Repairing SNES Cart
Ok, Last summer I had bought an old SNES and a few games at a yard sale. All the games after being cleaned worked.....except one. My copy of Super Mario Kart. After cleaning didn't work I opened up the cart and found lots of corosion. Here are a couple pics of the damage that I had posted to my photobucket.
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Does anyone know if it can be repaired or would it be a lost cause?
IMG_0150_zpsb70997ec.jpg
IMG_0149_zps312158e9.jpg
Does anyone know if it can be repaired or would it be a lost cause?
Comments
Originally posted by: matthew954
Out of curiousity what is weimans? My one concern is that the one pin on the upper right chip (where it says Nintendo) seems to be rusted.
That chip (SRAM) shouldn't have anything to do with the game not booting up. You probably have a bad trace or via somewhere.
Take a clean dry tooth brush and gently work off the dust and debris from pins and the surface of the PCB front and back.
After the corrosion is removed I take canned air to the pcb to get what I missed or ended up under the microchips.
Clean the pins on the cart with a degreaser or contact polish depending on how bad it is. Make your own choice about contact cleaner, some swear it kills games more than helps, I don't know.
If that doesn't work it's usually down to removing the microchips and cleaning them / under them as debris can get trapped under them and cause a short circuit.
If all else fails swap the PCB with a donor of a lesser value. Shot in the dark here but you might and this is a big maybe - be able to swap the mask rom with a copy of Balls 3D and get it to work.
Since balls 3d doesn't have SRAM if there's a check done for SRAM to prevent copy protection via dumpers / clone carts then it won't work at all or you'll get a message about copy protection. If there's no SRAM check and it doesn't logically use SRAM or read values from it, you've at least got a half functioning cart.
Good luck!
Just don't fire that thing up and go right to mario kart. Try this on a few $1 nes carts, you might butcher one or two copies of Bases Loaded but it's good soldering experience.
Tips :
Don't hold the iron tip on the solder point more than a few seconds, you can see the solder melt if you look at it closely. Try to allow enough time for all the solder around a pin to melt before applying suction.
Do odds then evens, desolder a pin then jump one and remove the solder from the pin after that (1,3,5,7,9) etc then do the other side of pins. By the time you get back to the first pin you desoldered the board will be cooled down and it reduces risk of warping the board or destroying contact points.
Hold the board up to the light and see if light passes through around the legs of the chip. If you can see light, chances are you got the solder out successfully.
If you try to remove solder and it just gets a little bit and you just can't seem to line up the iron to remove the solder, add some solder to the point and try again. Don't just press the tip hard against the contact point as it can overheat the trace and cause it to rip away from the PCB.
Be patient, haste makes waste and if you rip a leg on the mask rom, it's going to be a pain to repair. Depending on how the leg is removed you may not be able to repair it at all.
I'd sincerely suggest cleaning the PCB with a dry toothbrush and canned air first. That may be enough to get it working again and there's no guarantee that ballz 3d will work as a donor.
Always remember : Test the cheap options first unless they're destructive to the over all success rate of the repair.