Post everytime you buy something game related and your unbelievable deals

I bought this HDMI Super Famicom clone. Some of the parts seem to be interchangeable with a real SFC. I'm thinking of taking the cartridge slot door and the surrounding gray piece and swapping it into the real SFC so I can play US carts without an adapter. I wish they would just sell those pieces as a replacement kit.

 

I bought one of those Chinese NES Classic clones on eBay that was broken for 12 bucks shipped. The controller design is absolutely horrendous inside where the PCB is mounted by these extremely skinny/cheap plastic posts that broke off on both controllers. I just used some hot glue to secure the board and it's working again. Just a NES on a chip system, ugly GUI and lots of games are just hacks, junk and wouldn't recommend at all, maybe at the price I paid for something to take to a party or something.

 

Quite a few modern pick ups this time plus some retro stuff and many view pictures.

 

And now we wait... Stoked to try these things out, been a CD-R purist and avoided them but tired of the drive noise knowing these are being cranked out for next to nothing from Guangdong. (not interested in ethic debates, I would have never bought it otherwise due to the wait, price and scalpers so convenience wins; I don't follow the scene or know anything about this stuff, just posting something new I bought)

 

Finally picked up a Game Gear, original screen looks like absolute trash even after new capacitors. I'll have to fix that.

 

I'm going to be honest, I didn't even read the manual before I started to do this and it was so more complex than I thought it'd be and would not recommend this to anyone who is not very skilled. I used hot air to remove/replace the resistors/capacitors/transistors, how people even do this with only a soldering iron is impressive. Still need to get the glass lens put on and clean the console and will post an update.

The resistors with "0" marked on them is an example of components that needed to swapped. The entire mod took an hour but I think if I did it again it would take 30 minutes or less.







The difference is incredible, but I'm 95% sure the lens is plastic. I desoldered the expansion port, going to try to make the VGA port fit somehow instead of out of the bottom.

 

SMD soldering with a soldering iron? No thanks...

 

I think they drop a glob of solder on the components to bridge it and heat both pads at the same time, then it "sticks" to the iron and then they clean it (component) off the tip I've seen some big "retro modder" guy showing others awhile back. $50 on a hot air station makes you feel like an idiot for ever trying to do SMD work without it, it's night and day.

 

Agreed, hot air makes so much sense. In fact I actually enjoy doing hot air soldering, it's so easy and it's kind of satisfying. Watching for the solder to change, and just picking up the component with ease. Drop the new one on, a bit of heat again, and a little love tap to seat it.
While iron soldering isn't that bad, I just don't find it quite as fun cause there's always a chance of something being a pain in the ass. 3rd pair of hands help, but still can be a pain when things don't co-operate.

 

Probably should have posted all this somewhere else, but here is the VGA-out. Just need to file the expansion port out a bit, but haven't done anything like that before so want to be sure it's super clean.

 

"Untested" FZ-10 3DO

Going to be a rough one boys.



I knew I was in for a bad time once I saw all the rusted/corroded screws





First attempt at a cleaning



Cleaned it pretty good, but still no audio or video. It'll spin the disc at least now and the LED is green when you flip the lid switch.

This may be the reason for why I need to finally buy a real microscope, right..? I can't just let this 3DO stay dead.

/blog

 

Well, it seems you can still get cheap SFC games in Japan. I was looking for some carts in nice condition to use to replace the yellowed backs on some of mine and found these:



They are mostly sports games that are either ROM only or ROM+SRAM - but the one in the corner (Shining Scorpion) is a SA-1 game - and I think getting one of those for 108 yen in 2019 is a pretty good deal.