I didn't know where else to put this since we don't have a 'hardware dorkery' board (it would have six topics ever lollls) and this is more of a "Boris project" than a fybertech one, I opted for here since it needs a little post love. [note to fyber: you should think about makeing this the hardware and software board since it ain't worth having both, but thats just me.]
I've been working on a broken SNES for about 4 days now, on my weekend, lunch hours, and after work. It came to me with a relatively simple problem ("It doesn't turn on.") and a cusory examination told me something was dorked up with the power plug. Somebody had long ago removed the plastic eyelet guide for the central pin meaning it was being held tenuously at best. A little tweezing later though, I was sure it had a contact when I put it in, and the system still wouldn't go on. Being a consummate geek, I had to open the dang thing up even though I was wanting to just hang around with gal pal (my purpose for viewing the thing in the first place, no less: it was her old hand me down unit from a cousin and I thought her little siblings needed to opportunity to play some of the classics like lost vikings since their house computer was a turd and wouldn't handle opening the damn process manager for me let along console emulation.) Using
the flaming bic pen method I got those damn stupid gamebit screws out, and proceeded to open it up. Wish I had taken some pictures to place where all the screws fit, but as it is, you'll have to take my word for it or hunt some pics down on the net of an open SNES (not too hard, google images, etc.) Well I get it open, and still hear rattleing in the little bits at the back (rattleing is always bad with electronics...) so I snap the little plastic backer off and it broke the grounding plane for the plug (an ironic name for it, since the outside is the positive terminal on those dumb japanese 12v 850ma wall warts.) Well it wasn't to be fixed that day anyway, but I did find the source of the rattleing, some dumbo (probably the cousin who had owned the system before them) bought a cheap after-market RF modulator, rather than just using the little grey box reliable plug one that
came with the system. Well needless to say the prong on it snapped off, and they did switch to using the one that came with the SNES, but again, some dope elected to
push the old one through into the box rather than get it out with pliers or whatever. Shorts galore, I imagine.
Well anyway, with that out, and the box open, I took it with me and did some lunch break soldering, managed to snap the cheap 7805 5V voltage regulator off and put it back in, cut the cord end of the wall wart and soldered positive and negative directly to the contacts they needed to touch (why is this cord detachable I wonder, anyway? did they think we were going to switch it out and power our answering machines with it later or something?)
Even so its still dead. Frown.
So we get the trusty multimeter out and with some diagnosing help from pappy find out that some short, probably an
after-market prong related one, has killed the 1.5A fuse at the very back of the assembly. It was secondary only to the contacts themselves, a transformer, and a few capacitors bleeding various bad effects off, so needless to say, nothing came on. Even so, its good the fuse (like 50 cents) blew up rather than one of those speciality SNES chips that would make it cheaper to just buy a whole new SNES.
found a 3A fuse for a test, and put it in to see the system spring to life lovely as ever. Will be buying a new 1.5A at Frys and hopefully putting this all to bed although the power plug will probably be an ugly bit hanging out the back for the rest of its life, instead of detachable with a nice plug, it will at least work whereas it wasn't before.
Annnd thats all for today.
