What dumb little tech repair have you done recently that felt good anyways?

[CatPix]

I found a PS4 in a trahsbin. Lacking the top part, loosened screws.

Picking it up, I plugged it in, and it booted, only to stop after warning it got too hot.

After checking, it seems that whoever tried to clean it (it was awfully dusty) didn't looked very long : the top part was missing but a part was broken and stayed on the console. Two sticky caches for the bottom shell were missing, but a third one was still there, untouched. The top metallic plate was bend, because it is held by two screws from the bottom so they couldn't remove it fully. After cleaning it, and reseating all parts alright....

It's been running smoothly for the past 4 hours, so I guess... Easy fix, free console?

[zzip]

I replaced the trigger springs in my PS5 Dual Sense controller.   Apparently these are prone to breaking and when they do the triggers become loose.

 

New springs are cheap, but it was a PIA to position those tiny things correctly.   Hopefully the new ones last longer.

[Rick Dangerous]

Fixed the counterweight on my turntable that had been knocked off during shipping for my recent move down south.  

 

The wire had pulled through the weight so i needed to use fishing wire to pull it back through. 

 

It was a dumb little repair but I still felt pretty satisfied after getting it all back to A-1. 

[+x=usr(1536)]

A while back, as part of some semi-preventative maintenance, I replaced the Select and Reset button mylar in my 2600 Junior with repurposed Proline controller fire buttons and right-angled DuPont connectors plus wiring to bring the signals back to the PCB.  Everything went fine and the unit was completely reassembled, after which point the fact that only the Select button worked was discovered.

 

Since the mylar replacement had come right after a particularly protracted UAV installation, my motivation to open the machine up again and reorder the connectors was pretty low.  Besides, the 7800 was working fine and it had fully-functional Select and Reset buttons; this can wait for another day.  It's not like I'll forget about it every time I go to test something on the 2600 that requires the Reset button to be working, amirite?

 

Looks like today was the day where I got fed up with forgetting about it and put everything back in working order.  It only took five minutes, but the hilarity of stabbing the Reset button repeatedly and wondering why the software wasn't responding until I realised that my own laziness was to blame will last a lifetime.

[Lord_of_Sipan]

Not super recent as I did this last year, but I got an rca studio ii for $80 listed as tested but with no sound. When I got it I quickly realized the shell had been assembled slightly wrong at the factory as it was bulging around one of the “teeth” that aligns it but still had its original warranty sticker over one of the screw holes. I poked through the warranty sticker (oh no I can’t return it to rca now!) and dusted it out inside even though it looked pretty pristine, great buttons and good looking ribbon cables to the controls. Put it back together and voila, the little annoying speaker works just fine. Because of the way the case was assembled it had been physically pinched in place so it couldn’t make noise.

 

Now unfortunately I have to hear that damn speaker when I play the console

 

Sounds like a demonic air horn. 

Edited August 26, 2023 by Lord_of_Sipan

[zylon]

I replaced all 5 of my NES cart batteries. Only one was below 3vdc at 2.99, with the rest around 3.07/8

[Tanooki]

I do not have images for this sorry, but this was my dumb sort of little tech fix and it felt really good for more than one reason.

 

I got these two controllers (image is end result) a few weeks ago early in the month, the listing on ebay was dumb: Nintendo Corded AFTERMARKET Controller for Nintendo NES NOT TESTED (2)  And I think we know usually what untested on ebay means, it's damaged or broke.  I went on it, it went cheap at $17 shipped/taxed to me, for perspective even with the metal finish wear they're easily $25-30 working right each, so I figured maybe I could franken one together or have parts for yet another later.

 

When they arrived they got a quick wipe down, and then tried it out on my action set-PVM combo since I could get to that red cable that way best.

 

Before:  Both #1 and #2 the sliders were sketchy, the sound on the audio jack didn't work well spotty or not between them, and inside wasn't making 100% reliable contact for gameplay (uh oh.)  So one at a time I opened them up and I gave both the same identical treatment.  Inside and out got a nice alcohol rub down, swabbing in smaller spaces, got them sanitary to say the least, and did this on every single contact, even the metal sliders prongs.  There was some varied improvement on both, but not the audio which still was bad but control input was good.  From here I had already assumed the worst, had my soldering iron out.  Imagine the inside of this as it's TWO PCBS of the same size/shape as an Oreo and the cream filling would be various diodes caps, etc between the pair with a few plastic struts, which gratefully left me hopeful my plan would work.  I went over both PCBs every single last solder joint I heated up to liquid and reflowed it all, everywhere, including for the audio jack leads.  Before closing up pulled the metal prongs on the sliders a bit more up and away to be a bit more firm on the PCB.

 

After:  A 95% recovery!  #1 is at 100%. #2 is not, but it's minor.  The controller is a bastard molding hybrid of the Famicom and PCEngine controller, as such it has the same sliders for turbo right down to the icons in the plastic as the PCE and for turbo it's OFF, 50%, 100%.  On this controller, and it's weird, but the 50% contact works at 100%?!?! and the 100% (full right) is dead.  Why I have no idea, it's strange, but I don't care enough to figure it out.  Aside from that, it's perfect.

 

The neat thing on these, that audio jack, you plug that into your NES, and your audio goes to the controller which has a sound processor inside and it has two features to it, volume control on the front, and a switch below sel/start along the narrow edge and that's for stereo panning.  If you have it off you just get split sound over 2 speakers simulating stereo pretty ok, but if you flip that on, whenever you press LEFT or RIGHT on the controller, it pans the audio volume up for like 1.5~sec.  It's really fun and depending on the game it creates an awesome effect if you use more of left and right equally to play (flight, pinball, sports, etc) than your usual run to the right platformer.

 

So basically I paid $17 and got like $50+ worth of controllers.  They're really unique and fun, licensed and especially close to first party given Hudson of the time, the controller jack itself isn't third party, it's a Nintendo cable with their name in the plastic like on an OEM Controller with the console itself.

[+x=usr(1536)]

12 hours ago, Tanooki said:

So basically I paid $17 and got like $50+ worth of controllers.  They're really unique and fun, licensed and especially close to first party given Hudson of the time, the controller jack itself isn't third party, it's a Nintendo cable with their name in the plastic like on an OEM Controller with the console itself.

Huh, those were made by Sansui.  Interesting; they made some really good hifi equipment at one point.

[Tanooki]

1 hour ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Huh, those were made by Sansui.  Interesting; they made some really good hifi equipment at one point.

Yeah and I can see it even on the low end of a combo Hudson, sansui, Nintendo collaboration on this. Can’t recommend it more highly enough. 

[ColecoGamer]

Re-soldering the power plug on a Sega Genesis, that I paid a dollar for and it fixed the system.

[Middleway]

I bought a non-working PS3 controller from a garage sale for $1.  The battery charged OK and it connected to the console but was doing random things when pressing buttons, like going Left when I would press the X button.  After some research I learned this is a common failure.  In the controller the ribbon cable makes contact with the board by pressure only -- provided by a small piece of foam behind the ribbon cable.  As it ages it loses its effectiveness and it doesn't make solid contact. 

 

I cut out a small rectangular piece of thin carboard, put it behind the foam to shore it up, and it worked great again.  Nice easy no-cost fix!

[zylon]

On 8/26/2023 at 10:05 PM, Tanooki said:

I do not have images for this sorry, but this was my dumb sort of little tech fix and it felt really good for more than one reason.

 

I got these two controllers (image is end result) a few weeks ago early in the month, the listing on ebay was dumb: Nintendo Corded AFTERMARKET Controller for Nintendo NES NOT TESTED (2)  And I think we know usually what untested on ebay means, it's damaged or broke.  I went on it, it went cheap at $17 shipped/taxed to me, for perspective even with the metal finish wear they're easily $25-30 working right each, so I figured maybe I could franken one together or have parts for yet another later.

 

When they arrived they got a quick wipe down, and then tried it out on my action set-PVM combo since I could get to that red cable that way best.

 

Before:  Both #1 and #2 the sliders were sketchy, the sound on the audio jack didn't work well spotty or not between them, and inside wasn't making 100% reliable contact for gameplay (uh oh.)  So one at a time I opened them up and I gave both the same identical treatment.  Inside and out got a nice alcohol rub down, swabbing in smaller spaces, got them sanitary to say the least, and did this on every single contact, even the metal sliders prongs.  There was some varied improvement on both, but not the audio which still was bad but control input was good.  From here I had already assumed the worst, had my soldering iron out.  Imagine the inside of this as it's TWO PCBS of the same size/shape as an Oreo and the cream filling would be various diodes caps, etc between the pair with a few plastic struts, which gratefully left me hopeful my plan would work.  I went over both PCBs every single last solder joint I heated up to liquid and reflowed it all, everywhere, including for the audio jack leads.  Before closing up pulled the metal prongs on the sliders a bit more up and away to be a bit more firm on the PCB.

 

After:  A 95% recovery!  #1 is at 100%. #2 is not, but it's minor.  The controller is a bastard molding hybrid of the Famicom and PCEngine controller, as such it has the same sliders for turbo right down to the icons in the plastic as the PCE and for turbo it's OFF, 50%, 100%.  On this controller, and it's weird, but the 50% contact works at 100%?!?! and the 100% (full right) is dead.  Why I have no idea, it's strange, but I don't care enough to figure it out.  Aside from that, it's perfect.

 

The neat thing on these, that audio jack, you plug that into your NES, and your audio goes to the controller which has a sound processor inside and it has two features to it, volume control on the front, and a switch below sel/start along the narrow edge and that's for stereo panning.  If you have it off you just get split sound over 2 speakers simulating stereo pretty ok, but if you flip that on, whenever you press LEFT or RIGHT on the controller, it pans the audio volume up for like 1.5~sec.  It's really fun and depending on the game it creates an awesome effect if you use more of left and right equally to play (flight, pinball, sports, etc) than your usual run to the right platformer.

 

So basically I paid $17 and got like $50+ worth of controllers.  They're really unique and fun, licensed and especially close to first party given Hudson of the time, the controller jack itself isn't third party, it's a Nintendo cable with their name in the plastic like on an OEM Controller with the console itself.

Those look like my Beeshu Zipper pads 🤔

[Tanooki]

34 minutes ago, zylon said:

Those look like my Beeshu Zipper pads 🤔

Similar yes. Have a complete with the mini sticks or that too but this one works better and is a little more comfy.