Hello all! Figured I'd document my first repair encounter with a goldstar 3DO, my least favorite console to repair right next to the atari jaguar. The jaguar being the only console I will never ever attempt repairs on again because their hardware design is beyond pitiful, but I digress. My friend knows my dislike of the 3DO, so what does she do? She gets me a broken goldstar 3DO that doesn't read disks. Not even the panasonic 3DO but the notoriously bad goldstar model. BLECH. It has been sitting on my shelf for almost a year and about a week ago I ordered a new laser for it (~30 on ebay). I cracked this sucker open and installed the new laser. Partially reassembled it and what do I get? Nothing. No disk spinning. I figure alright, must have been a defective laser and I thankfully ordered 2 (one for my friend who for some reason ALSO bought herself a broken 3DO... what a weirdo). Popped in the second one and still no dice. I removed the top shielding of the drive to see what was going on in there and was surprised by the result. The laser was moving along the track but the diode was not lighting up to read the disk, hence the disk not spinning. It was then I realized the probable cause of the laser issue: capacitors. Always the 90's electronics and their god damn capacitors. So then I went to the drives boards and took note of all the capacitors that were in there to replace them all... Roughly 10 caps. I have them ordered on mouser and they should be on their way. Cross your fingers! I'll update you guys when the caps arrive. If my theory is incorrect please let me know! I have been banging my head against the wall for a while now and this solution seemed viable. FUN FACT: All the capacitor problems in the late 90's and 00's were due to sabotaged capacitor designs. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
I got the caps yesterday and installed them this evening AND... No dice. In fact now the drive will not respond and I only get the 3do logo for a split second when the unit is on for about 10 seconds. After the ten seconds it seems to power cycle and I get the 3DO logo again then nothing. The access light is on constant green... Not sure what it could be besides maybe more bad caps on the board? Maybe a bad solder joint I made on the drive board? Any insight would be magnificent as I really want this bad boy to work. Thanks all! *EDIT: I went ahead and ordered caps for the main board and power board... Probably for the best anyways. Also tried a reflow of the main IC's to no avail. More later.
