Game Gear Cap Kit

[TmEE]

Soooooooo... Does this mean I should bend the ends of the legs on the caps a tiny bit so there's more for the solder to contact?

the stock caps usually leave their legs behind when you try to pull them off... then you either sodler the pins off or pull them off also... in case of soldering, you'll smell rotting fish... its very unpleasant... so when you have the cap off with its pins also, you solder a new one in, just see if you have polarity correct, there's a + marking for positive pin on the board.

[Guntz]

Wait, so is it the stuff that caps leak that smells horrible when exposed to high heat or is it the caps themselves?

[TmEE]

only when things are heated

[Guntz]

Well, now that I've been properly informed (more than the guide did sadly), I think this task will be extremely easy.

Save for the chance of burning... Electrolyte stuff...

[omp]

That kit should come with a peg for your nose.......

[Guntz]

Okay, so I've replaced all the caps in my GG with every cap in my kit and... My Game Gear doesn't work.

I turn it on, stays on for a second, then shuts off. The picture appears fine so I think all the caps are properly installed, yes? What did I do wrong? :[

Oh yeah, if I burned the board, would it not turn on?

[Guntz]

Hmm, I've made some headway in my problem.

I did some checking around, reflowing joints, making sure stuff didn't touch. I even replaced one new capacitor with an old one that I thought was fishy (I soldered it with my iron set to 30W. I might have burned it). Things still didn't work right, so I played with the contrast dial.

Low and behold, if I turn down the contrast dial, it stays on. But if I turn it up really high, the unit shuts off. What exactly does this mean? I'm thinking the circuit starts forcing more power and gets the ability to jump a short in the line somewhere that either I couldn't fix very well or I'm not aware of.

But hurray! My Game Gear still has life!

Oh yeah, the screen still has vertical ghosting lines. DAMNIT!

[TmEE]

that ghosting is normal for those shitty screens...

as for the turn on/off problem, are you sure that you have all caps connected with right polarity ? perhaps one is in the wrong way...... Turning off means overcurrent in GGs.

[Guntz]

that ghosting is normal for those shitty screens...

That's good to hear... Sort of.

as for the turn on/off problem, are you sure that you have all caps connected with right polarity ? perhaps one is in the wrong way...... Turning off means overcurrent in GGs.

Quite sure. I went over all of them before I first tested. The only one I'm not sure of is the big fat '100' cap near the power board plug near the video circuit. I forgot which side of it was positive...

[TmEE]

on my GG boards, right side pin is positive

[Guntz]

Thanks for all the help TMEE.

I've let my GG sit around, played with occasionally and it seems to be functioning good. Just now I turned the contrast all the way up for at least 10 seconds and it didn't shut off. Usually it would shut off within a few seconds of being at high contrast. I think the surgery was a success!

Do caps need to be 'broken' in first? Sorta like a pair of shoes, until they get comfy.

[Bladze]

Hi everyone

I have just recapped my GG and within reason it has gone pretty well.

Only issue I have left now is that I have a 3 vertical lines on the left side of the screen. I can not remember if these were the before the recapping or not, but I would assume they were.

It is different from the horizontal lines issue which I have seen a number of times. please see the attached picture of my issue.



WP_20150206_004.jpg

WP_20150206_003.jpg

Any thoughts on the cause and what I could do to fix this?

Thanks

Alastair

[GohanX]

It's probably the ribbon cable not making connection there. You can try to heat up the part where the ribbon cable connects to the screen to reflow the solder, that works well on Gameboys but I dunno about Game Gears. I know that screen is a hell of a thing to replace and most modders will tell you to just get a new system.

Alternatively, might be a good time to think screen replacement.

[Bladze]

Thanks Gohan for the response.

I had a look at a few of the game boy fix. Most just seem to use a solding iron along the ribbon cable. I was wondering if it would be more effective to unstick the cable, clean up the connection points, apply some fresh solder & then stick it down again. Or is that too risky? Any thoughts?