I Bought 9 BROKEN POKEMON Gameboy Games - Let's Try to Fix Them!
StezStix Fix Broken Gameboy Game Video: • I Bought 5 Broken GAME...
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I Bought 9 BROKEN POKEMON Gameboy Games - Let's Try to Fix Them! The used games should sell for between $40 and $110 each (depending on the version) so to me they're definitely worth trying to fix. Repairs include fixing various circuit board issues, removing corrosion, trying to fix someone else's failed repair attempt, etc.
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Equipment Used:
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-Nozzle for hot air station: Amazon (paid link) geni.us/zpEWlT
-Hakko Soldering Station: Amazon (paid link) geni.us/MTL0qb
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-Microscope: Amazon (paid link) geni.us/WBO3b
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TronicsFix assumes no liability for property damage or injury incurred as a result of any of the information contained in this video. All material provided within this KZhead channel is for informational, educational, & entertainment purposes only. Some of these projects, materials, and techniques may not be appropriate for all ages or skill levels. No information contained in this video shall create any express or implied warranty or guarantee of any particular result.
TronicsFix does not make any claims of the safety of the projects, techniques, or resources listed on this channel and will not take responsibility of what you do with the information provided by this channel. Any injury, damage or loss that may result from improper use of these tools, equipment, or the information contained in this video is the sole responsibility of the user and not TronicsFix. Please do not attempt anything contained in this video unless you accept personal responsibility for the results, whether they are good or bad.
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Trying to fix 9 broken Nintendo handheld consoles: kzhead.info/sun/q76Gprl6h6l_g6c/bejne.html
@tronicsfix how much did you pay for the lot
@@mattgosselin4724 Hmmm...I don't remember. I think I bought these in several lots. It's been months since I bought these so I don't remember what I paid for them. I definitely paid "too much" but since it was for a video it was worth it.
Do you keep the broken games or consols? If not what do you do with them?
Can I buy lots with under 30$
Do you have an idea of where I could send my Pokemon emerald game to get a battery replaced
I am running a small business like you in Japan. I am always learning from your channel. Thanks you very much, Steve.
Very cool! Thank you for the support!
This is great to see. Keep it up 👏 Great work team!
@@Tronicsfix hey Steve do you have 20/20 vision
Hey! I live in Japan, and I'd love to visit your store. Where is it located?
@@buddagames7325 will do! Thank you!
I think the biggest take away from this is that every time we blew on the contacts to momentarily clean them we were introducing moisture that would destroy the boards in the long run. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the corrosion and liquid damage is caused from spit
Looks like the vias are a perfect place for a drop of liquid to stick in and cause corrosion over time as well.
8:59 When you realize these are probably dried up protein remains of the former owners spit.. yummy Edit: On second thought, guess these are just the result of corrosion caused by the moisture introduced by it 😅 Oh well.. not as "exciting" as I imagined.
Open up pretty much any SNES console and look at the cartridge slot, they're all nasty and corroded.
personally, I never had to blow in any of my gameboy cartridge, i keep them all in their plastic case
Humans so advanced they learned to store DNA in a computer cartridge
I love it that people buy broken games, fix them and put them back on the market. This is awesome. I hope these games will bring joy to many more people instead of rotting away in a garbage dump. Thank you.
Thanks to you, I fixed my broken Pokemon Yellow game by simply resoldering a pin that came loose - an easy fix! Your channel is such an asset to people wanting to repair things in our highly throw-away world, thank you again :)
Great to hear!
The mystery component in the Pokémon silver is a crystal oscillator. Silver and gold added day/night features so had to keep time unlike the previous game
5Head! Never thought about that. Ty
You said it before I did but that is also the reason these batteries won´t last as well since the tracking of time is using a lot of power
@@Pulverrostmannen yes they won’t last as long w/o regular use but you can still expect 5 years on that battery
If you look at Pokemon Red, it has the pads and space in the board to install the crystal for RTC as well. Rather than design a unique PCB for every game, Nintendo just mass produced the revisions and used them for multiple games. The cool thing is, if you move the components of Pokemon Crystal to the Pokemon Red board, it'll work! I honestly was surprised he didn't attempt to salvage the components from Red and use a replacement PCB. It costs like $0.50 for a replacement PCB online for MBC5/MBC3/MBC3A. Could easily move the three chips and a few capacitors, solder on a new battery and have a fully functional Pokemon Red.
exactly
wow, I've been so misled. I work as a micro-soldering technician, and the guy who trained me told me those chips are unrepairable if they break, because they're soldered on the underside by a machine when the part is installed. I had no idea you could just heat them up, lift them off, and that only the outside pins would need soldering. Thanks for the tip, even if that wasn't quite your intent
That's strange that they would have told you that. Cool that you do this for work though! Thanks for the comment.
@@Tronicsfix I'm actually not surprised, now that I look back. I've had to teach myself the common trends for most of the components I'm working on because they didn't have a notes page for it, and my boss actually started asking me for soldering advice after I was only 3 weeks in. I think they didn't have an actual qualified tech until I showed up. just a shame I'd never worked on those chips before so I couldn't correct the mistake. But hey, now I can tell my boss the good news, and our productivity will go up. Thanks again. And awesome vid too.
He wasn't necessarily wrong, just different package types. Those chips used in the GB/GBC games usually only had legs as soldering points. But many new chips, especially in smaller packages, tend to have the entire underside of them connected to internal ground and are recommended to be soldered to the board as well (for more secure ground connection as well as heat dissipation)
@@PewnyPL BGA mount ICs are a step up the difficulty scale and can't be attacked by a regular old soldering iron, but anyone with hot-air rework equipment (like TF himself) should be able to swap those out just fine. Strange Parts certainly made what looked like quick work of iPhone flash memory chips using similar tools, and those were mounted entirely using pads on the package's underside.
@@dgwdgw Oh I'm not talking about BGA parts. I'm talking about packages like SOICN (an example being A4950 motor driver IC) which has legs, but also an exposed thermal pad on the bottom that should be soldered for heat dissipation.
After I watched this video I decided to try and repair my pokemon crystal version game. And guess what - I did it! the problem was mostly corosion, so after a good cleaning and a new battery, now everything works fine. Thank you for you videos, they are great inspiration.
Future reference! That second to last Pokémon yellow battery is what most of the unchanged ones look like and it’s always a good idea to test one that doesn’t have the band on it because it likely hasn’t been repaired in forever. The game can start just fine but you can’t save or start memory in some cases. A few extra seconds of love from you could save someone who doesn’t know from a big headache while you’ve got it open! Great video man keep it up.
17:22 - That is a crystal oscillator which is used for the real time aspect of the game. They can be found in Tamagotchis and digital watches as well.
Specifically that chip or a diverse range of models? Asking for the apocalypse 🫶🏻
I was about to leave a comment about it looking like a Quartz crystal. Good to see this message is up high here in the comments. Good info!
Came here to say this. If your real time clock doesn't work, this is the part that needs replaced.
@@slynkadink2416 do you happen to have a link or part number? Need to replace mine on my gold version
Nice! Good to see some more Gameboy Games being rescued! Thanks for the shout-out too 👍
My pleasure! Love your videos
Glad that you got the shout-out, I was wondering if he were going to mention you or not!
Nice
Great video, I subscribed to StrzStix Fix?
Deserved shout
Before watching your videos, I knew absolutely nothing about tech repairs or Fixes. Now that I've followed your content for the past few years, I feel confident with every repair I can make. I've actually managed to repair a few games and gadgets myself thanks to you providing so much general knowledge about certain pieces on your videos that apply to a majority of other tech. Thanks man. Keep doing what you're doing
This video is so cool, it almost makes something I thought was impossible to learn seem do-able to anyone.
Wait!!! Before you ditch the Pokémon red it has the same board as “Mary Kate and Ashley pocket planner” you can switch the chips to that one. I’ve done the same to fix a Pokémon red in the past!
Why would he ruin the masterpiece "Marie Kate and Ashley pocket planer" though
@@kowalski2334 A greater crime against humanity one cannot imagine.
It's great to see you working on something that I used to love playing so much and repair in my free time as well. The "capacitor" at 17:25 is actually a crystal oscillator which was used in certain games to handle in-game time based events (ie. growing berries in Emerald, participating in bug catching contests or finding Lapras on Fridays in Crystal, etc.). Nice to see you fix almost all of these cartridges!
Ah, yes, that makes sense. Thanks for the comment. Ya, it was cool that I was able to fix so many of them. Love it when that happens.
@@TronicsfixJust curious how did Dirk comment 1d ago when the video was posted 7 minutes ago?
@@ambotnimo4568 Channel members and Patrons get early access
Now that is interesting!
Where did you find broken games. I can’t seem to find any on eBay?
I really appreciate how your sponsor's product is something that you're actually using in the video. It doesn't feel forced or annoying (as is the case with most sponsored segments in videos like these), and is a much more effective marketing tool as well.
Cool, never really knew how simple yet complex Gameboy cartridges were. My worst fear was that the chips may have been corrupt, but your video made me research the layout of these games a bit more. Genius to be honest, made cheap but also reliable (to a degree).
Reliable as long as you don't get liquid on it.
It's so easy seeing a StezStix Fix shoutout, I found his channel about a month back and binged everything. He has such a cool style.
Thanks for always being so transparent about everything. The fact that you wont sell something that your not completely comfortable with shows alot about your character.
I've recently repaired some similar corrosion damage. One thing I noticed that works absolute wonders to get rid of corrosion is sulfamic acid (10% in water or so). Of course it won't bring back broken traces but it prepares the remaining metal surface nicely for subsequent soldering and leaves no residue when washed off with water.
i am so envious of you being able to do this; i really wish i knew how to start learning this since im coming from a totally unrelated background. amazing work as always!
at 17:30, it's not a capacitor, it's a crystal oscillator for the real time clock which is used for season based events in the game.
man remember the old days when keeping dates was complex? good times.
@@TheUltimateRare how is that good 💀
@@chanelbandit because memories make us feel warm and fuzzy.
@@chanelbandit Because people had to put in more effort.
Funny security feature: the GAMEBOY start screen is an authentication check for the cartridge. If the image doesn't appear exactly the way it's supposed to, then the console locks out and will not allow the game to boot.
I love fixing things but there are just some things I can't be bothered to fix like this. It's such a pleasure to watch you do this!! Keep it up!
Weird cause you could fix it in the same time frame you watch it...
I can’t stop watching your videos and idk why honesty i just love watching you get in and diagnose the issues and just everything is so entertaining.
This was such a great repair and it’s cool to see you getting more out of your comfort zone!
So glad you enjoyed!
I don't think there's a "comfort zone" when it comes to repair, there's always challenges and you're always learning.
@@gustavo33413 but you’re still going out of your “comfort zone” because you’re working on something you’ve never worked on and that way you get to know more.
@@Tronicsfix p
Really great video! Do you have a video that talks about the basics of electronics repair/soldering/etc? Or can you recommend a video like that? I'd love to get into this.
This was very interesting and it's great that you were able to repair these absolute classics
Seeing these pokemon cartridges just brings back so many memories like the box being opened during Christmas. Cannot put into words how lit blastoise seemed at the time and who he even was and the rumors on how to get squirtle to evolve lol. Will never forget how many times I tried to give wartortle a water stone and to be randomly surprised at level 36 lol
"Ill see if there are any problems off screen" *Tronicsfix continues playing pokemon yellow for 25 hours
Lol, how did you know!
Also, thank you for mentioning that it's copper that's "corroded". Just went down a little google/wikipedia wormhole to learn the difference between ferrous/non-ferrous metals and rust vs. corrosion.
honestly i love how you always show that sometimes when you ut it all together it still don't work, but then you go back in and you find the issue and you get it working again absoultely outstanding work 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Not gonna lie, the first Pokémon Blue repair is some of the most satisfying 8 minutes on YT.
I've been buying up and repairing old Game Boy games for a while now. If you run into boards that are far too gone, you can import the Japanese variant for literally a buck or 2 and swap the American ROM onto the Japanese board. In 90% of the cases, it's just a loose leg on the ROM / RAM or a damaged trace. Occasionally, you'll get the board that's corroded to hell because someone kept blowing into their cartridge.
Wow, didn't even think about that. Good to know. Thanks for the tips!
from my experiences, blowing into the cartridge did work though....
Yea but Nintendo stated a long time ago saying that doing that would damage the game. But I think we all have done it before over the time.
Also, just to note that there are different revisions of the pcb's... they may work, but it's not intended to use say an american red with the MBC3 on a jp red that has an MBC1 instead. English yellow even uses the MBC5 and the jp crystal has MBC30. They probably work regardless, but just something to consider. MBC is memory bank controller.
thank you for saying that last part. this is the first explanation I've heard that made the whole "don't blow into your cartridge" thing makes sense. yeah it worked to get the dust off, but over time it's gonna eat away at the board.
I never would try this but it’s incredible to see what you can do. After playing games my whole life I never would have guessed you can open games. I would have tried the alcohol on a Qtip and given up.
It’s not as hard as you probably think; it’s also a great skill to learn. You should try it if you’re interested.
This is only the second video of yours I’ve watched. So far I’m loving your content! Not sure why this is so great to watch, but keep it up!
This is the coolest thing! fixing stuff I bet most people would consider broken forever, especially electronics and circuitry stuff, is a little too cool. Adding this type of thing to my bucketlist of stuff I wanna be able to do one day xD
Your videos have taught me so much it's insane. It's weird how watching these videos helped me with working on cars. I couldn't figure out the electrical issues in my 93 civic hatch for a long time until I started watching your videos.
It's great you were able to restore all but one of these and get them working again. For the badly corroded Pokémon Red I don't blame you for not fixing that, whenever I saw that I knew that wouldn't be fixed with how bad it is. Keep up the great work and I look forward to what you'll repair in the future.
this is really cool. fixing at the cartridge level was something I never thought I would see. makes me wonder how those NES cartridges you constantly had to blow into as o e of the multiple methods to try for getting the game to load successfully
Great work! Just replaced a few batteries on my old games and some didn't work. These videos are super helpful
tbh with how simple the PCB design is for these boards, it might be viable to simply order new PCBs and move over each chip
And lose all the money because they are no longer original?
@@masonwant are they original if they've been resoldered, jumper wires added, and batteries replaced?
@@michaelf.2449 yes although they’ll lose value because it’s been repaired.
@@masonwant then every single cartridge is less valuable because they all have to be "repaired"
@@michaelf.2449 that’s straight out not true. A battery replacement is very common and doesn’t drop the value. Any other “repair” will drop the price.
This channel always makes me want to by a soldering kit and multimeter. I just haven't had anything needing to be fixed yet lol
Do it! That way you'll be ready when you need to fix something!
maybe just buy some broken games or simple devices for peanuts from the usual flea market sites, then try to fix and resell them
@@LucyKosaki After posting this, I bought everything I'd need. Then my fridge and dryer broke down, and I had an issue with an xbox controller. Was able to fix them all!
This is my favorite KZhead channel. Great work!
Excellent video I'm always amazed at what you being back from being broken to being enjoyed once again keep up the great work
Thanks for making this video. These games are my favorites of all time. I played countless hours and have drained countless AA batteries playing Pokémon on gameboy. So seeing someone bring these dead carts back to life means a lot to me.
Great video. Would have loved to see what the repair job on the silver cartridge looked like even if the work was cut out.
This guy's videos are so satisfying to watch. I want to learn how to solder like this.
Absolutely amazing vid. Had me hooked
I saw Stez's videos a while ago too, actually! One of the cases where youtube recommended me some videos I actually liked, for once. That gunk that built up where the outer case met the board is why you weren't supposed to blow in to the cartridge. But a lot of us did it anyway, so there ended up being a lot of gross cartridges. The corner legs on the chips breaking free seems to be a common fault with game boy games. Save battery replacement is also an issue, but both of those are generally pretty easy fixes, which makes the repair job a lot more convenient. The oddly corroded vias are a fair bit more involved, though. And nicely spotted on that one via that the previous repair attempt missed. And speaking of the save battery replacement, a couple of years ago I decided to re-acquire Pokemon Crystal, and it had the save battery replaced. Poory. There was a ball of solder rattling around inside the cartridge and only one of the battery connectors was actually attached to the board. Thankfully I was able to fix it up easily enough myself, but it makes me wonder how people can be that bad at soldering and still feel like they can charge money for their battery replacement. I'm not even that good either, but I suppose it's nice to know I could always have been much worse. Either way, that flipped battery you ran in to was QUITE an oddity. The legs are shaped so they just fit where they're supposed to go with no bending required. Someone was having a bad day when they made that battery replacement.
wait but u r a girl how did u know all of these?
love watching Steve fixing stuff. he has his own unique way lol
Ima sub bc this was satisfying. Id like to add a suggestion: The parts you do off camera id love to just see and watch even if it’s just a sped up motion with the clinking of the solder hitting. Even if not that just a generic music over the work would be awesome only bc it’s like watching an asmr video but cooler loool
The catharticism that hits me any time I see a game working after you fixed it is so goooood
Great video Tronics, you make it look so easy. You should try to repair cartridges from other consoles (SNES, NES, etc)
Thanks! I'll look into making more of these videos.
I believe if I remember correctly, the first Pokemon game had an issue due to the way Gameboy does it's copy protection - The intro is actually vital to running the game, as the game boy does a check for this intro, and it needs to be exactly correct, otherwise the game boy thinks it's an illegal copy. Since there was something wrong with the intro, a little glitch , the game refused to launch. But it's possible, at least from the way it looked at first glance, that the cartridge could've worked fine if it wasn't for the intro! I may get corrected when I continue watching the video though!
You're correct. When the gameboy starts up a couple of lines of instructions loaded from is ROM and executed. First a bunch of initializations and then finally a "legality" check. It compares the bits of the GB Logo stored in the device ROM with the bits of the Gameboy logo that are stored at a specific memory address range of the cartridge ROM. If it passes then the next instruction is loaded from the program entry point of the cartridge, if not the processor will enter an endless loop and will get stuck displaying the logo. So yeah the problem could lie with reading the ROM of the cartridge or the ROM of the GB itself, but when another cartridge works then you know it's no the Gameboy.
@@danielw4778 Thanks for confirming this! 💜 I remembered something like this, but I wasn't sure if it was correct!
17:34 32kHz clock crystal. It comes in this slim cylinder package. Often used to keep accurate date and time along with the battery.
Yeah IIRC this was the first Pokemon game to actually keep time/date (well not date, day of the week) - that's why we didnt see it in the red/blue/yellow versiond
@@kpf7677 is it a tamagotchi type behavior? Have to maintain your game pets daily or something. (I don't know anything about this game.)
@@fitybux4664 yeah sort of, you catch little monsters and train them to fight, it's a Japanese thing
@@fitybux4664 not sure about this specific version of the game, but the one I have use the battery and clock to grow plants while the game boy is turned off. Not an important feature so if the battery runs out the game still works properly. Though in these versions it might also be to keep save games in memory. On mine it uses flash for that
@@fitybux4664 It doesn't really use the time for pet care, it uses time for daily events like berry growth or for pokemon that only show up in the wild during specific times of the day. And the dates are used for specific events that happen each week, for example the Bug-Catching Contest happens every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
That was soooo satisfying to watch! My blue cartridge was really old from the first batch that arrived to my city on 1999 and it the audio was bugged and the Nintendo logo was also similar to that one, eventually it stopped working.
3:44 Your page turn transition gave me a mini heart attack when you said 'let's turn this thing over.' I thought we snapped the circuit board in half for about a microsecond!
Very cool of you to do a shout-out for StezStix (typo in your description!) His channel deserves more views. I recall you doing one for Cod3r not so long ago too. Ahhh, the warm, glowly feel of tech fix channel all in it together love. 👍
Thanks for the heads up. Fixed that typo
Never seen this done before and you make it look so easy. Amazing video
I know IT so I have a basic understanding of most of this, but it's so interesting and fun to watch someone with the right equipment & knowledge to deep dive like this.
That Yellow with the messed up case was totally done by someone who tried to fit it in a DS or GB Micro. Those systems block out original Gameboy carts for a reason lol.
Reminds me of the pins on Famicon/SuperFamicon and Nintendo/SuperNintendo cartridges. The Famicon variants had pins you needed to remove.
Haha yeah, I remember when I was a kid, I cut out the tab on my Game Boy's power switch so I could put a GBC game in there and see what happens. Just a screen that says you need a Game Boy Color to play.
Idk how anyone would think it can go in there when it's too big, to the point of breaking the cart to find out. Likely a child not realising it doesn't fit because it doesn't work with that console
I would have also compared the boards from the broken shell yellow and the bad board red. If they're the same board type you could likely just move the rom chip and have a functional red game in a good shell and then have a broken pcb with broken shell yellow.
Yep, that's a good idea. I should have done that.
@@Tronicsfix oh wow this is a new video nice, been trying to repair some ds’s myself
Red and yellow are different pcbs. Not sure how different but the have a different layout and battery
I was thinking about that too !
@@Tronicsfix I would love to see you do another round of these with all of the things you've learned from the comments! It's wonderful to see gamers and fixers come together to do a common goal and learn from each other (:
I love this style of fixing stuff video. Great job and thanks for awesome content
This was so satisfying to watch. You got a new sub dude.
Damn.. I'm gonna have to keep notes/in mind in case anything happens to my gb/gbc carts. As always, fantastic job on the repairs & keep up the good work!!
Most interesting part for me would've been checking out where these games left off the last time they functioned. Would've been really cool to see the save games that were slumbering behind broken hardware for all this time.
I feel you on that but sadly the batteries "only" last for about 10-15 years and then the save is gone. I was lucky enough to have my pokemon yellow save up to 2018 but somewhere between then and 2022 that i last checked the battery died out. It is kinda sad in way...
I do that with used games, especially childhood ones with save files and stats
@@Slamerak0s i heard, you can swap the battery quickly enough (or maybe bridge it) to keep your safe AND get a new battery in. In this way, saves can be kept (almost) indefinitely if you replace the battery before it goes flat.
@@TomJacobW The safest and easy way would be to just dumb the save using a cart reader. Replace the battery than flash it back on after. I've also seen people replace the battery while the cartridge is in the console and powered and that can work, but it's obviously a bit of a bodge.
You’re really talented at this stuff, dude
Since I see your videos I got a lot of interest in repairing electronic videogame devices and games, keep doing this videos!
This was highly engaging to watch! Had me soldered to my seat lol.
Lol
@@Tronicsfix there has been many messages asking us to write to a telegram @ to claim a prize, could you confirm whats going on so we can be sure its not a scam by an external user?
This really was magical to watch. I like imagining that these cartridges have been brought back to life to give some lucky person the chance to experience them.
In reality it'll be a collector buying their 7th copy lol.
From 0:18 to 8:33 I watched as if it was the climatic tension of a good movie. It gives me immense relief to see such a precious thing comes back to life :)
The way you get the PERFECT amount of solder mask every time, I don't know how you do it!
I think it’s safe to say Steve is the biggest singer on the electronics channels. He really inspires me because he hasn’t the same expertise as other channels. You’ve owned your own business, Alex has a degree in electronic engineering, Graham is smaller but has his own business and I think a Uni education. Jason again has a business and he’s very open about who he is and I respect that more than I can say. You’re all brilliant channels who are good at explaining things in a simple way because you know what you are doing and how things work. I appreciate the work you all put into free videos to help us learn. You even show us how a competent amateur can make money, how good is that? With Steve I often learn along with him, but he gets to the answer much faster than I do. We newbies or little hobbyist are really lucky with the electronics channels.
There are some really great electronics repair channels out there. So glad you're learning from us!
It seems there may be a market for replacement PCBs for corroded cartridges like these. There's not a whole lot of parts to swap over, so a new PCB might be just the ticket for heavily-corroded cartridges like the one you ran into here. JLCPCB sponsorship time?
Ha, ha, that's a good idea! That would be an interesting video.
I mean, there’s isopropyl alcohol. I would just have done that before even attempting to open the cart. But corrosion is rarely bad enough for the PCB to need replacement. Often you can fix it by sliding it in and out of the slot a few times. I had a copy of Tetris that looked like it would never work, and the logo was demonic when I tried to boot it, but I didn’t even need to use isopropyl. Looks like I’ve accidentally gone on a rant so I’m gonna stop now.
@@Shin3y you just saw multiple pcbs that were bad enough for a replacement in this video and your conclusion is it's a rare occurrence?
This stuff you do is fascinating dude. Keep it up! :)
I don’t know why I’m addicted to your channel but I am. Not a gamer. Not a fixer. 🤷🏻♂️🥰
Thank you for sharing this with us and more importantly breathing life once again into those beloved cartridges... 😄
I just discovered StexStix as well and you two definitely top my fixing favorites list so far. Collab incoming maybe? 😜
I enjoy his content. We should collab.
@@Tronicsfix He does need some tips on the perfect amount of thermal paste, he keeps adding the imperfect amount.
@@thecaybob1 Ha, ha, I'll have to help him out with that.
Super entertaining. Definitely should try fixing more Pokémon games
Really enjoyed the video!
If you're going to continue repairing gameboy carts, you should make a rig that allows you to test them without reassembling them and inserting them into a gameboy. Seems like it would save you a lot of time in the long run.
Need to attempt to repair the red, just to see how many faults, will make a good video 👍
I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR A VIDEO LIKE THIS!! i dabbled in this a few months ago, if you have any idea how to repair the TP1-4 i'd love to know, my pokemon red has no copper on the TP sections and i cannot for the life of me figure out how to fix it, even tried double sided conduction tape (or whatever its called), no luck. Great video man!!
I didn't think I was going to be this intrigued but, I was. I was going to just watch one or two but, ended up watching the whole thing. Thank you, sir.
As others have said, order new pcbs and move the “non fixable” carts chips to the new pcb. It would be a popular video for sure.
Where would you even order them though?
@@doctorstrix9733 that's the thing, I highly doubt you can just find new pcbs for such a niche thing as old pokemon cartridges...
@@QuantizedAxiom They're very much still very common
@@brownie32 can u link them, I want to see the prices
@@QuantizedAxiom you can order custom PCBs pretty cheap.
Great job. It’s like watching surgery, saving the life of my child hood games.
Thanks ❤, I just started watching about a week ….your videos are awesome and learned a lot
Your videos are awesome man!
More cartridge repairs please! Would love to see you work on DS/3DS games.
Good to know. Thanks for the comment
I second this! Cartridge repairs in bulk are very interesting to watch.
@@Tronicsfix Yes, more cartridge repairs!
This does my heart good. So glad to see my childhood being repaired right in front of my eyes :) As you saw/fixed in some of these repairs, a common problem with these cartridges is the failure of that battery over time. That battery preserves the save data on the cartridge, so when the battery inevitably dies then the cartridge will no longer hold a save. I had that problem with my Pokemon Gold version but fortunately, there was a repair shop locally that would replace the battery for me so I can save it again :)
Yep, I show one of those in this video
Yep, saw that after I left the comment. That’s what I get for not watching the whole thing before letting my fingers loose on the keyboard 😂
@@trentevans8820 Lol, happens all the time!
I bought my silver and gold version at gamestop years ago for nostalgia's sake and i never knew this.....
@@Dogmaguy74 Yeah, it's a problem with Gameboy cartridges that preserve saves. I pulled out my Pokemon Gold cart to play a few years ago to discover the save file was suddenly gone. If I remember right the save data lasted about an hour before being erased because the battery was dead. Major bummer :( The fix isn't hard, like you can see in the video. Batteries on ebay are relatively cheap. I just don't currently know how to solder/have access to a solder station, so I took it to a repair shop and they repaired it for pretty cheap. Gratefully, they started using a different kind of memory in GBA cartridges that doesn't require a battery to keep the save alive.
This is very interesting. Helps me understand how this kind of thing works better.
Amazing Channel man!
A few comments: 4:48 I would *definitely* replace this battery if I were to resell that cartridge. Not only does 3 V mean it's probably halfway through its usable life, whoever replaced the original chose a lower capacity battery, which you can see from the smaller size. 6:00 As expected, the via was corroded all the way through. I would never not feed a wire through the via if I needed continuity through the via, for that exact reason. Also, I might've tried to find a path to route a cable only on the top side from point A to point B. It might "look uglier", but adding anything on the bottom creates a little bump that can be a friction point as the board moves back and forth from insertion, assuming the game is used a lot. 11:45 Something to keep in mind is that the missing corners of the cartridge would prevent it form running on a GBA. A GBA has a switch inside to detect whether the cartridge is a GB or GBA game. If the corner is missing, the game just won't boot on a GBA. 24:14 Actually, you didn't need to fix that particular via. It just goes down to one of the four test pads used to test the battery in the factory. For gameplay use, it's just a dead end on the board. A general tip is that you can deduce a lot just by looking how the startup logo is corrupted. If the logo says Nintendo but has black dots, it's an issue with one of the data lines which are approximately on the right third of the cartridge interface. (Or the corresponding solder joint, or any of the track in between, obviously.) If the logo is just a garbled mess, it's probably an issue with one of the address lines, which are approximately on the left two thirds. If it's just a black bar, it's likely either a problem with the read signal, 4th from the left, or a more major fault. If you plan on doing GB cartridge fix more regularly, a cartridge reader would be a good investment to be able to test the cartridges more systematically. It allows you to actually dump and confirm every byte of the ROM, instead of relying on playing for a bit and hope that the rest works.
I'd be really tempted to conformal-coat any exposed metal after repair, to help ensure the cartridges last until their silicon gives out.
Can you do more videos like this…. It’s always satisfying when you find the reason why the game isn’t working and how you fix it
Great video, learned so much!
I've heard a recommendation that for GB and GBA carts, you should just reflow the pins on all the ICs before spending much effort diagnosing, because it's so common for the solder joints to break.
I hope that you don’t throw away the “non fixable” ones. Someone like myself would love to tinker around with something like that
Your video's always wanna make me buy something broken and attempt to fix it. Great video thanks for saving the pokemon