machine's DC PSU isn't outputting 12v on that rail for some reason.
No idea why though, it either needs an adjustment, a cap kit or a replacement.
It never rains it **** pours 🤣
I *will* turn my living room into MrVestek's Arcade even if it kills me!
... But yeah I'll investigate the blast properly at the weekend because it just has me too annoyed to want to go near it right now.
Oh no way? I didn't realise blasts weren't Jamma compatible - I see they're either JVS or VGA only. That's annoying.
I wonder did something on your blast chassis short due to having the second monitor connect via VGA. Might be worth having a look at the chassis for any scorch marks or popped components.
Might also be worth turning the lights off and seeing if you can see visible arcing.
If it was just the anode coming lose that would be visible straight away.
Another worry is the tube being cracked, hopefully that's not it!
Well that wouldn't work anyway because the chassis in this doesn't take the video feed from jamma, only vga.
The monitor displays a picture but it's gone hazy like the contrast has gone full blast.
I have a working theory though based on nothing.
I'm thinking that the vga cable may have touched off of the anode cap cabling and dislodged it somehow.
I'm hoping that's all it is anyway. I don't really want to have to send this board over to Grant again.
Have you tried removing all your Frankenstein (!) setup and just plugging a regular jamma board into the jamma harness to see if anything appears on the Blast monitor?
Can somebody here tell me how I managed to **** up the screen in my Blast City's screen AGAIN by simply removing a VGA cable whilst it was on?
Now it's constantly arcing. I've spent all day repainting bits for the Naomi for a Crazy Taxi colour scheme and even managed to fix the neck board on the Naomi's crt but how... HOW did I cause this to happen?!
I'm properly fucked off now.
Yep, Tomlov was a godsend for this one. Fantastic piece of kit, chuffed with it.
Hot air definitely not, the moving air mass would blow these parts away like dust. Some of the mod components are so so small, literally like a granules of sugar (resistors and capacitors.) Solder paste possibly, but again with the tiny size here, it'd get messy. What worked was surface tension of liquid flux, a well cleaned and tinned needle tip on the iron, and the magnification.
I'll finish it off at some stage and throw a thread up. It really wasn't a difficult job with the right gear, but when you're not sure where you went wrong amid notable hardware and software modifications, and all you have is a black screen, it can seem more difficult than it actually is. This one's on me though, I should have traced out the connections really, but got too deep in and got flustered with the whole thing.
Congrats! Did you use the Tomlov Digital Microscope?
Also would be easier to use solder paste and hot air for the tiny stuff?
Took on a challenging mod over the summer just gone (challenging in the sense of it being microscope level soldering), and it beat me….I black screened the console. Not giving up, I bought another one…and done the exact same thing. Frustrating, as my soldering was apparently very good (as mentioned by me giving pics of the installation to the designer of the mod), so I never knew if it was my error, or an error in the software part of the mod etc. Really annoyed me, it's one thing failing, but turning working machines into non working machines really pisses me off. I didn't pick a soldering up for a good few weeks after that.
Fast forward to today, and I see the mod creator giving another user some advice on trouble shooting. He mentioned a particular trace to check, and for me, that was a kick start to revisit the mod and check that trace on mine. What do you know, no continuity. My soldering looked ok under the microscope, and these points being tiny (as in not do-able without a scope of some kind) I never wanted to put too much heat through the tiny points. So I reflowed the connection there under the scope, and it took me a few goes even with ample flux, but it eventually appeared to flow correctly. Continuity now showing on the meter, I power the machine up, and what do you know, the damn thing works now.
Chuffed is an understatement. This one sat on my mind for literally weeks, wondering what the heck I'd done wrong, was it hardware, was it software, was it a bridge somewhere, etc. I'll go back to it soon enough now and finish it off properly!
Is the PS4 retro yet? 😜
Amazing portable mod here:
https://youtu.be/bJSLscnFd_M
Some new updates to the Sega Club Kart Prize thread:
Amiga 600 had a broken disk drive head so decided to get a Gotek-On-Pills floppy emulator for it, they're a little more expensive than a regular gotek but have support for OSD & keyboard control built in.
Typical with these things, fired it up to discover no audio :(
Thankfully finding the culprit was fairly simple, burnt opamp was a good clue..
Lash in a new one and swap out the caps for SMD ones, was recapped when I got it but ah they didn't look correct. Probably could have fitted the opamp a bit straighter but works well enough :)
The gotek is great, nice to be able to use the keyboard to cycle thru the list of ADF's. The OSD does stay on a bit too long for my liking, need to take a look to see if its configurable or have to resort to firmware tweaks.
Haven't fixed anything in absolutely ages, even my Hakko was plugged out been so long since I'd used it. Hopefully the Saab clutch will be as easy :)
Oh nice one! VuPlex was one of the other products that came up when I was searching for something to use, will check it out 👍️
Novus is good stuff alright. If you get yourself some VuPlex and polish and buff that acrylic you will see an even bigger improvement (as well as adding a layer of protection to it).
I always make sure I have a good amount of Novus, VuPlex and 303 protectant as there's always something that needs one of them in the retro collection.
Haha! I was thinking exactly the same thing. Can't help but think of mint when you see blue specks in white like that.
Have any of you guys ever tried Novus acrylic and plastic scratch remover? It's fantastic stuff.
I've had an old marquee that came with one of my cabinets aeons ago and it's always been scratched to bits. It's ancient so to be expected.
The scratches were actually making the light refract and really impact the clarity.
Bought myself one of these kits:
Novus Scratch Removal Kit
It's a three stage kit. First you apply the deep scratch remover, than a fine scratch remover and finally a buff/sealing coat at the end.
There are still some deep scratches but it's dramatically improved the clarity.
You can really see the light spreading out through the whole marquee rather than getting trapped in all those scratches under the artwork in the first photo.
Been looking around the house now to see if there's anything else I can use it on 😁
I haven't seen blue speckled filament like that before!
Brings a whole different meaning to looking minty fresh! 😁
