The Roach Motel: NES Restoration Project

Buying AS-IS consoles is like a box of chocolates—you never know what you're gonna get.
In this case, I got a box of roach eggs, turds, and rat piss.
Not even joking, when I cut open the box the aroma of bug spray, death, piss, and sh*t filled the air. I started gagging and immediately closed the box and ran it outside into the garage so it wouldn't stink up my house. This is literally the most disgusting thing I've ever purchased. There was no way I could bring this thing back inside my house, so I took it to the shop I work at to do the cleaning job.

Here she is right outta the box (it may not look so bad, but don't kid yourself.. this thing was god awful)





Here's a few roach eggs


It may be hard to tell from the pic, but that's sticky piss residue. So Gross.

Cracking her open (I gagged and almost vomited 2 times while opening it)

I was pleasantly surprised to see everything there. I was kinda worried that it would be missing some things, but so far it looks OK.



I see loose screws...I wonder if someone was in here at one point.


72 pin connector looks to be OK


Some more roach eggs inside the top cover


Windex and alcohol wasn't gonna work for this level of grotesque dirtiness. I decided to put it in the industrial parts cleaner (aka: solvent tank)


The parts cleaner does a great job of cleaning it. It's actually starting to look really good!
I wish I would've taken a picture of the bottom casing before I washed it, but I didn't get a chance. It was actually the worse part of it. It had a dried up puddle of piss and loads of roach eggs.


Threw the motherboard in the parts cleaner, too. It's rust inhibiting and safe on electronics so there's no issue there. I just washed it where the components are and didn't use the brush so I wouldn't break anything off the board. I scrubbed the bottom of the board and the RF box with the brush really good though.


Soaked the screws too.


Check out all these roach eggs stuck in the drain. So disgusting.


Freshly cleaned. Looking amazing!


Took everything outside and hit it with compressed air to get the rest of the solvent out and then let it dry in the sun for a while, too.

Now it's time to re-assemble the system and test it!

To be continued.....

 

Holy crap that thing was nasty! Hopefully it still works after that mess!

 

BwaHaha, +1 for doing the good work. I bet it still works. Just clean the 72 pin and it will likely boot up.
A while a go I picked up this beauty. I bet it spent the last then years in a shed as it was rusty, filled with dead leaves and spider webs. I just threw everything in the Dishwasher. Motherboard included. Put in a refurbished 72 pin and next thing you know it works like new!


Talking of Roach motels, I fixed a Top loader for a guy who had spilled his beer on the console during national holiday.
He forgot about it and 2 months later he wanted to play the console and it did not work.
Well, turns out the power switch was shot but More importantly I found a lot of new buddies inside.

 

OH MAN! That thing is disgusting, MaxWar! The first one looks like it was submerged in water for a while with all that rust. And those roaches never checked out! lol

Here are a few pics of the parts after they were cleaned:






The solvent tank really did wonders on it.. The shell looks brand new now. I'm gonna finish it up tonight and will post an update if it's working or not. **Fingers crossed**

 

Where did you find that NES? eBay? Offer to send the parts that came with the NES that you didn't pay for but don't mention the parts are dead bugs and such. Let the seller deal with those shit.

 

What kind of solvent did you work with and at what temperature?

 

We are using a system from 'safety Kleen'. It's primarily used for automotive purposes, but it's safe for plastics and is very versatile on what you can use it for. Even with sensitive parts or surfaces as long as you don't leave it in there too long it will be ok. Here is some information on the system
http://www.safety-kleen.com/products-services/parts-cleaning-technologies/aqueous-parts-washers

It's really hot. I can't give you an exact temperature value but think hot coffee. It's hot enough where it will scold your hands.
It does a great job cleaning consoles, you just have to be careful not to scrub any screen printed logos because it will take them off.

 

Thanks for the information! The screen print and labels still intact was what got me interested.

 

You did a great job on this so far! This part washer thing is interesting, never heard about this before. I like to use the dish washer for my own plastic parts, Works wonders, except when there are stickers, haha.
I then use oxy clean in water to de-yellow under the sun when needed. It is not as strong as Retro-bright but can really take off a lot of yellow none the less and its also safer and so much easier.

 

got some before and after photo's?

I am looking at going the ultra sonic cleaner route for cleaning my systems but have more important things to buy first

 

Thanks, Max. I'm glad to finally have a thread going on in this forum and your compliments are encouraging. We use the parts washer all the time at the shop to clean motorcycle parts and it's never harmed any plastic parts as long as you don't soak em for too long so I knew it would be fine on the NES. It's honestly gonna be my new standard cleaning method for really dirty consoles because the results were better than I thought they would be.

I'm planning on experimenting with retr0bright formulas this week and maybe I'll post something up on that, too.
Thanks!

 

More like E-coli NES. I wouldn't even of gone near that. Probably develop some sort of skin condition from that.

 

I really should do some of these.

 

Yeah, I made the mistake of initially handling the console without gloves on, and it took a while for the smell to come off my hands. I felt so dirty for two days and didn't even wanna touch anything else in my home or my girlfriend lol.

 

I just threw that roach filled Top loader right in the dish washer along the dishes I eat in ^^ :3

 

OK, so here is the latest update!

Now it is time to pay some attention to the motherboard before re-assembly. I got out the brasso and polished up all the contacts and ground strips along the sides, and the RF box.


Before


After
Luckily, that rusty spot on the corner of the board came off!


I even polished up the shields!


She's looking real clean now.

So when I got her all re-assembled I was getting nothing but blinking light. The screen was a smooth grey tone so I knew she was working and my problem most likely resided in the 72 pin connector. So I took it off and boiled it.


Before putting it back together I also decided to bend up all the pins in the connector where the game makes contact. They looked a bit flat and figured I'd do it now rather than have to take it all apart again and do it later. This was very time consuming and I didn't take any pics, but I'm sure you're all familiar with the process. So after I got done with the pins, I put it back together and I was getting blinking again, but this time I could see the game load up instead of just a grey screen! SO CLOSE!

So I had to do what I originally didn't want to do: Disable the lockout chip. I was trying to avoid clipping the pin on the chip, so I looked for an alternative way to disable the chip online. I found a page where some guy was saying you could connect pin 4 to ground and it would disable it. So I got out the soldering iron and soldered a wire to pin 4 and attached it to ground. The NES wouldn't even turn on. I'd push the power button and nothing happened. I disconnected the connection to ground and the light was blinking again. So in my experience connecting pin 4 of the lockout chip to ground DOES NOT WORK. I ended up cutting the damn thing

On to the good news.... IT WORKS! IT WORKS PERFECTLY!



I also played Ice Climbers, Mega Man V, and Ninja Gaiden. All worked flawlessly and on the first try.

So it just goes to show that Nintendo products are pretty tough. You can leave one in the garage for years and let roaches use it as a dumping ground and it will still work one day lol. I'm kinda bummed about disabling the lockout chip, because I was trying to keep her all original, but having a dependable NES that I can use is more important to me. I still have a stock one put away, anyway, but I've grown attached to this one because of all the love I've given her.

Since I ended up modding it, I will probably end up installing my NESRGB board in this baby. So stay tuned for that thread in the mod section, whenever I get around to it.

Thanks for following this thread and I hope you enjoyed it.

 

You've done a brilliant job on all this.

Hope you used an old pot to boil the pin connector though.

 

Good job but you could use some better technique to refurbish NES 72 pin connectors. Pin bending is bad.
Brasso is fine to clean the shielding and RF box but I really urge you to use Silvo for contacts, especially if they are gold plated.
I use silvo to refurbish NES connectors and carts. I dont bend any pins and I get consoles that work on the first try 95% of the time.
It is a lot faster and safer than pin bending and you get to experience the NES ZIF Magic like it was back in the days!!

Edit: About your pin 4 to ground thing, it is because you need to lift the pin THEN ground it. Some people will advise against leaving it floating. But generations of modders have just cut the thing off without ever experienced any problem so that is what I do.

 

Thanks, HEX!

Max, I've had nothing but good results with Brasso, however I'll look into Silvo (I had never heard about it before). I didn't apply any Brasso to the cartridge connector at all actually. I scrubbed it in the parts cleaner originally and even scrubbed it with some 99.9% alcohol. So it was clean all along, but the pins were so beat up and flattened that they wouldn't make any contact. I decided to boil it in hopes that the heat would reset the pins to their original position (heat straightening) since heat can expand metal. But after I pulled her out, the pins still visually looked flattened. I probably should've just tried it like that anyway and see how it worked, but I did the sacrilegious 'pin bending' technique. However, in the end it worked and that's what I was going for, but you're right man.. It's good to have the zero force effect when inserting a cartridge. In the end though, it doesn't really matter because I ended up ordering a Blinking Light Win connector to put in it, for long term reliability. But who knows, that thing might end up being a piece of crap, too. I'll write up a review on it with install pics whenever it arrives.

I still have a completely stock NES that I may try to get working reliably with all stock parts and transfer it into this shell because it's in such good shape and doesn't have any cracks or chips, and then put this motherboard in that other shell. I don't know. I think I'll feel too bad to cut the hole for the multiout connector in this shell, so I'm thinking about that.

LOL!! You are right about the pin 4 to ground thing, too. I worked on this thing till about 5am and it was at around 3am when I was trying to ground pin 4. I guess it was a combination of being extremely tired and really wanting to disable the chip without cutting anything, so I just read what I wanted to read. I completely missed the part where the guy said to cut the pin and just saw him run a jumper off pin 4 to ground. So yeah, that was my mistake.

Cheers, buddy!

 

Im always somewhat amused by HEX1GON'S squeamishness ^^
I used too cook my 72 pins in the same pot as my Kraft dinner. But, not together though...
However that was before I discovered boiling the connectors was mostly useless.


Well, awesomeNES. As for Brasso Vs Silvo, they are similar products made by the same company.
Brasso is intended for Hard metals, while Silvo is for Soft metals such as silver and gold.
Brasso is more abrasive and harsher.
If you use brasso on a gold plated connector, you will clean it all right and it will certainly work better, at least initially.
But you will also wear the plating off, making the product more vulnerable in the longer term.
Therefore, use the proper product.

There is this myth about the 72 pin connector pins getting flattened. Looks like you got carried by it. This is not the actual problem.
The original NES connector is meant to be totally loose. The pressure is only exerted when you press the cart down. This system works all right when both the game and the connector are pristine. But add the grime of the ages in the system and it will get increasingly finicky until finally it wont work at all.

When both the connector and the games are deep cleaned, the system will work almost like new. To the amazement of everyone.
It took me many NES refurbishments to come to this but I think my 72 pin refurbishment procedure is pretty good. I should be making a video demo one day.