Refurbishing Thread

[Anonymous No.598684]

Anyone here ever do any cleaning up/refurbishing of old consoles/carts, either for personal collections or for resale?

What are your strategies for fixing up old consoles and the like?

[Anonymous No.598702]

I always just take the casing off and clean it in warm, soapy water and wipe down the PCB with ~70% rubbing alcohol if it needs it. No need to do anything really fancy or whatever, as long as it looks nice and doesn't look like it's going to give me some sort of disease.

[tim the tool man taylor No.598729]

i just blow into the cartridges

[Anonymous No.598752]

If it's just dusty, I wipe it down with window cleaner and a rag. If particularly nasty:

Disassemble
All plastic parts go in the sink
Hot, soapy water
Wash, rinse, shake/blow/whip dry
Reassemble

I had to pick hair and doritos out of my model 1 Saturn as I was installing a mod chip. absolutelydisgusting.mkv

[Anonymous No.598757]

>>598729
Yeah, and post photos in the next hot glue thread
>amifunnyyet.avi.bak

[Anonymous No.598762]

>>598752
How do you even get doritos inside a console? How are people so fucking messy.

[Anonymous No.598764]

Guys, how the fuck do I get stickers off without just making everything worse?

[Anonymous No.598776]

>>598764
Rip the sticker off the best you can, spray a bit of WD-40 on a rag, and then use the rag to get the residue off.

[Anonymous No.598770]

>>598764
if it's something you can put in water, soak in hot water.

[Anonymous No.598795]

>>598764
>Guys, how the fuck do I get stickers off without just making everything worse?
Leave it the fuck on. It's part of that particular console's goddamn fucking history.

If you want a pristine clean console, you can always buy a goddamn freaking new one.

[Anonymous No.598797]

>>598795

[Anonymous No.598823]

>>598764
Use a hair dryer. Warming up the sticker will make the glue softer and easier to peel off. Then as another anon said use a small ammount of WD-40 or another solvent on a clean peice of cloth and wipe away the excess.

Generally speaking, I find rubbing alcohol (99% is best) and q-tips useful for cleaning dirty cartridge connectors.

If you have an old game that won't save properly, it probably means the battery is dead. Fortunately most games used fairly standard batteries, and replacing it will even often restore the original saves that were on there. You will need a soldering gun to re-connect them, but it's pretty easy and straight forward.

[Anonymous No.598835]

>>598823
You can also be lazy and just use electrical tape.

Or be really fancy and put a socket in there for easier switching.

[Anonymous No.598860]

>>598764
Goo Gone, let it sit for a bit and soak in, but don't let it sit for too long or it'll ruin any manufacturing labels. It can also be done for game cartridges too.

[Anonymous No.598863]

>>598764
Rubbing alcohol. Rubbing alcohol, paper towels, Q-tips, and patience.

This cleans everything ever made of hard plastic. Everything. Ever.

[Anonymous No.598946]

Here's a vid from a ledditor with pretty solid advice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdYLw_sMpY8

Some advice:

• Make sure you use Isopropyl Alcohol that is 90% or greater. Anything less will work, but will take much longer to dry.
• Magic Erasers are a last-resort option. They're equivalent to sandpaper, so using them basically takes away all the shine off your cartridge.
• If someone wrote something with marker on the game label, you're pretty much fucked. There isn't really a magic solution that gets rid of it while keeping the label intact; all you can really do is go over the marker with an iso-alcohol q-tip and pray that it comes off.

[Anonymous No.598987]

>>598946
WD-40 can add a bit of shine back into some plastics.
It's truly a magical product.

[Anonymous No.599095]

>>598835
If you're referring to replacing batteries, electrical tape isn't enough. Trust me, I've tried. You really do need to solder to get a proper connection.

[Anonymous No.599134]

>>599095
I've used electrical tape plenty of times and it's worked flawlessly. It's obviously much cleaner and nicer to solder it, but electrical tape will work if you do it right.

[Anonymous No.599198]

>>598946
that guy is pale as fuck, does he ever go outside?

great vid though, learned a lot. gonna go clean all my cartridges now

[Anonymous No.599216]

I get a lot of broken Nintendos that need new pins; I buy them for 7 bucks online, install them, get them working, and resell them for about 30-50.

[Anonymous No.599229]

>>598823
>replacing it will even often restore the original saves that were on there
I don't think you know how SRAM works.

[Anonymous No.599470]

>>599229
Well I don't think you've replaced many batteries in old carts before, because it happens. I was able to restore both my Light Crusader and Shining Force 2 saves that way, and I've found several old saves on carts from pawn shops.

>>599134
I guess you're just a better electrician than I. No matter how carefully I wrapped, I always got a shitty connection until I turned to solder.

[Anonymous No.599492]

>>598764
A heat gun or blow dryer. Low heat from at least 6-8 inches away. Let it heat up for a little bit, and then start pealing at the corner gently.

Works 9 times out of 10, some stickers will just rip and tear at everything under them.

[Anonymous No.599541]

I've been selling my old consoles. I just got a message today on ebay saying I didn't clean the N64 enough and that they want a refund

I offered to take it back, open it up to clean it, and send it back

[Anonymous No.599567]

Any tips for cleaning a PSX?

[Anonymous No.599864]

>>598684
>What are your strategies for fixing up old consoles and the like?
I shot my hot load on them and wait til they respawn

[Anonymous No.600381]

>>598684

For carts, I usually start by removing any stickers, carefully with goo-gone. Then disassemble scrub plastic with mild detergent and a tooth brush, and with the PCB out I clean the contacts with brasso.

If the battery is dead I'll install a low-profile CR2032 holder in it's place; in case it ever needs to be changed again.

As for consoles & controllers; complete disassembly. Wash the boards in 99% rubbing alcohol, and throw all the plastic parts in a washing bin with dish soap. For controllers I tend to do a bunch at once, putting all the best parts together, and using the more beatup parts for DIY projects, or daily-driver controllers.

[Anonymous No.600406]

>>600381

When I say DIY projects, I mean like this; used a crappy $10 ebay classic controller, replacing all the plastic and rubber with OEM nintendo parts.

[Anonymous No.601535]

>>598764
I peel stickers very slowly, like 1mm per second or slower. If the sticker rips or comes apart, I peel what more I can off, or scrape it off with my fingernail being used more like a wedge than a rake. If nothing ripped, I dab the sticker onto where it came off of to remove any remaining glue, but if it did rip, then I rub the surface against my shirt to lint-up any remaining glue, to smudge it off, I guess.

[Anonymous No.601545]

>>599567
Remove the shell, wash as if it were dishes. Be sure to store the board and RF shields on an anti-static mat if you have one. If you don't have one, you should probably get one.