Dude, DogP. Share the wealth! What’s your secret?

I know the problem with the system lies in the interface between the board and the ribbon, but what’s your fix? I know you do it for fun and profit and all that, but I’m not about to send you either of my VB’s from Australia. lol

[jrronimo]

It sounds like you might have a deeper issue than that. It is my belief that the ribbon cables are only associated with visual problems.

Sound and other issues could be something worse.

If you have access to a dremel and a grinder bit, you can hack your game bit into something more useful for VB purposes…

I cut the ‘thin end’ off and then cut a slice across the remainder so that I could use a flathead screwdriver with it, like so:

Are you using your VB’s AC adapter to play games on your Genesis or the other way around? If you have the AC adapter pack for a VB (i.e., the part that slides onto the controller), then you should be using a Super Nintendo’s AC adapter — they’re exactly the same for my revisions.

• This reply was modified 15 years, 11 months ago by jrronimo.

Curse you freeze! So close:

Yes, welcome!

I still pull mine out and play Mario Tennis (before eye-distortion kicks in). Red Alarm is pretty fun, too. I am still looking forward to the day I snag a copy of v-tetris.

That cable is atached to an “LED print head”, I have not been able to source the origional part bit Im giessing it would run around $30 for a new one. Someone with more free time thain me might have more luck.

I figured what the part was, but it’s probably proprietary to Nintendo. Unless we could get the schematic and make a bulk order, I would guess that we will not be getting new ones any time soon.

I have not tried it yet but apllying som heat to the ribon cable where it meets the circuit board might reset things. Maby rub an iron on it with a pece of cloth to stop the iron from sticking to the plastic.

I’ve thought of this, too. However, it would be REALLY tricky: if you melt /too much/ solder, you might run connections into each other, thus making a VB 100% useless. Instead of 50% useless, haha.

Desert_fan_club> That is a FANTASTIC idea! Seriously! I have some spare time over the next two weeks and I am going to see what I can do. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before!

Hehe, this is the beginnings of a ‘Virtual Boy Pencil Trick’, maybe (like what used to be common with processors and video cards. :D)

Runner> Good call. Do you know of any websites that selll those pens? If I can fix my VB up with some pencil-lead, a ‘permanent’ fix would be much more preferable.

So, if I avoided adjusting the IPD as much as possible, could that extend the life of the VB?

That’s my /theory/, but I can’t guarantee anything. If you don’t have problems now and have your stuff set right, though, I’d touch it as little as possible. However, this could of course lead to problems of damaging your eyes over time or making the unit’s plastic pieces ‘set in their ways’, which would make them harder to adjust later.

If you’re willing to sacrifice the unit, why not try applying some hot glue to wherever its coming off?

Not so simple. The connections that are between that pink cable and the green circuit board are what the problem is. Putting some sort of glue on the outside would do little. My current theory is that I’ll have to re-solder all of the connections, which will be nothing short of a huge pain. If it works, though, perhaps I could set up shop repairing VBs for people! 🙂

I’ve got two VB’s with line problems. I’ve opened up my first one (which I’ve had since launch *sniff*) and determined that the problem lies in the brown ribbon cables that are /glued/ to the circuit board on the displays. My second VB has the same problem which seems to improve over time (maybe a heat issue?), but it still exists.

Anyway, the easiest way to get a VB open requires a 4.5mm Gamebit and a Dremel with a grinder end. I had one like this: http://myst.no-ip.org/jrr/images/virtualboy/gamebit.jpg

All I did was cut off the thick part (so you have a little end and a thicker other bit that is now trash) and then cut a slice into the remainder of the end so that I could use a flat-head screwdriver to open it up. The cutting process created a lot of sparks (so use proper eye protection!) but now that it’s done it’s an easy tool to use. The end result looks like this: http://myst.no-ip.org/jrr/images/virtualboy/gamebit2.jpg

As for the repair to the unit(s)… I am afraid that it may be impossible. But we’ll find out. 🙂

Do you have instructions for /building/ a dumper? I’ll dump my collection (okay, the most rare game I have is Waterworld, and I know that’s not very rare, haha), but it’d be a fun project.

Oh, and Hi forums.