Arcade & Retro Repairs & Mods, all new recipe, with no added MSG...

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)

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!

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!

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.

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 🤣

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 :)

Thanks guys - I'd actually forgotten just how cheap you can buy them on ebay. Managed to nab a working later version model SCPH 7502 which apparently Sony fixed some of the FMV stuttering and laser issues with.

Was only €28 delivered from an Irish seller so practically the same as I was going to spend on the replacement drive!

I'll take it off your hands, I don't see any other solutions than that really....

Good find, the writeup that's from is exactly what I'm experiencing.

I think I'll pop it open again and try a q tip with IPA at a right angle, didn't occur to me to do it like that. Might actually yeild better results.

I think I may be onto something here, I had a good look over everything last night and it looks like one of the ribbon cables is a bit damaged.

two of the copper pins are actually lifting from the top of the cable. They're still attached, but when you plug the cable out they've actually folded backwards while being inserted, so potentially not making a connection (or even shorting the pins next to them).

This cable in particular sends power to the spindle motor. It's the ribbon on the left here. Pin 1 and pin four are impacted.

Even better, unlike the gold ribbon cable that connects to the read heads (which is 100% fine), this is a very generic replacable part.

Looks very similar to this;

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175914782970?var=475337141661&gQT=1

I'll see if I can read the specs from the cable in there. Would be fantastic if it was the same as the above. The one in the console is actually ridiculously short too so would be great to get a replacement with a bit more slack.

It's highly possible when I stick the new cable in it'll fire up the spindle motor and read the disk…

That's really great to hear. So from what I gather, the things to look out for are pin count, pitch of the pins .. what's the story with the direction? Do they only send data one way?

Thanks man! Thats what I was thinking alright, it just looks to be connecting 11 pins from the main board to the disk drive.

Can see the damage here. Pin 1 and 4 have definitely come away.

Cable specs ahoy;

Seems I'm looking for a 1mm pitch, 11 pin 15cm jobbie. Might try to find a 20cm one for some wiggle room.

Edit - ordered three from China. We shall revisit this in a month!

Oh that looks handy, is the firmware available I wonder?

I did try to get the Dreamcast working with my jammacon but could never get the maplebus figured out :(

^^ My current project, and it's putting up a bit of a fight. Unusual to see Rubycons go like this...

Jesus! what unholy mess is that 😯 definitely got your work cut out there.

Man, you've had some seriously bad luck with your cabinets the last while. That really sucks. Particularly after putting the effort in to recap the PSU.

At least it's firing up though so that's a major hurdle passed. I'd imagine that lack of green is just something up with the chassis. Shame you didn't send that one off to Grant with the blast one! :(