Flush cut the battery leads, this will make it easier. This removes the battery that is acting like a heat-spreader absorbing all the heat from your iron.
It also doesn't help to first remove the all the solder from the bottom of the board. If the pad is dry, the iron only makes contact in small spots. Working on a fillet reduces the thermal resistance between the tip and the board -- as does using something better than a D1.6 tip. I'm assuming most people don't have a desoldering iron that's worth anything. Parts like this with only a few flexible leads can easily just be walked out of the board with the iron. Add solder, hinge part out, wick pads, replace part. Wicking is even optional. For something like this, you could just walk it back in. Before anyone complains that there's a risk of lifting traces on the top side, I have to point out that digging around and prying while insufficiently heating the bottom side is an even better way to ruin things. The same goes for scrubbing around with a weak desoldering iron, trying to get the topside fillet to melt or trying to get the last bit out of the hole.
@@PSUQDPICHQIEIWC In fact PCBs are pretty hard to delaminate mechanically unless you do something very stupid. What kills them is the absence of preheating - and the thermal expansion that follows. So what I usually do with through-hole mounted stuff is preheating things (well, I always do this), applying much solder to have some heat storage - and then just pulling them out while heating with both the iron and some supporting heating (can be done even with a small blowtorch should you get used to it). Can require walking for wider components (some small ones can be just shaken out), but this never caused any bad consequences. Of course, doing this with a battery isn't the best idea though, so I'd just cut the leads off :)
Preheating is good advice. A lot of people recommend plate heaters, though I find that it works better to use your hot air station to add heat where needed. A hot air station (or heat gun) can couple heat to either side of the board and can be selectively applied, unlike a hotplate. But you're right. The whole thing is an issue of heat flow. The plating in the hole has such a thin cross section that it has a significant thermal resistance on the through-board axis. Similarly, the solder annulus has a small cross section and the alloy has low volumetric conductivity. A large part of the heat that you're coupling to the top side has to go through the part lead. This is why it's a pain to wick a hole after the lead has been removed. You're either going to have to increase the temperature or minimize all the resistances on the solder side, or you're going to have to bring heat to the top side via some other path. FWIW, the plating adhesion on paper phenolic is much weaker than it is for something like FR4. Especially if the board has been hot in service, they peel extremely easily.
@@PSUQDPICHQIEIWC TBH I prefer to not use wicks for holes at all. Those are not SMDs so you don't care about any extra solder anyway, all you need is the hole itself. The most fun way I found so far was adding much solder to make it melt better - and next using a thin tube to just blow the air through the hole. Unlike the vacuum solder removers this requires no contact at all (even some significant distance is still ok), and the surface tension makes most of the solder just fly away should it be heated well enough. As for air guns, yes and yes! Hotplates take too long to properly heat things up (as your board has different heat diffusion paths and inconsistent IR reflectivity you are forced to heat it very slowly) - and with a gun you can control the heat gradient on the fly. Though I sometimes prefer smaller torches - as the flame is a stream, it has a lower pressure compared to the ambient air, as a result the colder air gets mixed in, creating a very stable temperature gradient - just find the "sweet spot" and use it :)
Instead of soldering the battery directly to the board you could solder a CR2032 battery case to it and then put the battery into that case... that would be a cleaner solution which would make a future battery replacement easier too
@@Gorton how is that short term thinking in 10 to 20 years most people will have moved on I've had enough of retro collecting sold most of my expensive games replaced with a flash cart
@Dave Hanson Nah, this is why you buy a retrode 2 and just dump all of your save data and roms and play through an emulator, save the original hardware, keep it in good shape, and still get to enjoy all of your favorite classics www.dragonbox.de/en/accessories/cartridge-dumper/retrode-2-cartridge-dumper
Thanks so much for doing these videos! I recently picked up a copy of Mike Tyson's Punch Out at a flea market for a great price and noticed it wouldn't boot when I got home. I was able to find three broken traces and fix them all thanks to these videos. It now works flawlessly and I saved $10 on the game! It's actually kinda relaxing therapeutic doing these kind of repairs.
I have never seen a more thorough and helpful tutorial in my life. I learned so much! Thankyou for sharing your knowledge with us interwebs. I look forward to polishing and restoring some of my own personal collection! ❤🎮
True, if you watch AkBKuKu's video on him trying to add chips onto a ram board, he get solder on the pad and trys to remove it with a sucker, he ripped the pad itself off and had to use a little copper piece from a spare PCB to fix it.
Screw john riggs lol he doesn't know how to fix games 😂 in all his videos he just cleans them. He doesn't put effort on fixing the game. He likes to take the chips off and put them on a working board. Basically sacrificing a game to make the other game to work.
Hey boss!!! When cleaning your pins. I use a big pink eraser. Then follow it up with IPA. It gets all that brown oxidation off the pins. For polishing it’s a whole different thing. You can use glass top oven cleaner. And it will get the pins superclean. But I prefer using brasso. And light scrubbing. Great job as always.
Brilliant, useful not just for fixing games. But fixing any old electronics. I have an old AM Radio in a vintage car which could benefit from a lot of these repair techniques also.
When you were trying to get the battery out with the tweezers, I remembered what I was thinking the last time I tried to replace a potentiometer on a guitar “damn, you need 3 hands for this sort of job”
You can also clean the pins with white vinegar. let it set on the pins for about 3 minutes & then clean it with alcohol. It is great for restoring the shine to the pins.
I wet sand my NES contacts with electrical contact cleaner and 2000 grit automotive sandpaper. Quit cringing. If your contacts were tarnished when you started cleaning and were shiny when you were done then you removed metal from them. That's how removing tarnish works, no matter what method you use. You can't get clean contacts without removing damaged metal.
Since u found gunk above the pins in ur 1st step, i would also clean the carts inner casing too as there will still be gunk left there that more than likely broke the 1st trace u repaired. non the less great vid mate.
The pencil eraser trick works amazing on lots of metallic oxides. I use it on silver coins and is the best way to clean the black silver oxide without ruining the original patina.
when trying to get the battery out, it's often easier to put on fresh solder as you did, then heat-up and use the tweezers like you did, then wick AFTER to clean up the pad's that remain - it's also easier to use the wick once the component is removed...
I would recommend using a fiberglass pen, also called fiberglass scratch brush, instead of a box cutter to expose a trace. It's made exactly to remove solder mask without breaking the traces.
Nintendo used to weld those batteries into the circuit board tabs. They should’ve made battery detachable sockets there for standard coin battery replacement. Like the CMOS batteries on the back of the Sega Saturn.
Great video. When I repair my cartridges I use a metal polish called “Brasso” on the pins. It does a fantastic job of removing the tarnish and makes the pins bright and shiny. You have a new subscriber. 🤘
I love your contents my man I've Fixed a ton of cartridges and consoles from watching you videos. But I have a recommendation for you I don't know if anyone has told you before but I have found that glass cook top cleaner does the best job of clean the pins on cartridges. Hope you find that useful and thanks for the videos.
Learning how these things work and what to do if something isnt working right is why I subscribed. Thank you! I imagine myself fixing my own old games in the far future. And with this sort of content, that vision can easily be reality.
Nice job, next time you use a eraser try a white square one (the cheap kids ones) not the one on the end of a pen and see if you notice a difference between the red and the white, i been using the white now 20+ yrs, thanks for the knowledge
Great video, and love the quality of the new camera. You and the entire group are getting me fired up to get back into fixing, once my family and I get moved into our permanent home (in process of getting our current house put up for sale.).
A better idea, do not remove the solder before removing the battery. Heat the glob as is because the connection would be better with the extra solder on there and while it's liquid then remove the pin from the board. Then soak up the remaining solder. It would have been much easier. Skip all the mess.
This is a great video. I have a few snes games (luckily that all still work) but if 1 starts to play up after viewing this I know my soldering skills are enough to sort out problems like this
I think it's better to use a battery socket rather than soldering the battery directly to the board. It's better for future users since that's one of the most common issues with carts.
Mr. Clean magic eraser also cleans pins very well. It's always best practice to follow up with 99% Isopropyl to clean any residue left in case there was any on the eraser or magic eraser that was used.
Nice to see such enthusiasm in restoring a game into a working condition - you quess it - BUT, I must wonder why you didn't check the capacitors at all?!? After 26 jears all kinds of residue from this age has gone bad... I NEVER had only a single CAP measuring good from over 10 consoles and over 100 games. Maybe it's worth a try considering that, too! ;)
Cleaning the pins with a small piece of 400A wet or dry sandpaper followed by CFC free contact cleaner works much better. All of my 600 plus Nintendo game collection has been cleaned that way.
Except when there's broken traces, as was the case here. I've got a GameBoy game that's similarly broken but too bad for me, GB traces are MUCH smaller.
First 10 minutes if this video.. All I could think was "Please use an eraser on those pins as they are dirty as hell". Then you did it! Very cool watching these videos you.
Quick Tip: For removing the battery it would have been easier to add more solder to the pins as you did, but instead of wicking the solder away first, it would have been much easier to apply the pressure with the tweezers, apply heat to the pad with that extra solder on there and the pin will pull out easily, as you have more solder to retain and spread the heat to the whole pad/leg. then once battery had been removed you can now use the solder wick to clean up the pad and clear solder from the hole. Also if your having problems with the solder melting and flowing, turn up the temp of your iron if possible or simply use a larger tip. Should only need to touch the pad for 3-4 seconds to have all solder melted/flowed. Another tip for cleaning the Cartridge Contacts use a Fiberglass Scratch Brush/Pen they work well, also good for removing the green coating to expose the traces.
The original save battery may have been ok. I once bought a 'no-save' game with the intention to replace the battery and it turned out to be untested - there were no saves on the cart but once I saved the game, it held.
The original fault was the result of debris in the gap between the board and the shell wearing through the trace. The shell showed obvious signs of remaining debris.
i learn a lot about soldering which seems to be a dirty word when it comes to noobs like me and doing repairs on electronics haha. thanks for the videos man
Instead of using an eraser to clean your gold plated contacts check out the fiberglass contact cleaning pen, i have had 1 pack and it lasted me almost 10 years. They are great.
Pretty sure you coulda just skipped all that repair garbage and just blown on the contacts. That's how we did it back in the day. Nostalgia tells me it has a 100% success rate.
This was so satisfying to watch! Also, The Source associate here. Just noticed their brand (Nexxtech) of your solder there, if that is the case, that's awesome! Does that mean you're Canadian as well, or you visited one of the stores from over the border?
Love the video but a problem has come up for me. What’s the temperature you use for sauntering and all that good stuff. Is there any correct temperature?
i was freaking out when you started using a q-tip. all those little threads of cotton getting all over the pcb D: why not use a dedicated tooth brush? you can get pretty soft ones. i was also cringing when you wiggled the cartridge around after having JUST repaired the broken trace. these cartridges can take a bit of a beating but that just made my skin crawl. it all worked out in the end, though. not how i would have done it but hey, i didn't make the video lol
Fixed a Super Mario Cart with the exact same issues. I found a schematic online which took away the guess work on some of the leads. Tested the battery with an led too.
Some google image searches lead me to this: forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=18344 Also, snescentral.com has a list of game pcbs to go the donor cartridge route.
TH-cam actually suggested something I'd enjoy.
Praise be the algorithm!
Great fix! Love your channel.
Flush cut the battery leads, this will make it easier. This removes the battery that is acting like a heat-spreader absorbing all the heat from your iron.
Ricardo Cooper also, heating a battery is a bad idea(tm)
It also doesn't help to first remove the all the solder from the bottom of the board. If the pad is dry, the iron only makes contact in small spots. Working on a fillet reduces the thermal resistance between the tip and the board -- as does using something better than a D1.6 tip.
I'm assuming most people don't have a desoldering iron that's worth anything. Parts like this with only a few flexible leads can easily just be walked out of the board with the iron. Add solder, hinge part out, wick pads, replace part. Wicking is even optional. For something like this, you could just walk it back in. Before anyone complains that there's a risk of lifting traces on the top side, I have to point out that digging around and prying while insufficiently heating the bottom side is an even better way to ruin things. The same goes for scrubbing around with a weak desoldering iron, trying to get the topside fillet to melt or trying to get the last bit out of the hole.
@@PSUQDPICHQIEIWC In fact PCBs are pretty hard to delaminate mechanically unless you do something very stupid. What kills them is the absence of preheating - and the thermal expansion that follows. So what I usually do with through-hole mounted stuff is preheating things (well, I always do this), applying much solder to have some heat storage - and then just pulling them out while heating with both the iron and some supporting heating (can be done even with a small blowtorch should you get used to it). Can require walking for wider components (some small ones can be just shaken out), but this never caused any bad consequences. Of course, doing this with a battery isn't the best idea though, so I'd just cut the leads off :)
Preheating is good advice. A lot of people recommend plate heaters, though I find that it works better to use your hot air station to add heat where needed. A hot air station (or heat gun) can couple heat to either side of the board and can be selectively applied, unlike a hotplate.
But you're right. The whole thing is an issue of heat flow. The plating in the hole has such a thin cross section that it has a significant thermal resistance on the through-board axis. Similarly, the solder annulus has a small cross section and the alloy has low volumetric conductivity. A large part of the heat that you're coupling to the top side has to go through the part lead. This is why it's a pain to wick a hole after the lead has been removed. You're either going to have to increase the temperature or minimize all the resistances on the solder side, or you're going to have to bring heat to the top side via some other path.
FWIW, the plating adhesion on paper phenolic is much weaker than it is for something like FR4. Especially if the board has been hot in service, they peel extremely easily.
@@PSUQDPICHQIEIWC TBH I prefer to not use wicks for holes at all. Those are not SMDs so you don't care about any extra solder anyway, all you need is the hole itself. The most fun way I found so far was adding much solder to make it melt better - and next using a thin tube to just blow the air through the hole. Unlike the vacuum solder removers this requires no contact at all (even some significant distance is still ok), and the surface tension makes most of the solder just fly away should it be heated well enough.
As for air guns, yes and yes! Hotplates take too long to properly heat things up (as your board has different heat diffusion paths and inconsistent IR reflectivity you are forced to heat it very slowly) - and with a gun you can control the heat gradient on the fly. Though I sometimes prefer smaller torches - as the flame is a stream, it has a lower pressure compared to the ambient air, as a result the colder air gets mixed in, creating a very stable temperature gradient - just find the "sweet spot" and use it :)
Instead of soldering the battery directly to the board you could solder a CR2032 battery case to it and then put the battery into that case... that would be a cleaner solution which would make a future battery replacement easier too
Battery will last over 10 to 20 years will you really need to replace it again
@@michaelholmes4374 short term thinking
@@Gorton how is that short term thinking in 10 to 20 years most people will have moved on I've had enough of retro collecting sold most of my expensive games replaced with a flash cart
@@michaelholmes4374TODAY THE OLD ORIGINAL GAMES ARE WORTH A FORTUNE OF DIAMONDS
Eject button: "Am I a joke to you???"
Don't tell me how to live my life
It starts to get Loose If you push It too much times... Best way to preserve "mechanical" parts are not using them.
@Dave Hanson Nah, this is why you buy a retrode 2 and just dump all of your save data and roms and play through an emulator, save the original hardware, keep it in good shape, and still get to enjoy all of your favorite classics www.dragonbox.de/en/accessories/cartridge-dumper/retrode-2-cartridge-dumper
@Dave Hanson Or: just leave it on 24/7 to not wear out the power switch.
Really the eject button does what you can do by hand. It just applies extra leverage.
Thanks so much for doing these videos! I recently picked up a copy of Mike Tyson's Punch Out at a flea market for a great price and noticed it wouldn't boot when I got home. I was able to find three broken traces and fix them all thanks to these videos. It now works flawlessly and I saved $10 on the game! It's actually kinda relaxing therapeutic doing these kind of repairs.
Nice! Good job.
Nice video dude. I enjoy watching these. Real chill and relaxing.
He's like the Bob Ross of microelectronics.
No, that would me.But not gonna lie this guy is awesome👍
Just found this channel and it is chill.
For reals! Hos vids get me relaxed and in a chill vibe, sometimes even helps me to fall asleep easily in a weird way lol
@@EvilishDem0nic8732WhatItDogood work😊
I have never seen a more thorough and helpful tutorial in my life. I learned so much! Thankyou for sharing your knowledge with us interwebs. I look forward to polishing and restoring some of my own personal collection! ❤🎮
That qtip squeak is like a nail through my head.
You do a great job with explaining clearly in your vids man. Keep it up
Little hack, we use nail clippers to cut the wire as you get a very close cut and it tight spaces very easy to use.
These videos never feel as long as they are. By the time you're done it's like, "Wow, that was almost 30 minutes!?"
Especially at 1.5x speed 😋
Great video! I usually put kapton tape on the edgeconnector before going near it with solder, hate when the nice golden fingers turn silver..
True, if you watch AkBKuKu's video on him trying to add chips onto a ram board, he get solder on the pad and trys to remove it with a sucker, he ripped the pad itself off and had to use a little copper piece from a spare PCB to fix it.
Your so cool bro!!
@@eKoV11 "you're" you mean?
@@kingearwigI'm from Brazil, you guys are awesome 😃👏🏻
3:10 that’s where John Riggs would have said the game is beyond repair lol
Screw john riggs lol he doesn't know how to fix games 😂 in all his videos he just cleans them. He doesn't put effort on fixing the game. He likes to take the chips off and put them on a working board. Basically sacrificing a game to make the other game to work.
I love to watch you fixing the issues. So satisfying.
Hey boss!!! When cleaning your pins. I use a big pink eraser. Then follow it up with IPA.
It gets all that brown oxidation off the pins.
For polishing it’s a whole different thing.
You can use glass top oven cleaner. And it will get the pins superclean. But I prefer using brasso. And light scrubbing.
Great job as always.
But I rather think the brass went off from the pins, because it was used a lot. They losed their colour.
Brilliant, useful not just for fixing games. But fixing any old electronics. I have an old AM Radio in a vintage car which could benefit from a lot of these repair techniques also.
When you were trying to get the battery out with the tweezers, I remembered what I was thinking the last time I tried to replace a potentiometer on a guitar “damn, you need 3 hands for this sort of job”
It started up was such a warm feeling. That game was my first love
if only this video existed 20+ years ago..it might save most of my broken game..=) nice video by the way
You can also clean the pins with white vinegar. let it set on the pins for about 3 minutes & then clean it with alcohol. It is great for restoring the shine to the pins.
No nail polish on the broken trace this time. But hey, it does work. Great job !
"Quick repair video" = 27min :D
27 youtube Mins might as well be hours in real time.
Rescued another one from the Trash Bin.... Well Done!
I didn't know u could fix it like that.
Also strangely satisfiyng and relaxing
Always clean the entire cart before even testing it, so your system doesn’t get dirty and break too. Nice work btw 👍
The cleaning of the pins makes my ears and soul bleed
I read this before watching and though, how bad could it be?
But you nailed it
OMG I wish there was a warning for this, ouch.
EdgyShooter i was going to comment exactly what you said lol
I wet sand my NES contacts with electrical contact cleaner and 2000 grit automotive sandpaper. Quit cringing. If your contacts were tarnished when you started cleaning and were shiny when you were done then you removed metal from them. That's how removing tarnish works, no matter what method you use. You can't get clean contacts without removing damaged metal.
@@adamgh0 i understand this, but it doesn't make it any less painful to hear... Also can't believe you used the word cringe unironically.
Dude that's awesome. It hurts my back watching the tiny work. Like a claustrophobic feeling. I'm proud of you.
Louis Rossman: "That's not the right amount of flux".
Checking PPBUS G3
hahahahahahahhahahahhahahahhahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahahahahahahaha best comment eveeeer!
"to desoder, the first thing i like to do first is add more soder"
Me: *surprise pikachu face*
It sounds weird but it's the way to do it
Desolder..... Solder.
It helps form a bridge to allow the heat from the iron to flow into the joint easier.
When you put in the cartridge... those sounds brought me back to my childhood. =)
Since u found gunk above the pins in ur 1st step, i would also clean the carts inner casing too as there will still be gunk left there that more than likely broke the 1st trace u repaired. non the less great vid mate.
The pencil eraser trick works amazing on lots of metallic oxides. I use it on silver coins and is the best way to clean the black silver oxide without ruining the original patina.
Hearing you clean the pins gave me cold chills😂
when trying to get the battery out, it's often easier to put on fresh solder as you did, then heat-up and use the tweezers like you did, then wick AFTER to clean up the pad's that remain - it's also easier to use the wick once the component is removed...
Nice can you show us you trying to fix a broken nes
I've got one i haven't tested yet in my latest mail day, so maybe
RetroRepairs you should definitely do that
He’s got an older video of him fixing one if you can’t wait :)
Super nes not nes dumbo
Go Away I want him to fix a nes not a super nes I know the difference
I would recommend using a fiberglass pen, also called fiberglass scratch brush, instead of a box cutter to expose a trace. It's made exactly to remove solder mask without breaking the traces.
Nintendo used to weld those batteries into the circuit board tabs. They should’ve made battery detachable sockets there for standard coin battery replacement. Like the CMOS batteries on the back of the Sega Saturn.
Great video. When I repair my cartridges I use a metal polish called “Brasso” on the pins. It does a fantastic job of removing the tarnish and makes the pins bright and shiny. You have a new subscriber. 🤘
Brite boy may also be worth a shot, similar to brasso but less harsh. :)
I love your contents my man I've
Fixed a ton of cartridges and consoles from watching you videos. But I have a recommendation for you I don't know if anyone has told you before but I have found that glass cook top cleaner does the best job of clean the pins on cartridges. Hope you find that useful and thanks for the videos.
Thanks for not editing out the solder reflowing asmr
There are rubber blocks with sanding bits mixed in, they're to polish Guitar frets. That should work wonders with the worn out pins.
Learning how these things work and what to do if something isnt working right is why I subscribed. Thank you!
I imagine myself fixing my own old games in the far future. And with this sort of content, that vision can easily be reality.
Thanks to your videos that I fixed my broken cartridges. First timer at soldering and I did great 😉 thanks bud!
That was a pretty cool trace repair, learned a new trick from you today.
I bet the ejection lever is worn out from him forcing the cartridges out without pushing the eject button, and he calls himself a repairman, smfh.
Pro tip- You can get battery holder that you can solder in to make it so you just bob the battery out and replace without soldering it again.
Nice job, next time you use a eraser try a white square one (the cheap kids ones) not the one on the end of a pen and see if you notice a difference between the red and the white, i been using the white now 20+ yrs, thanks for the knowledge
Did I miss it or did he never actually test his jumper?
Great video, and love the quality of the new camera. You and the entire group are getting me fired up to get back into fixing, once my family and I get moved into our permanent home (in process of getting our current house put up for sale.).
I don't know why I watch this shit, but I love it.
A better idea, do not remove the solder before removing the battery. Heat the glob as is because the connection would be better with the extra solder on there and while it's liquid then remove the pin from the board. Then soak up the remaining solder. It would have been much easier. Skip all the mess.
Correct. Also to not use the very edge of soldering iron in these jobs.
These vids are therapeutic, I swear. Lol.
bad resolders. you should change your iron
Bad techniques
This is a great video. I have a few snes games (luckily that all still work) but if 1 starts to play up after viewing this I know my soldering skills are enough to sort out problems like this
Thanks for sharing this. Had no idea there was a battery inside these carts. I still have some of these. :)
I think it's better to use a battery socket rather than soldering the battery directly to the board. It's better for future users since that's one of the most common issues with carts.
Tedious, but worth it for the sense of accomplishment alone. Good job.
at 11:50ish and 17:51 you can see where theres solder between the traces, and between two pads on the back...
I saw it too... But then noticed that both pads were directly connected to the ground plane.
Wow! In depth how to.... this is what everyone needs to see!
I always learn something about retro game repairs from your videos.
Mr. Clean magic eraser also cleans pins very well. It's always best practice to follow up with 99% Isopropyl to clean any residue left in case there was any on the eraser or magic eraser that was used.
What do you do with all of these games? Good work by the way!
I always thought moisture would hurt the board. I’ve learned a lot thru this video, thank you so much! I have a few games to try this on.
Nothing that he used was really moist. 99% alcohol dries insanely fast and mops up flux residue.
Nice to see such enthusiasm in restoring a game into a working condition - you quess it - BUT, I must wonder why you didn't check the capacitors at all?!?
After 26 jears all kinds of residue from this age has gone bad... I NEVER had only a single CAP measuring good from over 10 consoles and over 100 games.
Maybe it's worth a try considering that, too! ;)
Picture and sound quality are excellent. The new phone is great!
Cleaning the pins with a small piece of 400A wet or dry sandpaper followed by CFC free contact cleaner works much better. All of my 600 plus Nintendo game collection has been cleaned that way.
What kind of stand do you use to put your phone in?
Killer Queen. It has a nice compartment in it's stomach area
FYI, that screwdriver is called a 'line head' screwdriver.
It's a socket driver.
99.9999% of the time by cleaning the pads with 99% isopropyl you fix every cartridge.
Except when there's broken traces, as was the case here. I've got a GameBoy game that's similarly broken but too bad for me, GB traces are MUCH smaller.
@@SatoshiMatrix1 my pokemon yellow had a Pad lifted up in a chip I touched it with the soldering iron and that fixed it, try to fix your cartrige too.
First 10 minutes if this video.. All I could think was "Please use an eraser on those pins as they are dirty as hell". Then you did it! Very cool watching these videos you.
Quick Tip:
For removing the battery it would have been easier to add more solder to the pins as you did, but instead of wicking the solder away first, it would have been much easier to apply the pressure with the tweezers, apply heat to the pad with that extra solder on there and the pin will pull out easily, as you have more solder to retain and spread the heat to the whole pad/leg. then once battery had been removed you can now use the solder wick to clean up the pad and clear solder from the hole.
Also if your having problems with the solder melting and flowing, turn up the temp of your iron if possible or simply use a larger tip. Should only need to touch the pad for 3-4 seconds to have all solder melted/flowed.
Another tip for cleaning the Cartridge Contacts use a Fiberglass Scratch Brush/Pen they work well, also good for removing the green coating to expose the traces.
The original save battery may have been ok. I once bought a 'no-save' game with the intention to replace the battery and it turned out to be untested - there were no saves on the cart but once I saved the game, it held.
Bartosz Nowicki be careful,it could fail and leak battery juice because of its age potentially ruining the cart
The original fault was the result of debris in the gap between the board and the shell wearing through the trace.
The shell showed obvious signs of remaining debris.
Life brand rubbing alcohol. Tell me you're Canadian without telling me you're Canadian 😂
I had no idea SNES cartridges had batteries in them! Do they have something to do with saving data?
Yep
SRAM (Static RAM) backup battery, this hold the save files. Not all cartridges have them..
i learn a lot about soldering which seems to be a dirty word when it comes to noobs like me and doing repairs on electronics haha. thanks for the videos man
hope you didnt learn it from these videos...
Instead of using an eraser to clean your gold plated contacts check out the fiberglass contact cleaning pen, i have had 1 pack and it lasted me almost 10 years. They are great.
Force of habit, cr232 swappable battery holder. :)
I think you may have forgotten to clean the sticky gunk off the interior of the plastic shell, which will undo some of the cleaning you did.
Pretty sure you coulda just skipped all that repair garbage and just blown on the contacts. That's how we did it back in the day. Nostalgia tells me it has a 100% success rate.
wouldn't you want to add solder to each pad so any repair would be more reliable
This was so satisfying to watch!
Also, The Source associate here. Just noticed their brand (Nexxtech) of your solder there, if that is the case, that's awesome! Does that mean you're Canadian as well, or you visited one of the stores from over the border?
He's clearly Canadian, Listen to him say 'Out' at 20:00
Maybe that is why my all stars isn't saving everytime I take it out of the system.
I like how easy you made this fix to do, Good Work saving this classic, most people would've gave up, Liked
that zoom is amazing, you said that's with a phone ?
Good video but wanted to add that using a flat file or small flatblade screwdriver would be much better on the board than a razor knife.
Use the eject button. 🤣
NEVER
These had an eject button? 🤔😜🤣
How old are you? I've never seen another cart ejector. It's like a Memory Puller. They actually have them.
Great video, id suggest buying a cheap desolder station. Its a game changer for speeding up repairs.
Yep, that's in the plan. Ive been looking at options
Awesome job! What kind/size of wire do you use to repair the traces?
I have 30 gauge stranded wire, and usually use 2 individual strands, not sure exactly what size the individual stands end up being
thank you so much! i just fixed a broken cartridge that i've had for a year now by soldering some traces.
Can we all agree we took the cartridge out without pressing eject. Even if you did press eject you must have 1 time where you just pulled it out.
Love the video but a problem has come up for me. What’s the temperature you use for sauntering and all that good stuff. Is there any correct temperature?
Excellent, comprehensive repair video. Thanks for sharing.
Great job on this video! Out of curiosity, what brand of soldering iron do you have? What temperature do you have it set at?
Will be a nice touch if you share the list of tools you use in the video.
It's so simple yet so impressive!
i was freaking out when you started using a q-tip. all those little threads of cotton getting all over the pcb D: why not use a dedicated tooth brush? you can get pretty soft ones. i was also cringing when you wiggled the cartridge around after having JUST repaired the broken trace. these cartridges can take a bit of a beating but that just made my skin crawl. it all worked out in the end, though. not how i would have done it but hey, i didn't make the video lol
That Q tip squeak is pretty “Gnarly” 👀
Really? Because I think it was "Tubular"! The fact that you can use an eraser to clean the pins is "Way Cool", by the way.
Alejandro Sanz II thanks for tips !!!
Fixed a Super Mario Cart with the exact same issues. I found a schematic online which took away the guess work on some of the leads. Tested the battery with an led too.
Cool, where did you find board schematics?
Some google image searches lead me to this: forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=18344 Also, snescentral.com has a list of game pcbs to go the donor cartridge route.