My image is shaking in the left eye, it just started doing it recently.

Can anyone help me?

Dreammary wrote:
My image is shaking in the left eye, it just started doing it recently.

Can anyone help me?

Without seeing it in person, I can only assume this problem is caused by a dirty or failing opto-sensor (IR photo-gap) on the offending mirror. The solution could be as simple as opening up the VB and blowing the crud out of the sensor. If you open the VB and take out the red plastic lenses, you can look through the eye opening, past the mirror, and see the opto. I’ll attach a photo.

You could try using one of those “canned air” dusters to blast it clean, or if you have one, an air-compressor (although those sometimes have dirty/oily/damp air, so YMMV).

If no amount of cleaning seems to work, it may be failing due to age. Although not impossible, it may be impractical to fix.

Attachments:

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   vb_opto_sensor_id.jpg
   

Awesome thank you, I’ll buy the can and spray it to see if it helps. 🙂

Cool. Let us know how it turns out.

Yeah, definitely post what you find out (nice pic BTW, RunnerPack).

When you say shaking, do you mean a display that constantly expands and shrinks… similar to how the display looks when you first turn it on before it stabilizes? Or are you saying that there’s a shaking that makes the image bounce around like you were playing in moving car or something?

I’ve never had one do this, so I can’t speak from experience, but I’ve heard several people complain about expanding/shrinking problems in the past few years. Here’s a post I made in reply to a problem jrronimo was having: http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=24681#forumpost24681 . If you have an oscilloscope, the same recommendations apply to you as well. I’m not sure whether he ever solved his problem though.

DogP

Yes it’s expanding and shrinking over and over. :/

Are you using the AC adapter or battery?

It’s also possible the left mirror is wearing out or has been knocked out of alignment. You may have to disassemble your Virtual Boy and watch the two mirrors oscillate in-person. Watch the known good one (right), then look at the left to see if it acts any differently, like if it slows down or speeds up, or is not moving in the same way.

3DBoyColor wrote:
Are you using the AC adapter or battery?

That’s a good question. It’s possible a low voltage could result in having insufficient power to keep both galvos moving at full speed.

It’s also possible the left mirror is wearing out or has been knocked out of alignment. You may have to disassemble your Virtual Boy and watch the two mirrors oscillate in-person. Watch the known good one (right), then look at the left to see if it acts any differently, like if it slows down or speeds up, or is not moving in the same way.

Since the mirrors are (ideally) oscillating at 50 Hz, it’s unlikely Dreammary would be able to notice a difference with the naked eye, unless he’s a cyborg, or is using a strobe-light, or both 😉

I’m unsure about what you think looking at the mirrors is supposed to accomplish, anyway. The symptom has already been identified – we know the left mirror is speeding/slowing because of the “expanding/shrinking” display (in effect, the VB itself is the “strobe light”).

Besides possibly making strange noises, a bent/twisted mirror support would most likely result only in a misaligned picture. It probably wouldn’t cause the “shaking” effect, since a properly functioning opto-sensor would compensate for any minor change to the mirror’s periodicity.

I wasn’t sure what else to suggest besides power input.

Perhaps he’d find the alignment test screen more useful? Go to a title screen, then using the right D-Pad, A and B, press Left, B, Down, A, Up.