The part that will need to be soldered is the only ribbon cable that you will see when you first open your Virtual Boy. One end will plug into the main board and is held in by friction. The other end of the ribbon will be glued to the LED Array which is essentially the screen of the device. You will need to solder this end to permanently fix your system.

So I believe to quickly answer your question, yes, this is what needs to be soldered and is causing the screen lines.

-Cameron

I’m interested in these since one of my eyes is giving me trouble here and there and I haven’t worked up the nerve to dive into solder fixing mine yet.

My main question is with this part how would one remove the glued portion of the old ribbon to give a clean surface to solder this part to.

Also I was reading and I was curious would this require more or less the same soldering skills that are required to do a normal solder fix. Or would the castellated holes make this job a piece of cake for people with amateur soldering skills.

Looking forward to see your progress on this part. I am very interested!

-Cameron

If you are talking about the black cloth cover. I am not sure the best way to clean it. I threw mine in the laundry machine, because the person I bought mine from was obviously a heavy smoker, and I wouldn’t recommend it. While it cleans it very well it caused some of the edges to fray.

I would recommend hand-washing with liquid laundry detergent if you have any. However, others might have some better ideas.

hope that helps,
-Cameron

I was able to finally test my Virtual Boy yesterday. So far so good on everything that is working. Sound is perfect and crisp with both speakers firing just fine. Controller works flawlessly. Left eye works 95% of the time which is pretty good. Oddly enough the warning message displays fine, the VB focus image displays fine. However, as soon as Wario comes crashing in on his plane sometimes the screen is just lines. Even more strangely after you go into the save selection screen in works about 95% of the game with very few glitches. The right eye as I expected has no image and will require some work. I know there are many people who offer services to repair the ribbon cable. I think for now I will try to reheat the glue and 3D print a clamp. If and when this fails then I will go ahead and solder the cable down to the board.

Maybe I’ll call Nintendo and confuse the heck out of a service agent who might not know what the console is and just ask for a repair for fun. 🙂

Anyway, progress is being made and now I just need to wait for my security bit screwdriver to arrive!

Images/Video would be extremely helpful in this case. However, I believe from doing some research all of the hardware that oscillates the mirrors back and forth is done by the smaller board and should have some sort of printing on the PCB labeled “SERVO PCB 23.” This is the PCB with an 8Mhz crystal unit. While I haven’t learned too much yet on how these crystals are wired. A capacitor could very well limit the output of the clock signal that is provided by that crystal. I’m assuming that if that oscillates too quickly there is a shutoff mechanism in place somewhere in the hardware. Then, it would kick back on to try again. Do both of the mirrors have the same problem or only one? This seems like a bad part, just hard to tell what part it is at them moment.

Keep us updated!

That’s pretty neat!I’m assuming that chain would just thread through the legs where the plastic braces kind of make a “hole” in the stand and then it would be bolted down to something?

Thanks for sharing!

vuefinder83 wrote:

Yes, exactly everything you just said.

I guess if someone ever got hold of a store display that was missing its original head unit and knew what to look for when tracking one of these down, then I can understand someone coughing up a little extra money to complete their display. But yeah.. as is, it’s not as valuable as a complete display would be. Still a cool find though.

Hey, since we’re all on the topic of store displays here.. did you guys know that there exist an official VB store display unit that’s actually smaller than the Platform display? It’s even smaller than the small Japanese countertop display.

I can post some pictures here, that is if VB Boy doesn’t mind me doing so.

I don’t mind at all! I have honestly loved learning about the different displays that were available and I have already learned so much from this community post whatever you might see relevant to store displays!

Thanks for the insight on value, it is a really interesting piece and who knows maybe a display without a head unit might come up one day for me.

-Cameron

Thank you everyone for your input and supplying me with links and pictures of various different possible versions of display model this could be.

I think that it is pretty cool I stumbled upon a blockbuster display model without even realizing it! I assumed that the screws holding on the eye shade was an anti-theft device. However, that bracket really is a mystery. It can be seen in the last picture that I posted it was obviously glued in and the bolted on at some point (I’m assuming that is what all that white gunk is in there).

Interesting though is somewhere along the way someone removed this head unit and used it as a normal console. My eBay purchase came with a standard stand (with broken badge and clip of course…) and a standard controller.

The only other question I have is if this model is more sought after than others. I don’t plan to resell it because I find it an interesting piece of console history, but also I have to fix the ribbon cable issue. So if anyone knows the price or rarity of this piece I would appreciate that insight.

Thanks everyone for being so friendly and welcoming!
-Cameron

Now I just have to be careful not to damage that secondary barcode when opening my system…

Okay thanks for the advice. I do have a copy of Wario Land coming in that I snagged for $11. I wish I had thought more when purchasing my VB since it doesn’t have the battery pack and they cost half of what I paid for the system! I think I might have a unit from a store display which is interesting, however, I’ll make a separate post about that.

Thanks!