Pokemon Red Game DESTROYED by Liquid - Let's Try to Save It!
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- Опубліковано 6 лют 2025
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PCB Design Attribution: github.com/HDR
Pokemon Red Game DESTROYED by Liquid - Let's Try to Save It! Corrosion ate away the circuit traces on this Pokemon Game Boy game. One way to repair this is to run jumper wires to connect all the broken traces but that's time consuming and might cause problems... so instead, I'm going to try installing all the chips and other components onto a new board.
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PCB Design Attribution: PCB Design Attribution: github.com/HDR
Above is where the PCB design came from for this new PCB. Also, I've been made aware by several commentors that the plating on this PCB is not ideal for this application. If you decide to have this PCB printed it's much better to have it gold plated so the contacts last much longer. Read the comments below to learn more from people who have a lot more experience with this than I do.
The only thing I would change about the PCB, if you're going through the trouble, is changing up the battery area to allow a slide in battery holder, so you can avoid having to use and solder in tabbed batteries.
Great work as always. But I have to agree with many other member comments. As a PCB application engineer, I do not recommend HASL, Tin Lead, Immersion Tin, OSP, Immersion Silver, or even ENIG finishes on pads or copper features that are meant for multiple touches or insertion edge connectors. ENIG is a good source for solderability but not durable enough for edge connectors as wear and tear would still cause gold breakdown/flaking and exposing copper for corrosion. I recommend future designs to use a minimum of 30uin of Hard Gold with a rating of 99.9% knoop on top of 150-200uin of nickel plating. This application better suits edge connectors and touch pads (like the D-pad or buttons) due to the thickness of gold for durability reasons. This will cost more of course, but these boards are typically manufacturing in multiple images on an 18"x24" production panel or larger which brings cost down significantly. Individual piece orders will be the high cost driver.
@@PiiAreSquare oh man, that makes small batch PCB ordering so expensive. I wonder if these gameboy cart replacement pcbs can be purchased at a good quality, by someone who's made them with the hard gold connectors 🤔
I was thinking. Maybe try fix: guitar from Guitar Hero series on PS3 and Xbox 360. They are rare to find in Good condition for small price, only broken are cheap. Also problem is that last game was sold few years ago And is not continued. So they only get more and more expensive.
It's generally agreed that the best finish to use is hard gold, but it's not as much agreed upon what the second-best is. IMO the more important thing is the edge beveling. I haven't finished the video yet, but for any game cartridge PCB you want to make sure the connector edge has a bevel or chamfer on it so that it spreads the contact fingers of the slot more gently. You don't see this on edge connectors for other applications typically because they're not intended for many insertions--e.g. how many times do you remove and insert things to a PCIe slot, maybe a dozen or two?
As I designed GameBoy cartridges myself, I can point out you made a small but important mistake while ordering the PCB. It seems you chose the cheap HASL finish, you definitely should have chosen the ENIG finish (Electroless Nickel Immersion Gold). With HASL, after some dozen insertions into the connector of the GB, the plating will wear out and you'll be back to square one with a non-functional cartridge. ENIG is quite more expensive though, but mandatory for GB cartridges.
Agreed… I have had issues similar to this with fake gameboy games
Yep, he screwed up by cheaping out on HASL instead of getting ENIG. Big no no and RIP the gameboy that see's that game.
@@jamesdavies686 Yes. To explain to the 2 persons reading this, the plating can just peel of the trace and short pins on the connector.
Funny, I just watched the video and was going to comment the same thing about the finish.
wow, this is why videos like this are so great, because the comments are an even greater source of information, thanks
I am only j-std certified in soldering but by watching your videos I have up my game at my work. I have acquired some of your technics. Thank you so much for showing us the repairs that you do. You are an awesome teacher. Thank you so much 🎉
New boards, old chips, great video to save another great electronics device out of landfill. BTW, the free red Game Boy... pls do a video on that.
Unfortunately, wrong plating on the gold fingers so cartridge will fail shortly and end up in a landfill unless swapped on to a new PCB
@@NWquadriders could you elaborate a little please ? that seems interesting.
@@Chaft015 The contacts on the Gameboy connector and the card edge fingers on the cartridges are gold. By using a tin finish on the card edge fingers on that new PCB, this will cause galvanic corrosion. This is oxidizing of the surfaces resulting in unreliable contact and could cause damage to the connector over time. Never mix tin with gold contacts.
@@NWquadriders Thank you for the details, I didn't know that, that could explain why gold plated connections are so sought after in electronics.
Edit : I read that too fast sorry, I understand now, it's crazy how differents metals react to one another.
You have the only channel on UA-cam I actually wait all week for. Good stuff.
Steve, incredibly impressive video. I think Eliott from retrofuture would have a field day with these boards. Amazing work man.
I would love to see a collaboration between him and Eliott I think it would be a great video
I never understood my girlfriend's fix for pimple popping videos.. until i found this channel! It's awesome to see someone take good care and fix our good old stuff
Really appreciate your in depth explanations of the smaller things recently, like why you're tinning the pads etc.
Seeing the hot air gun working so close to a battery SCARED me. Blessedly nothing happened. Great Job! :)
This was awesome! I had no idea you could have new boards manufactured. Love your videos!
I am a nerd that enjoys fixing my own things so much that I enjoy watching you fix things. Good job! 🤓
Im about start
😔
Lowkey, I'd watch an entire video of you just cleaning out the board, cases, and all sorts of that stuff. Great video, would love to see you repairing that red Gameboy.
Oh hey, I did exactly the same thing to get my childhood copy of Red running again. I even fixed a typo (used to read “KDFN”) in HDR’s PCB design and got it merged in, which I can see you used in this video! Was a really fun project and my first time ordering PCBs. I was shocked it worked - thought for sure the ROM was corrupt.
I would've never thought to get a new board made for an old game! Awesome creativity and entertaining video!
3:00 I don't know if it still comes in the video but here you can see in comparison that with the new board the inner pins are too long. Left is 5V and right is GND. This is necessary to not roast the chips when plugged in when powered on and to make a clean contact with GND first.
Just a side note.
Hey there!
I use to see your videos couse Im an electronic designer over 20 years now, and love it.
As well, I am a Video Games lover too, so your works mix both of my world and like your videos.
That beeing said, I do recomend you to look up for thermal pad connections, so you dont have that big of a deal soldering some things like the battery, and also look up for Tear Drops, that will definly lower the liquid damage over pad connections making them more durable.
If you wish, I'm up to keep in touch and help you with you future designs. I do it every day, and really really love my work, so will be my plesure to assist you.
Great video as always! Cheers!
Your videos have become my favorite thing to watch! Thanks for the entertainment and more importantly the knowledge, I’ve bought my first solder iron and set up and look forward to learning more and maybe even starting a side gig.
Happy holidays! Thanks for all the great videos!
I love watching you fix hardware. Just a tip, try using an ultrasonic toothbrush to clean flux off PCBs. Some DI water and an ultrasonic toothbrush does wonders removing water soluble flux!
I've been here for a while and wow seeing 1.25m subs makes me smile! great videos worked out as expected, go strong 💯
That’s awesome! I never even thought about replacing the board and swapping components
I’m so glad of past me for following this channel ‘cause watching these fix it videos are *so* satisfying!
That lightsaber sound....top tier! Great video as always. Merry Christmas to everyone that celebrates!
I could also imagine the thick circuit board bending the gameboy's contacts. Good that you have a thinner one
Watching the work under a microscope is great. Seeing it without the microscope is all the more impressive as we can see the actual sizes being worked with.
Excellent work.
Hi, I am new to the channel and I'm liking these videos so far. I probably got suggested them because of searching for gameboy cartridge battery replacements. It's nice to see this type of work up close.
I had a question. Whenever you clean the boards, what cleaning material do you use? Is it alcohol or something? (Complete novice here).
Awesome stuff Steve! Love that purple conformal coating too. Can't beat Pokemon Red neither, well apart from pokemon gold and silver of course 😉
Idk if you’re the first to do this. But it’s the first time I’m seeing it done. And it’s so amazing . I wish this catches on. Amazing work tronics.
You know what would really suck, if you installed all components on the thicker chip instead of the thin one without realizing it 🤣
Lol, I almost did that!
We want to see a video on the gameboy pocket being fixed, Steve! Good idea for a video.
I had the green GB color back in the day and played the living MESS out of Pokemon Crystal. Love your videos man! Excited for your eventual 2 mil Q&A special again wink wink!
Now i'm even more impressed that my Yellow version not only survived a trip in the washing machine around 20 years ago, but that it still works flawlessly to this day... Not even the lable came off!
I had that happen to ps1 1440 block memory cards.
It actually happened twice because the card was caught in the bed quilt.
I still have that card and it still works to this day!
im blown away that worked tbh I had my suspicions that they would be married to the original board but guess not and that is amazing work good job Tronics!!
I was pleasantly surprised to see you were able to get a PCB remake of the Gameboy game and in a vibrant purple as well.
This is one of your best videos of the year! Merry Christmas to you and your family 🍻🤘🔥🎄
What a great video! Brings back a lot of memories of doing similar repairs. I purchased a Game Boy for my wife for Christmas. Hope it helps to bring back wonderful childhood memories. Keep up the wonderful videos!
Love the purple color of your boards!
Me too! I wanted something totally different. I think the purple hit the spot!
A new PCB for a game restoration? That’s genius! I love it
I do no fixing myself but I LOVE to watch you do what you do. Thanks!
As an electronics engineer there are some interesting differences between the old and new board which makes me wonder if the guy designing the new PCB didn't really understand what's going on. For example on the old board there are many many vias connecting copper areas on the top to the bottom layer. All of them are missing on the new board. Also, some of the pins of the ICs are connected to what I guess are big power/ground traces. On the new board the are connected to tiny traces. But if it works it works I guess...
Also, is this a generic PCB or is it for this game only?
That was really cool I'd be really interested to see how many other things that you've failed to fix in the past due to burned out boards and stuff that you could fix in a similar way
This is the way to do it! You had a another video where you couldn't fix one and I suggested a PCB replacement. However I should mention On HDD Recovery Services (which used to focus on hard drives but does more USB and SD cards now) his fume extractor is aimed right at the PCB. Also for cleaning the PCB he puts a paper towel on top of the PCB then gets it soaked with IPA and then brushes it with a tooth brush. This lets the paper towel absorb all the flux.
So I have been dabbling in soldering and your videos and how to solder classes have helped me a ton. I recently successfully soldered an extremerate underside button addition to my ps5 controller.
I didn't even know this was possible. Really cool video!
You can move the components on any board to another board and they will function correctly as long as the board is manufactured in the same way as the one it is replacing. You only need the traces to to get to the other components. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
I laughed so hard at the lightsaber sound 🤣🤣 and yes I want to see the Gameboy video!
Hey this isnt supposed to be a negative but you didn't go with gold fingers / ENGI I think its called but with the cheaper to just have everything coated in tin ( thus making your connections look silver) but sadly these are way more prone to make bad connections / beeing used up way quicker then gold fingers. Thus this replacment board won't hold as long as a original / gold plated board. I don't assume that the game will see as much plugging in and out action as it did when it was new but its something to keep in mind
Amazing job! Imagine the person who buys this game, opens it up to check the battery and is surprised to see a purple board
Excellent job.
How did you procure the replacement board?
Did you study the original's layout and apply it in the PCB software, or find it available somewhere?
The traces look different - I would guess he draw the schematics and used autorouting in "PCB Design Attribution" CAD software (see the first comment).
This has to be the coolest video i have seen in a long time. Great idea and amazing video all around! Interested to see where you got the board from.
Great repair/rebuild!! However, when ordering card edge connector boards next time go with the ENIG finish. This puts a small layer of gold plating over all the vias, pads, and card edge!! This preserves the fingers of the game for a long time to come.
Holy tetris flashback! I miss Gameboy
And of course we want to see a Gameboy fix
That’s what I like to hear!
What surface finish have you chosen for the PCB? Looks very much like a simple HASL finish to me. That's very suboptimal for the edge connector.
It'll degrade much faster and oxidizes rather quickly, making the game more unreliable. Oh, and the HASL finish is going to rub off onto the cartridge connector of the gameboy making the gameboy itself also more unreliable at reading cartridges. For such PCBs you should always use ENIG finish at minimum but optimally hard gold.
Hi 👋🏼
Where did you get the schematic of the board? A video where you show on EASYEDA how to design the board will be awesome 😎
I'm thinking of Kryten's groinal attachment with that extractor hose... oh the merriment to be had there :) Merry Xmas Steve to you and yours :D
Nice new PCB boards, may you and your family have a happy Christmas Eve, a great Christmas and an excellent new year 2023. Best regards
Thanks for all the great videos...
That battery was 3 seconds away from exploding lmao
If it had happened it would be called Pokemon Chernobyl edition
4:40 did you see that yellow part peel off that battery? Looks dangerous
Too bad the case isn't clear... That's a mighty fine looking board.
Great value on this video, have a Merry Christmas TronicsFix
Nice PCB design. I like this video's where you save the Nintendo GameBoy games. 👍
Most definitely Steve. Can't wait to see that video. Happy holidays to you and your family.
9:29 For high-thermal-mass joints like that which are attached to something thermally sensitive like a battery (or a plastic connector, or insulated wire), I like to try and dump the heat in as quickly as possible to give it very little time to spread out. This means bigger, hotter iron tip, plenty of flux, and bringing a big old blob of already-hot solder over to plop onto it. It goes against the usual wisdom for solder joints, but the flux ensures it should all be OK. The solder itself is an important factor in the transfer of heat from your iron tip to the joint--if you put a dry iron on the dry side of a piece of metal, it won't heat up very efficiently.
Gentle pre-heating of the board (to a moderate temperature, like 100-150 C or even lower) can also help a bit--it won't be trying to suck heat out of your solder joint as much. In fact, with this particular task, I might even consider heating the board from below, underneath where the battery is.
Unfortunately, this board swap is only still going to work temporarily. The board was ordered with a hasl finish, instead of enig or hard gold. The solder on the cart pins is going to oxidize quickly and become non conductive. The best repair would be rom swapping it to a cheap Japanese donor cartridge and then put the Japanese donor parts onto the replacement PCB with an enig finish.
Hey, thanks for this usefull information! Could you maybe also tell us where to get good quality PCBs for gameboy games like this?
I noticed that as well, but the thing is that ENIG finish is expensive. Unfortunately it is a necessity on this case.
Hey thanks for the comment. This is good to know as this is the first time I've ever had a PCB manufactured. Now I know what to look out for for next time!
Can you fix my gameboy metroid card? Is not saving my file and I did replace the battery.
Would suggest getting ENIG coating on the card edge connector. And also having the solder mask cover just the slightest top bit of the card edge, just to make it slightly harder for the thin traces to get corroded.
Wow. Very nice. That's very satisfying. How much were the PCB?
Steve out here saving childhoods. Hell yeah I wanna see you restore that GameBoy.
7:39 This transition scared me. I thought you ripped it off for a second.
Another awesome fix. Plus yes, I'd love to see a vid for the red game boy!
Definitely awesome you fixed it, just with how it’s not the original board, I see some collector or game shop coming across it & believing it’s a reproduction & tossing it out.
Why did you go with the soldered battery instead of placing the replaceable equipment in?
I just bought a "no boot" Pokemon red this morning to repair, what are the odds this video gets posted lol
The transition at 7:38 scared me a little bit, thought the chip was bent!
Why skimping on gold plating ?
Reflow soldering on a hot plate.
Low profile battery holder.
Three of my favorite things:Pokémon,soldering and Lightsaber sounds,a perfect video!
In 1999 I must have asked my parents hundreds of times for Pokemon Red with a lime green GBC. This repair hit different. I still have it thankfully!
Pokémon games are bootlegged so often that few will consider this legit with the wrong PCB. A donor PCB would’ve been the right way to go. Heck, it would’ve likely been cheaper and less work since you would’ve only needed to move the ROM with the right donor. The fact that originals have gold plated PCBs and are a dime a dozen means win, win, win, and win for using a donor.
Love the content my guy but since you do a lot of micro soldering, would it be feasible to start uploading in 1440p or 4k?
This video makes me so happy. I always assumed that these kinds of carts were just destroyed forever. This gives me hope that at the very least there is some way to keep them alive :)
Kudos for your well done transplant. Just saying, there is also a FRaM mod which renders the use of battery obsolete, therefore shouldn't be any leakage damage, and it would also last for 50+ years.
Nice work! That was really entertaining and the purple... so nice
Damn this is next level
Which website did you use for the PCB ?
Where can I get a new PCB board. I’m having the same issues on a Pokémon blue version
Why didn’t you clean the bottom of the chips before you transferred them if there was water damage?
Awesome Video tronicsfix I would like to see you fix the red gameboy tronicsfix also Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year tronicsfix
Makes you wonder whether that plastic bar that touches those traces directly has something to do with them being destroyed so easily in some of these carts.
Great video as always, just a quick question, why so much flux? I've never had to use flux on any repair and especially not with a soldering iron as the solder wire has flux in it already! Means you don't have to do a whole cleanup afterwards and just less time overall, just curious
Flux will help the metal flow and remove impurities. Your repairs may work the way you do it, but they will not be as strong over time.
Very cool! Now fix that red gameboy next, put this cartridge to test it and call it a 'resurrection ritual' :D
It could've possibly been better if you had the bare board made with ENIG coating, rather than HASL. You could also opt to have hard gold finish on the edge connector. Just my 2 cents :) Great video BTW.
Enjoying the bangers during the repair now. Tronicsfix coming up 🔥
Nice Drag soldering pal. Can be a bit tricky doing that at times ;)
Wassup man love the content and keep it up I just recently started watching you but I love your content👍🏾
I really enjoy your videos. 👍
If there is going to be another version of the board. (jylamjylam already mentioned to use ENIG)
So I would like to point out the different length of the VDD/GND pins of the edge fingers.
They are a tiny bit longer then the rest.😟
This was awesome! The board colour is cool too!
I love using a low melt for those big chips. Especially when you have a ton of room on the board like that. Well done though
Great to see people keeping these old games alive
What an awesome video and thank you for supplying the Gerber files for the PCB! I just ordered 10 from JLCPCB but I was just wondering if there is a Gerber file for say the Pokemon Yellow style of PCB or if I can just use one of the 10 PCBs for that game. Thank you!
I would also invest in a better PCB cleaning system like a vapor degreaser to clean the boards. Q-tips and toothbrushes have a tendency to produce static and also do not fully clean the flux from the board. There is also a spray cleaner called "Flux Off" that works well also. Or if you prefer to use the IPA as you do. Install a small vacuum system to suck up the IPA/flux as you clean. Methyl Ethyl Keytone is a good cleaner also. And dries fast as well.
Is it possible to replace a battery on a Gameboy Game with an F-RAM chip
Wouldnt the thicker board potentially bend the pins as well?
Straight up resurrected that copy of red. Hell yeah man. Love it!
And the replacement board looks awesome in purple tbh. I'd have a hard time hiding it behind that solid red shell
Love to see you getting more out of your comfort zone! Inspires me to repair other stuff too! Thanks again Steve!