— Hitman's Museum of Consoles & CRTs
Where dead consoles come back to life — restoring, modding & preserving retro gaming hardware.
+23 photosSuccessful repairSony — PlayStation
Late PU-8 PlayStation, the one that gave up its xStation to a PU-18, now getting a new xStation of its own and going to a friend. It came up with random green speckles in the video output, traced to cracked, dull solder joints on the PSU. Reflowing them and swapping two capacitors cleared it. Then a full mainboard recap, with the areas around the old capacitors treated with white vinegar and cleaned with isopropyl, the old X-Reset replaced with a cleaner one on a Consoles Unleashed QSB, and finally a full recap of the power supply as well.
+41 photosWork in progressSharp — X68000 XVI Compact
Won at auction with its mains cord cut clean off the PSU, taken as a gamble at a below-market price. A replacement lead was spliced in from another Japanese cord using solder-ring heatshrink sleeves, with extra insulation over the joint. It powered on once, then refused entirely, so the PSU came out for a recap: fully decapped, scrubbed with white vinegar and isopropyl, new capacitors fitted and marked, and every joint on the solder side reflowed. That brought it back reliably and it booted Human68k from disk. The rest of the machine was worse, with electrolyte contamination on every capacitor pad on every board. SMDs came off the mainboard and the expansion card, the pads were reworked with fresh solder, flux and braid until all were clean and none lost, then the through-hole electrolytics followed. The floppy drives had leaked internally and were recapped with their motor shafts cleaned and lubricated, and the peripheral input board's single capacitor was replaced. Still powers on after reassembly, pending fuller testing.
+84 photosSuccessful repairSega — Wondermega
Someone else's Victor RG-M1 Wondermega, JVC's branding of the Sega Wondermega, sent in for refurbishment and described as fully functional. It arrived with a blown supercapacitor and a loose capacitor rattling around inside the shell, later traced to a pad beside the DC input jack where the machine had taken a hard knock. Carts played happily but it would not read a single CD. A full recap followed, roughly 70 capacitors across every board, with white vinegar and isopropyl baths, flux and fresh solder over dodgy vias and the regulators, and DeoxIT through the karaoke pots and microphone jacks. The cart side came back fine, the CD side did not. A detour along the way cured the vertical jailbars on the composite and S-video outputs with an Oleg Endo RGB kit, tapping the Sony CXA1145M encoder and swapping the stock S-video port for a Saturn-style DIN. The supercapacitor was replaced and later superseded by an F-RAM install. The CD fault survived a complete chassis swap, a clean bill of health on every board and a working spindle motor, which left the laser. The owner sourced new old stock, and once it was fitted and its board recapped in turn, the machine read both originals and backups. Finished with UV protectant and packed up.
+49 photosSuccessful repairSony — PlayStation
Imported NTSC-J PlayStation sent in for the full works: xStation, MFO and X-Reset installs, plus a recap and a clean. Board and PSU recaps went in without trouble, then the console came up dead, no video and no audio, once the mods were fitted. The MFO had been wired to a pad that is ground on one board revision but not on this PU-18, which shorted the 3.5V rail and blew the PS604 fuse. Rewired correctly and refitted with a fuse taken from another console, with the surrounding fuses and ferrite beads checked for further damage. Finished with a controller clean and recap, lubrication and UV protectant.
+34 photosSuccessful repairNEC — PC Engine LT
An epic of strife, perseverance and adaptation. The NEC PC Engine LT is the 1991 laptop-format PC Engine with a built-in colour LCD. Almost always dead from cap leakage. This one needed a full recap, a new voltage regulator, and an off-the-shelf voltage inverter module to replace the T500 LCD bias transformer, killed by the electrolyte. Without that, the screen stays dark.
+11 photosSega — Wondermega
Full board recap on this Victor RG-M1 Wondermega (JVC's branding of the Sega Wondermega), complete with a laser sled clean. Drew blood for this one; photo evidence in the thread. Everything works; the motorised tray is just waiting on a replacement belt.
+18 photosSuccessful repairNEC — PC Engine CD-ROM2
This NEC PC Engine CD-ROM² threw everything at me: 3D printed gears, a dead laser, a Discman sacrifice and a spindle height mystery, before a full recap finally brought it home. Worth every frustrating hour of it.
+7 photosNEC — PC Engine IFU-30
Capacitors, voltage regulator and the supercapacitor that keeps the save data alive on this NEC PC Engine IFU-30 interface unit. Validated with Street Fighter II and Bomberman '94.
+6 photosNEC — PC Engine CoreGrafx
A quick pre-dinner recap on this NEC PC Engine CoreGrafx, plus the standard 7805 voltage regulator replacement and jailbar fix caps thrown in for good measure. Short job.
+3 photosNEC — Ten No Koe 2
This NEC Ten no Koe 2 was harbouring what are probably the original Hudson Soft branded batteries, in there since the day it left the factory. No leakage, so the batteries were kept as-is; the compartment got a preventative treatment anyway in case of past leakage.
+33 photosSuccessful repairBang & Olufsen (B&O) — Beovision 1
This Bang & Olufsen Beovision 1 CRT TV had the audacity to emit smoke and then carry on displaying a perfect picture. A lengthy investigation eventually uncovered an X2 safety cap that had met a truly spectacular end. Came away with a cleaner TV and a great story.
+20 photosPartial fixFujitsu — FM Towns Marty
Thorough recap from top to bottom on this Fujitsu FM Towns Marty. The console boots and the CD-ROM side works, but the floppy drive remains undefeated. It spins but refuses to acknowledge any disk.
