NEC PC Engine Duo Recap, Optical Pickup & RGB Mod (2nd Unit)

Since no man is ever happy with 1 PC Engine Duo, I got a second one (also in 2021). Of course this was also going to need to be recapped. Same grimey dust buildup with leakage on this one too. Sadly, that was not the only thing it needed. So, here we go! #retrogaming #pcengine

First step is to quickly and magically extract all of the rubbish caps from the board.

Second step is to even more quickly clean up all that gunk and install the new caps. Look at those shiny joints. 😀

Unfortunately, along the way, being a novice, I charred a few things although without loss of function. A connector and the lid switch. You can also see I made some marks on the board, to note the positions of the pots. The CD drive was working very poorly I wanted to experiment.

Through some posts online, I found a method of tuning the pots and I got it to read original discs reliably, but not burned ones. However, as you can hear a short while after the game loads up, the disc sounded like it was rubbing against something.

I wasn't happy with the lid switch charring, even though it worked, so I replaced it with a new one just to make sure it was reliable and wouldn't be a cause of failure further down the line.

Eventually I abandoned this idea, got a new optical pickup and put the pots back to the original positions. In these pics I am removing the old one, just turning the screws on the plastic pegs, lifting up the rails and sliding it off. Pretty serviceable.

Then, I disconnected the old pickup and plugged in the new one and slid it into place. You can see the box of the new one, off to the left.

The new pickup worked fine, no more rubbing and I even tested it burned games later and it can read those too. I was glad I had marked the original positions of the pots.

Some eagle-eyed among you might have noticed I was using a custom cable, so yeah, naturally, this had been RGB modded too, by me. So here are some pics of the installation.

No surprises here, I was completely obsessed with Castlevania Rondo of Blood back then (still am), so that was my test game.