For burning the enamel off the wire, dont hold the wire in the lighter flame, you run the lighter back and forth very quickly for about 2 - 3 seconds then instantly wipe, and the coating is burned off with no melted wire. Also for these repairs, use air dry pcb an solder paint, with a couple of coats of UV-curable solder mask on top. No actual soldering required because the sokder paint joins the gap. And, a sewing pin stuck in to an old thin artist brush handle (remove the brush head, drill a tiny hole in to the brush handle, then insert the pin, sharp side facing out, superglued in- could possibly use a thick BBQ wooden skewer instead of the artist brush handle) is a better tool for scraping the solder mask off the traces. It also gives you more control and it makes sure you wont cause any extra broken traces.
I won't be bothered to place a wire when the gap itself is less than diameter of that wire. On good half of these cracks you can get away with just a solder blob.
The funny thing about magnet wire: If you're using it for patching a trace, then you want what is normally considered bad quality so that the enamel is removed easily. If winding a speaker coil or radio tuner or inductor, etc, you want the BEST quality wire so that the enamel doesn't flake off so easily.
@@monkersuk6719 I have some amtech flux paste I switched to the pen to see if there was a difference in fumes and cleaning and I feel like the pen flux is easier to clean up although I'm sure it's not the best quality
You're right I should have cleaned that pin up with some solder wick. Thankfully it wasn't enough to mess up the cartridge slot when I tested it but I'll have to make sure and fix that it just in case
The fiberglass pen that I use has a smaller diameter fiberglass element . Possibly the broader size pens like that cover too much area for such a job .
A trick that I like to do to expose the copper underneath the mask is to take an xacto knife and scratch away at it. I'm interested in the engraver pen, but my method works for me and I'm cheap lol.
Good stuff mate, just started the same thing, first video coming up soon. Let me know if you want to chat about it... In the meantime I just got hundreds of cassettes and games...but nothing makes you feel better than a repaired sega cartridge!
Awesome I hope your video does well! It's a great feeling when you get a dead game working again. I see you've made some overwatch videos, That's cool I used to play a lot before they came out with Overwatch 2
No solder on edge connectors. Solder oxidizes and will become a bad connection. There is usually a layer of hard gold on edge connections that you want to maintain.
I got these games a lot, so I'm not sure what kind of life they had before I got them, but it might have been corrosion, it could have been the stress of putting them in and taking them out over the years. But it was probably corrosion that got them.
I'm guessing it's the ripping the old cartridge out and slamming a new cartridge in that might have done it. Maybe that's why NES tried out that ZIF-style cartridge insertion scheme.
Hi mate, I have the Sonic & Knuckles game and it doesn't work. I have located the pin that is low in value by comparing it with another Sonic & Knuckles, I have soldered a 1 mA resistor to the ground of the PCB board and the value is still the same and it still doesn't work. Could you help me? Thanks!!
I am no expert, and I am still learning, but as far as I understand it, you are looking for a pin that is a higher number than the rest or is an OL open line (Usually the 8th pin) and you need a 1k ohm resistor across that pin and ground. Also make sure to check for broken tracers. I hope you can get it working good luck!
@@mmshamik13 I am still new to having a UA-cam channel and not sure how to go about receiving photos unless I set up a social media account for the channel (Maybe I should look into that). Looks like the Sonic and Knuckles game has 2 rom chips, did you check both of them?. Also, I found a post on stack exchange talking about the game with Board pictures and how the game works with other sonic games I hope this helps retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/1514/how-exactly-does-sonic-knuckles-lock-on-technology-work
Do you have an email address so I can send you some images, because I have soldered the resistor to several grounds on the board and the value of the pin does not change?
@@mmshamik13 I just made an email account for the Channel hopefullrepairman@gmail.com The file size limit is 25 MB. not sure what size of the photos are. If you can send the photos on there, I'll try and look at them. however there are no grantees that I can help as I am still learning and I have never worked on the Sonic and Knuckles cartridge before
I got some fiberglass dust on the mat I was using and my arms started to itch I just got concerned that I was contaminating my work area with fiberglass dust I know a lot of people like using the fiberglass pens for me it just wasn't working fast enough maybe I was doing something wrong 😕
@@HopefullRepairman The first repair show that you're using the fiberglass pen like an eraser, that is incorrect. Just use it along the trace to be worked on, and you can slightly tilt the pen to use only the external fibers. Like that you concentrate the scratch on the trace area, thus making much less fiberglass dust. Keep the fibers short enough to work, if they're too long they break and make more dust. The tilt is also the point to correctly using scalpel round blade or any precise tool you're using to scratch the solder mask. For example it's much more easy for me with the standard #11 X-Acto blade than the curved #10. For so short broken traces, a simple solder blob may be enough... but in this case flux is not exactly your friend. You can also using just 1 strand of a bigger wire, so you don't have to mess with the enamel.
For burning the enamel off the wire, dont hold the wire in the lighter flame, you run the lighter back and forth very quickly for about 2 - 3 seconds then instantly wipe, and the coating is burned off with no melted wire.
Also for these repairs, use air dry pcb an solder paint, with a couple of coats of UV-curable solder mask on top. No actual soldering required because the sokder paint joins the gap.
And, a sewing pin stuck in to an old thin artist brush handle (remove the brush head, drill a tiny hole in to the brush handle, then insert the pin, sharp side facing out, superglued in- could possibly use a thick BBQ wooden skewer instead of the artist brush handle) is a better tool for scraping the solder mask off the traces. It also gives you more control and it makes sure you wont cause any extra broken traces.
I won't be bothered to place a wire when the gap itself is less than diameter of that wire. On good half of these cracks you can get away with just a solder blob.
exactly what i was gonna say
The funny thing about magnet wire: If you're using it for patching a trace, then you want what is normally considered bad quality so that the enamel is removed easily. If winding a speaker coil or radio tuner or inductor, etc, you want the BEST quality wire so that the enamel doesn't flake off so easily.
To remove the polyurethane coating run your soldering iron over the wire with a bit of solder on the tip. That’s usually what I do.
for some reason youtube recommend me this video. Great video and new subscriber here
huh magnent wire for enamel wire. i learned something. never crossed my mind.
Great job on these! If you replace that flux pen with some genuine quality flux (amtech is great) it will make a huge difference :)
@@monkersuk6719 I have some amtech flux paste I switched to the pen to see if there was a difference in fumes and cleaning and I feel like the pen flux is easier to clean up although I'm sure it's not the best quality
18:12 with such a solder blob on a contact pin you are going to destroy your cwrtridge slot as it will bend the contact in the slot.
You're right I should have cleaned that pin up with some solder wick. Thankfully it wasn't enough to mess up the cartridge slot when I tested it but I'll have to make sure and fix that it just in case
That mono made me check my headphones ...
Oops 😬
The fiberglass pen that I use has a smaller diameter fiberglass element . Possibly the broader size pens like that cover too much area for such a job .
A trick that I like to do to expose the copper underneath the mask is to take an xacto knife and scratch away at it. I'm interested in the engraver pen, but my method works for me and I'm cheap lol.
Good stuff mate, just started the same thing, first video coming up soon. Let me know if you want to chat about it... In the meantime I just got hundreds of cassettes and games...but nothing makes you feel better than a repaired sega cartridge!
Awesome I hope your video does well! It's a great feeling when you get a dead game working again. I see you've made some overwatch videos, That's cool I used to play a lot before they came out with Overwatch 2
Good job! One more subscriber!
subbed. keep it up.
Great video ❤❤❤
No solder on edge connectors. Solder oxidizes and will become a bad connection. There is usually a layer of hard gold on edge connections that you want to maintain.
@HopefulRepairman what catastrophe caused this damage?
I got these games a lot, so I'm not sure what kind of life they had before I got them, but it might have been corrosion, it could have been the stress of putting them in and taking them out over the years. But it was probably corrosion that got them.
I'm guessing it's the ripping the old cartridge out and slamming a new cartridge in that might have done it. Maybe that's why NES tried out that ZIF-style cartridge insertion scheme.
Hi mate, I have the Sonic & Knuckles game and it doesn't work. I have located the pin that is low in value by comparing it with another Sonic & Knuckles, I have soldered a 1 mA resistor to the ground of the PCB board and the value is still the same and it still doesn't work. Could you help me? Thanks!!
I am no expert, and I am still learning, but as far as I understand it, you are looking for a pin that is a higher number than the rest or is an OL open line (Usually the 8th pin) and you need a 1k ohm resistor across that pin and ground. Also make sure to check for broken tracers. I hope you can get it working good luck!
The Sonic & Knuckles game has more pins than normal games, where could I send you some photos so you could see them and give me your opinion?
@@mmshamik13 I am still new to having a UA-cam channel and not sure how to go about receiving photos unless I set up a social media account for the channel (Maybe I should look into that). Looks like the Sonic and Knuckles game has 2 rom chips, did you check both of them?. Also, I found a post on stack exchange talking about the game with Board pictures and how the game works with other sonic games I hope this helps
retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/1514/how-exactly-does-sonic-knuckles-lock-on-technology-work
Do you have an email address so I can send you some images, because I have soldered the resistor to several grounds on the board and the value of the pin does not change?
@@mmshamik13 I just made an email account for the Channel hopefullrepairman@gmail.com The file size limit is 25 MB. not sure what size of the photos are. If you can send the photos on there, I'll try and look at them. however there are no grantees that I can help as I am still learning and I have never worked on the Sonic and Knuckles cartridge before
You should work on the really bad ones next
I can see the reflections of the LED lights you got going there yet the image is still too dark. fix the exposure setting on your camera.
Thank you for your comment! I'll look into the exposure settings going forward
what solder are you using
It's a radio shack brand leaded solder 60/40 rosin core solder .032" diameter I probably should be using thinner solder but it's what I have
I have used fiberglass pens many times. I don't know why you are freaking out 🤨
I got some fiberglass dust on the mat I was using and my arms started to itch I just got concerned that I was contaminating my work area with fiberglass dust I know a lot of people like using the fiberglass pens for me it just wasn't working fast enough maybe I was doing something wrong 😕
Years ago... i did a repair on my surfboard no gloves.... that dust is no joke. took about a month to stop feeling it... never did that mistake again
@@HopefullRepairman The first repair show that you're using the fiberglass pen like an eraser, that is incorrect. Just use it along the trace to be worked on, and you can slightly tilt the pen to use only the external fibers. Like that you concentrate the scratch on the trace area, thus making much less fiberglass dust. Keep the fibers short enough to work, if they're too long they break and make more dust.
The tilt is also the point to correctly using scalpel round blade or any precise tool you're using to scratch the solder mask. For example it's much more easy for me with the standard #11 X-Acto blade than the curved #10.
For so short broken traces, a simple solder blob may be enough... but in this case flux is not exactly your friend. You can also using just 1 strand of a bigger wire, so you don't have to mess with the enamel.
@@geraldv203 Thanks for the advice!
By cheap Sports games and swap the rom chips
I tried that on a couple of other Sega games so many pins to desolder I messed up so bad lol
you need more flux.
Yeah watching the video back while editing I realized that as well rookie mistake I guess. Thank you for your comment