There's nothing wrong with my 3DO. What can I do about it?

[towmater]

I just removed the 3V button cell under the assumption that it might leak (even though it was still working fine.) is there any other preventative care that I should do to keep my 3DO running for a few more decades?

 

My first thought was capacitor refresh, but if it will be sitting for a while, even the replacement caps might leak? There is a big-ugly 6800uf cap in the power section of the main board, that has a weird goo at its base, though I assumed that was just some kind of glue to hold it in place since it is pretty big. I assume there's not such thing as a leak-proof capacitor?

 

I also heard that lasers will fade after time, is there any intervention possible? YouTube suggests that a fix for broken lasers is to locate a Matsushita drive from the same era that uses the same laser mech, but what made those drives last any longer then the original in the 3DO, or is it just a matter of finding one with a little more life in it until they have all inevitably failed?

[CatPix]

Replacing the battery is a thing only if you plan to have it stored for years. Batteries start to leak only when they are discharged and their chemicals start reacting in unexpected ways. I have a computer from 1988 with a little "barrel" battery inside, and despite being 28 years old it haven't leaked and still hold a charge if I power the unit every month of so.

 

For capacitors, since the 90's, electronics have evolved, and chemical caps that were once only available as chemical are now "dry" caps (mylar or tantalum). If you replace caps, start by the ones on the motherboard - On the 3DO FZ1 the power supply is a separate block, if a cap fail, it will only damage the PSU.

For lasers, I have no idea really. IMO, what xear you lasers is using them. Lettign them sit on the other end might let the rail grease and the laser focusing mechanism getting dry and stuck.

In a general manner, you should pwoer your stored consoles every now and then, the ideal would be to power them for 15 mins every month.

[zetastrike]

I have an FZ-1 that is totally stock. I haven't used it a ton over the past 6 months as most of my games have been in storage. Reading this made me turn it on for the first time in about a month. I just let it go through the bios animation for about 20 minutes, then I put Virtual Horror (Japanese Monster Manor) in. It loaded the game fine, still remembered my save file, streamed music fine.

 

Do you think it's urgent that I get the caps and save battery replaced? There really isn't a ton of info about 3DO reliability out there.

[gameblabla]

I guess one could buy the USB Host controller for FZ-1/FZ-10/Goldstar and plug a USB DVD drive to it but it would require adding support for external drives to the controller's firmware...
But if such thing gets added in the future, it would increase reliability while still allowing people to use retail discs.
That's a shame because replacement lasers are rare and expensive.
Maybe you can convince the guy behind it to add support for external drives.

Edited February 5, 2017 by gameblabla

[Austin]

Do you think it's urgent that I get the caps and save battery replaced?

It wouldn't hurt.