Nintendo 64 (N64) Cart Repair (Corrosion) You Only Live Twice
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ค. 2018
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A short video on a recent pickup. Described as may have some corrosion...
#nintendo #n64 #repair #cart #game #fix
This is exactly what I was looking for. I have an nes console that suffered some serious corrosion and needed to repair the pads at the 72 pin connector. I will give this a shot
I have used a drop of Peco Model Lube on a foam applicator to keep the contacts from wearing prematurely, it also keeps any moisture away and the cartridges work first time
The fibre glass pen actually fixed my copy of SM64! It would only boot 2 out of 5 times which is very annoying for someone speedrunning, and I noticed the pins were VERY corroded. The pencil eraser trick got it from never working though to that first state. It cleaned most of it off and now the game works every time. :) Sooner or later I may reseat the EPROMs and replace the capacitor in it. Oddly enough, the cartridge shell itself and the label look basically brand new. Don't know how the pins ended up so corroded, maybe the previous owner tried washing it lol
I just repaired Castlevania. That must be common failure on those 2 traces by the resistor. There is a exposed stamp of a couple of letters right on them. And tgat was the only problem with the cartridge.
Nice job man.
Nice little fix of someone else's mess, there. Well done! In other news, I've finally got around to doing the pseudo-stereo C64 mod, as seen in your and MsMadLemon's videos. There's a clear stereo effect there - it sounds fantastic! Thank you! (and Maddi, of course)
Thanks =D
That is a very good tip using the braid.😁
Thanks, yes it works really well for tinning up traces and pads!
I had a copy of CRUSN USA that was hit or miss on loading up. Just needed cleaning but damn there was some oily stuff caked onto it had to use a retractable pin to get the harden mess off without scratching the masking. It was straight gross clean that, the sheilding and the fingers and it boots right away without the old hesitation and did not miss 5 reseats. Calling it good. Easy mode did not even need to solder this round.
I've seen this on quite a few N64 carts. I think the steel shielding in there makes it a lot more likely to cause corrosion if the cart gets liquid on it. Electrolysis y'know. Had a copy of GT64 that I picked up with this problem. Definitely had broken traces that I repaired but the ROM chip had died too, apparently. It was all from liquid damage/electrolysis rather than abrasion from sandpaper or whatever you had here. Love the magnet wire; it's great for stuff like this!
71dembones For direct trace repair I use “pretinned” wire that I got from Radio Shack long ago. Saves a few steps and works great!
Original contacts were gold.
Specifically hard gold, a gold-silver-iron-something alloy with increased abrasion resistance.
if you can stand some slightly larger guage wire I like to use a printer cable it is pretty small guage but thrift store will sale you like for a dollar or less enough to last you forever and its all color coded for times that matters. So many varieties of colors and batteries I can't imagine needing more. I know repairs and gear can get expensive best to save money where you can. Also worked good for the ground wires in hardmodding an xbox.
Wow, and I thought my Amstrad CPC edge connector was bad when I rescued it from my parents' house. I used a model railway soft track cleaning rubber and IPA to clean it, and it came up great. Glad I didn't use anything more abrasive.
Yes, it was pretty bad! 99 times out of a hundred, an eraser and some IPA will sort it.
Awesome fix as always
Cheers =D
I can't believe that many people handle their games or consoles liike that,its a shame.
Good work gadget to fix it.
I know =/ Thanks!
can u fix my game of pokemon emerald got a pin missing
Looks like you can't kill Bond from water torture, he used gadget for escape 😉! Great vid!
Haha :o)
wow they went for the coarse sandpaper on that one lol
I know lol! Surpised they didn't get some nails and screws onto it!
Get a Weller 100 model iron there on $50.00 on eBay or Amazon. Make sure it a real weller and not fake one.
Makes me think of those old NES cartridge and slot cleaners which had a plastic piece and some sand paper glued on top of it which some people used to sand off junk in their cart connector and cart pins... wonder how many times that worked before it broke the cart or cart slot.
Wow, that was really a product??? =O
Yeah i remember em from when i was a kid that where sold for the NES as "in some cases" could solve the whole black screen on powerup if junk has been collecting on the cart connector and normal cleaning would not fix it.
It was basically just a cart with sandpaper instead of pins ment to be pushed in and pulled out like a normal cart and on the other side of it you had a "female" version of it that was ment for carts.
Well done! :)
hm! I have none of these tools, but i think a game cart i got second hand could def do with some tlc like this. I can see even without taking it apart that it might have some kinda bad looking erosion is spots on the strips ahaha..
This video was SUPER helpful in what I am trying to do with some old cartridges. However, I am trying to learn how you re-soldered each of the connection fingers. Do you have a video of that process? You skip over it in this video. And/or tool recommendations? Thanks for this!
Put flux on the edge connections, use some desolder braid - put a bit of solder onto the tip of the iron, heat the braid as you drag the braid over the connection. You may need to clean up, scratch any light corrosion off and repeat once or twice. The braid having some solder on the end of it will pass that solder to the surface of the edge connector as you drag.
@@GadgetUK164 I've got green looking corrosion on just one of the metal looking pieces on my cart... how do I get rid of it?
I'm intrigued by your N64 PCB there. Is that for making repros?
Ah, sorry for the confusion - it's a C64 PCB, not an N64 PCB :o)
GadgetUK164 - Retro Gaming Repairs & Mods haha I was going to say the pin count and spacing didn't seem quite right.
I suspect someone was over zealous with cleaning the cartridge contacts because it wouldn't work and they were incapable of understanding the possibility of some other fault! Anyway, you can also use hot air and a fine metal brush to re-tin any crappy PCB edge connectors. It's quicker and works well for long connectors in particular.
If the coating on your wire can be removed just with a soldering iron it's unlikely to be enamelled but probably varnished or plastic coated instead. Enamelled coating is designed to be heat proof and has to be physically removed by scraping or sanding.
Yes, that's it lol! Never heard of that technique - I will check it out =O And thanks for the point on the wire! Was told it had enamel on it but varnish does make more sense! It's pretty resilient stuff though, you sometimes have to heat for 20 seconds to get rid of it.
Is my cartridge bad if it says repair or continue without saving on my N64 cartridge because I replaced it the battery in my memory card for my N64 controller And when I try to save the game quake Walmart in 64 it just says try again try again try again when I click save to pack or whatever it said I cleaned it with rubbing alcohol and it’s done it’s not work what is a better solution to clean the pins with the try again To see if it works Thanks waiting for your reply
It sounds like the RAM has died on the memory card to me! I did a video on this and showed how powering them without a battery can kill the RAM on some of them.
I prefer using the soft pencil eraser method while cleaning off contact pads. I'd hate to lift up off a contact pad while cleaning.
Yes, I always use a pencil eraser first too! In this case the board had already suffered a terrible amount of damage so I needed something more abrasive to help tidy it up before re-tinning the connections.
Amazin vid bro. Top stuff. High5
Nice repair gadget
Thanks =D
Ohh shit golden eye in that state. :( high draw due to bad connectivity? Caused a blown trace? I soldered Zelda cart for nes once it works a treat
It was just corrosion! The previous owner just didn't see a tiny bit of corrosion on that trace. It might be that as it corroded that current eventually cause it to fail though - so probably both things.
Would the repair be the same for a ds cartridge?
If the cart has corrosion, yes!
My n64 stopped working in the first time in 20 yrs. It wont load any of my games at all. I clean the game with cotton swabs n the cartridge port with a card with a tshirt with alcohol. Itll boot up my everdrive and get to the games but it wont load games. Any advice
It could be a fault (Bad RAM perhaps) or a bad solder connection on one of the ICs, but my first thought is that maybe it needs recapping. They do have SMD capacitors, and whilst from my experience on the N64 its rare to need to replace them, maybe or or more have leaked or dried out. You could take the board out to inspect them. Do you use a RAM expansion - have you tried it without that connected? Also might be worth checking the power supply - if one of the voltages is going low it might cause the behaviour you are seeing. You could watch my N64 PSU repair to see where to measure the voltages on the PSU connector.
Is recapping hard?
See my Sega Nomad recapping and A4000 recapping videos - it's not hard if you have the right tools, but if you've never soldered or desoldered before it could be difficult.
@@GadgetUK164 oh boy....
Is there a way to fix a cart with cracked pin connectors
You could try soldering over the breaks, but if they are extreme it could be hard and may interfere with the socket connections.
You know it never cease to amaze me the stupidity of some people, why oh why do people do this to carts. Thankfully on this occasion the cart ended up in the hands of someone (GadgetUK) who knows what the hell they are doing. Great save Chris.
Thanks =D It's a shame the label is so bad. I might see if I can find a repro label.
can you make clone games with that simple64card?
That simple64 card is for the Commodore 64, not the N64 =D
@@GadgetUK164 ohhhh ok thank you!
Oh, yeah, it looks like someone went to town on that with some steel wool. Thank goodness an easy fix. You could have tweeted that cart for @game_whisperer's (formerly @lesoleil70) #FUGLYTuesday entry. :)
=D
Can you program a ROM chip for a Nintendo 64 game? I'm a follower of My Mate Vince and decided to re-watch some of his videos, this brought me back to watching the video where you programmed a new ROM chip for the paperboy game. I have a couple of N64 games that are currently worthless and would like to give them a new lease on life.
The N64 uses a special type of ROM where data is serialised! There are no EEPROM chips that I know of that can be used to fix these. Some custom mod would be required.
How about a SNES rom?
The SNES uses the type type of ROM chip with paralell data bus connections! The N64 has a serial interface! To my knowledge there's no other system that used serial like that.
@@GadgetUK164 How much would I have to pay you to program a SNES rom for me and post it to Australia?
Very impressive repair tip never the less. The title on the N64 game is GoldenEye not You Only Live Twice (Not trying to be picky).
Thanks! The title was supposed to indicate the cart only lives twice, rather than the game name =D Someone else suggested it!
GadgetUK164 - Retro Gaming Repairs & Mods: Your welcome.
I agree the person who did all that damage is a muppet
STC-T12 soldering iron kits aren't terrible.
Thanks, will take a look =D
I took a look again, it's a very new product category and things keep changing there, and while i can't vouch for specific product and forgot where i bought mine, which is a fully unbranded one or was it by KSGER i don't remember, the one on Ali with the name "QUICKO MINI T12 STC OLED Digital soldering station 942 electronic soder iron with 9501 handle power adpater 24V3A Welding tools" looks most interesting, especially if you already have a 20-24V range laptop power brick that you can reuse. The handle in these is fundamentally better than you get with most kits, this is a proper handle type for the T12 cartridge (there are two, 9501 and 2028, not sure the difference), while most give you a slightly finicky and ill fitting 906 retrofit made out of PCBs. In 906 retrofits, you also don't get the advantage of short tip to grip distance.
The T12 is a Hakko cartridge that integrates a tip thermocouple and a heater directly within the same thermal mass, and in series with each other, so the cartridges (China clones) cost a few $, about 3-5 times more expensive than 906 tips, but you get best regulation possible. And the heaters are powerful, actual 70W at 24VDC!
I'm willing to bet someone thought the cart was corroded and ran sandpaper across the contacts and that is how it got all the way down to solder.
Yes, it's a shame they didn't inspect the board closely before going to town!
Either the corrosion ate away at the Gold Plating, or someone tried to repair it with sandpaper.
Probably both! Gold plating corroded, then someone took a power sander to it lol.
How do you even corrode gold plating? It has to have been just the traces and dirt that embedded itself.
LOL!!! That's a very good point now you mention it! I suspect the corrosion got under the edges of the gold perhaps.
It couldn't have been easy to corrode off the top of the plating sandwich WHILE leaving copper underneath intact, the most corrosion prone metal of the sandwich. Then again, nickel could have gone sacrificial? But then this thoroughly? It's a puzzle unless we assume that failure happened completely elsewhere, and then the owner abraded away the plating.
And thinking about it - I bet the pads were not corroded at all! Perhaps just dirty! There was little evidence of actual corrosion on the board.
Thats not dirty, i got a SNES with games from a smackhead (for free because no PSU and cables so in his eyes worthless) and it whas under blood and shit or a combination of both. I whas trowing up during cleaning, but he a free SNES with games and controllers that now looks like new and not colored. :)
OT: i have two N64 cards not working, still need to see whats wrong with it, the Everdrive spoiled me.
Ew? Hope you didn't catch anything.
@@RudyGGs Nope didnt got anything is wore gloves on and Mr. Propper/Mr.Clean for the in and out scrub of the system and games.
Win for you mate! What an idiot though, he'd pretty much destroyed that game. If you're after a nice little soldering station with temperature control. I got one of those cheap W.E.R 937D+ Hakko copies off ebay, it's actually a really nice little station for cheap. Certainly worth considering :)
Thanks - will check out that iron too =D
What no label again? No printed quote "No Mr Bond, i expect you to die" with some cart pun in there?
I think this cart deserves a nice label, pun or no pun. That one looks skank.
BrooksterMax posted an idea in the comments - "You Only Live Twice" XD
Perfect.
The name's UK, Gadget UK; licence to solder.
Haha =D
You only live twice....
LOL! Love it!
Might have to adapt the title to that! =D
GadgetUK164 - Retro Gaming Repairs & Mods sweet! I see it’s rocking it now!
Thanks to you! =D Will mention it when I look at an N64 memory card fault I should fix in a future vid!
That was bad :/ There is a good video on youtube called "How To Re-plate and Repair PCB Gold Fingers". But the price for gold plating kit doesn't make sense for one cart :D I also have some issues on couple carts and the pirated- / multi carts never have the gold plating on them. I suppose PCB manufacturers could also do it, but again, the price doesn't make sense for one cart..
I will check that out, thanks =D
10 minutes in an ultrasonic would have saved you all this work
That wouldn't really of helped! Other than just removing general dirt - there was lots of corrosion that had to be removed the way I did. I have an ultrasonic cleaner!