Hi guys, I’ve got a sad sad story to tell… I bought my Virtual Boy off eBay a while back and it was working great! Until one day my friend decided to give it a shot, and dropped it.. ON THE FLOOR… My poor baby rolled away, as I gasped and scurried to pick her up.

To make a long story short, now the left view is really blurry, and both sides get lines (which is on/off not a constant thing). I read around here about heating the glue to fix the ribbons which should fix the lines problem, but any idea what causes they badly blurry image with just the one side? Is it a totally different problem or caused by the same thing?

Hopefully I can fix my poor Virtual Boy, my friend is in no position to be able to buy me a new one. Also one more question I have, does anyone know where I can get a paint exactly like the red color of the VB? Because if I do solve these issues I’d actually like to paint over some gross marks from wear and tear of the previous owners.

Thanks for any information guys!

I’m not sure how this post got overlooked for so long, and DogP’s the resident VB display expert, but here goes:

The lines are definitely a loose cable somewhere. The oven trick should fix it right up.

The blurriness sounds like a lens got knocked out of place. Since it’s still in place enough to give a blurry image, it’s most likely fixable, but there’s no way to tell for sure until you open that sucker up. At which point you’ll have the gutted case ready to fix the scratches.

As for paint, spot touch-ups are guaranteed not to look right; and probably look worse than what you’re trying to cover up.

The best thing I can think of is to try to buff the scratches out starting with fairly coarse, say, 600 grit wet sanding, then using progressively finer papers, ending with an abrasive paste like automotive rubbing compound or Brasso polish, and trying to feather it out into the original finish.

Of course, if it doesn’t turn out quite right, you can just paint the whole thing, instructions for which you can find at DogP’s site (http://projectvb.vze.com/).

BTW, I’m glad you didn’t drop your friend on the floor. 😉

Well, that’s what friends are for y’know? Without them, would anything break?

Seriously, a few days back a friend of mine dropped my photo camera. Luckily I was still holding it onto the wrist-strap attached to it or my friend would be a few hundred dollars poorer.

As for my retro stuff, I just don’t let anyone touch em’ period. I know I’m a bit of a scrooge in that way but my friends have proven in the past that their hands are better off not touching my stuff.