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

I thought my Megadrive 2 was broken last night. Was disconnecting scarts, reconnecting scarts, trying other consoles to see if the tv was broken. It really had me baffled. There was no picture and really low quality sound.

After about 20 minutes I figured it out - the 32X wasn't plugged in. I am a fool! I don't think it's the first time that's happened either.

Have you ever thought something seemed like it would be a quick fix and then turned out to be a nightmare? The below is a lot longer than it needed to be..but it was a pain and I feel like ranting

This evening I was going through some stuff and found my original Megadrive pad. It's the one that came with my high definition graphics model 1. Unfortunately that console broke within the year, but I held onto the pad.

It has a white start button and red ABC buttons..rather than the usual ones you see over here that have a red start button and white ABC buttons. I'm also pretty sure the cable is longer too.

Anyway, I plugged it in and it had a lot of issues. The B button worked as if it was new. I remembered that I changed that a few years ago. Everything else was knackared though - the ABC buttons required a lot of force. Up and down wouldn't work at all.

Right, I thought..this controller has a hell of a lot of nostalgia attached to it - it must be fixed to work like new.

The buttons can be put aside for a moment as the main issue was the D pad. I have a crap load of Megadrive pads..really really loads. So I thought it was just going to be a matter of switching the D pad rubber out. I tried another pad rubber and it had the same issue - ****e, must be the PCB. Here's where I ran into even more trouble. See all of my other multiple pads are the ones with red start buttons. I though the button colour was the only difference - apparantly not. The PCB in the controller is a different shape.

Then I remembered I had a Generation 1 NTSC Sega Genesis pad - again, different shaped PCB. But success! The button rubber under the D pad in this is much thicker than the PAL one. So I tried this with the original PAL PCB and it worked perfectly. Seems the PCB was fine, just as the PAL D pad rubber is thinner, they seem to go quicker.

Sadly, a thicker D pad rubber meant the controller wouldn't screw closed. So back to the start .

After some head scratching, I figured out that another issue was actually causing the D pad problem. The D pad plastic has some little pins coming out of it that I hadn't originally paid any notice to as the D pad was still in the controller shell - I only took the rubber out. I noticed that they were a little bent out of shape. Straightened them back out and it worked! yay. Thank **** for that!

Now, on to the buttons.

Unfortunately unlike the Snes, Megadrive pad buttons did not last the test of time..I'm sure you're all familiar with this. A handy fix is to open it up and switch the start button rubber for whatever main button you use on the pad (I usually use . As people don't press the start button nearly as much as all the others, the rubber is in good condition.

This lets you play most games, but obviously it would be nice to have all the buttons working perfectly.

Loads of pads = loads of start button rubbers - 'this'll be an easy fix!'

Lots of them worked, but you had to still apply a tiny bit more force than a normal button push. This wasn't good enough!

What followed was me sitting there for an hour, surrounded by open pad and their rubbers, replacing one button at a time and jumping in Sonic.

Eventually I actually managed to find 4 button rubbers that worked like they were new. Couldn't believe it!

So anyway, just though I'd ramble. In the end, I now have my original pad with a perfect D pad and perfect buttons. I usually use one of the smaller 6 button pads (and everyone should really use these, the buttons are great) but it's nice to have this up to scratch again.

Anyway, TLDR version -

• Megadrive 1 & 2 pads have different shaped PCBs..they're not compatible.

(I'm just talking about the physical shape here, electronically it would all be the same)

• The controller shells aren't compatible either. You can't screw a MD 1 pad top half to a MD 2 pad bottom, even though they look identical as the screw holes are in different places to accommodate the different PCBs.

• Sega Genesis pads have a better rubber under the D pad. In the long run, it means that if you want the classic 'Batman' shaped pad, you're probably better off getting a Genesis one. You'll have to replace the button rubbers like I did above...but at least you won't have all that D pad hassle ****e.

• If you're fixing pads, the only things that are compatible between the different types is the button rubbers. And it's a lot harder to find ones that are up to a good standard than I had originally thought. The D pad rubber is also the same for the two different PAL pads.

I've been using those style of controllers so long in a broken state that I just assume that's how they always were...when in fact when they were new they were very responsive. In the end, you should just get one of the later, small 6 button pads. But if you do want to fix an original, then heed the above.

Oh and another thing, use a decent screwdriver! the screws in a good few of the pads were rusted and crumbly. After all that above opening and closing it was inevitable that they would be stripped a bit.

keithgeo wrote: »

anyways took them apart and managed to clean two of them, got all the stickers off (well the girlfriend did!) and they look brand new, one of them has 3 extra buttons, small, over the top of the normal ones and says S-b or something on it instead of "SEGA".

Sounds like a third party controller. Does it look like the official Sega 6 button pad ?



Everyone should be using a pad like this. They really lasted and should be 100% functional (within reason). On the other hand the 3 button ones really won't work well today...unless you had the patience and multiple sacraficial controllers like I did above.

keithgeo wrote: »

Unfortunatly the third controller didnt survive.. Get this, the guy, prob when he was younger, had painted the controller in Tip ex, it was white! not just the case but the buttons, pad everything.. tried to remove it with some scrubbing but it was beyond saving, tried nail remover on it as a last resort but it just took the black paint off the controller too. kept all the rubber bits, buttons and the board and just threw out the case.

That's crazy...I wouldn't even try to save that. Hang onto those button rubbers (especially the start one) and use them to fix another pad if it ever comes along

Found out something else interesting about Megadrive pads (oh for gods sake, shut up about Megadrive pads! :pac:) Apologies if my descriptions are are a bit confusing, I forgot to take photos yet again.

I thought I'd try out the two pads that were boxed away with that MD2 I was going to sell. They looked pretty newish so I thought there might be some good button rubbers to steal. I'm pretty sure this is a end of life cycle Megadrive 2 as it came with two pads. Something that's not normally standard.

Plugged them in and they were absolutely perfect. Like new. They totally put my other scavanged pad to shame.

So I thought I'd steal the innards and put them in my other original nostalgia (!) pad.

Opened it up, and to my suprise, yet ANOTHER alternative pad. This one is even further removed from all my other ones.

The ABC and start buttons are all the same - button rubbers (The ones that wear out)

The D pad is radically different. There's no rubber here at all. In fact I'm pretty sure that unless you abuse the hell out of these pads, they'll work perfectly forever.

The up, down, left, right direction pad on the other controllers just sat on a rubber underneath it. This then pressed the corresponding sections of the PCB. These rubbers wear out, leaving the controller useless.

On these controllers, the up, down, left, right direction pad has a semi spherical back (Could almost describe it as an analog shape). This fits into a corresponding negative inverted spherical shape in the controller body. There's a piece of plastic on the underside with a screw going through which holds in in place.

So as a result, there's no hard up, down, left right like normal digital. The buttons presses would be, as the PCB only has four sections where it makes contact in these positions, but as far as tactility and use goes, the spherical shape results in much easier street fighter type semi circular motions.

By far, the best 3 button Megadrive pad to get. In fact I tried out my 6 button pad after these and the 3 button one was much more comfortable. So the best Megadrive pad in general!

CR2032 batteries are what you need. Buy them on ebay...I don't know if you saw my post about them in another thread here, but Maplin wanted 5.50 each and Peats wanted 3.99 each!

You can just pop the battery off the connector and tape another one back on. I've been doing that years and it's worked grand.

However I have another plan in mind Got some CR2032 battery holders...Enternow is going to solder them into some of my more expensive carts. So I'll just be able to clip batteries in and then out again when they die.

You can do the above with tape, but it would be a hell of a lot nicer if they had proper holders.

I bought them from this Irish seller -

http://cgi.ebay.ie/MAXELL-CR2032-MICRO-LITHIUM-CELL-BATTERIES-3V-x5-/260719945255?pt=UK_ConsumerElectronics_Batteries_SM&hash=item3cb41ea627

€6.00 for 15 including free delivery!

The way I replaced snes batteries you don't need a soldering iron at all. In fact I tried to use an iron but it didn't help.

You'd need an iron if you wanted to remove the battery connectors from the pcb. But the way I was saying you remove the battery from the battery connector with a knife and leave them attached to the pcb. Then you just get some masking tape or duct tape or something and tape the new battery to the old connector. When you are testing it out, just throw the cart around a bit (onto a bed, not the floor!) just to make sure the battery is in securely.

Or go the other route and solder in some battery holders. The ones I got are these. Super cheap and from what I've read they'll fit in Snes carts -

http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130420461737

These ones are even cheaper but I'm not sure if they'll fit.

http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140396427505&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Ah yeah, see the little tag thing there? That's the battery connector I was on about. Rather than remove the battery and the tags from the pcb, only remove the battery from the tags and leave them connected to the pcb.

The tags can get a bit bent out of shape if you're not really slow and careful. Most carts seem to have a thin stamp that breaks easily..but Super Mario World had a bloody massive one. I ended up snapping a tag off the pcb and having to solder it back on again :pac:

Nice work! That really looks the business. The one thing that worried me was finding a holder that was small enough to clear the cart when it's being closed. Fingers crossed the NTSC and Megadrive ones are as straightforward.

By the way, really must get myself one of those wooden dinner trays :pac: