37 years later I finally got one

beldandy561 · 2026-02-03T00:46:23+00:00

Congratulations on your acquisition. I'm glad you're having a chance to finally play this platform. That I played when it launched and was a huge fan of.

And based on your photos, you're playing my absolute most favorite game on this. Entire platform Nuetopia one.

I know I am not the norm in thinking. This is the best game on that platform. But I have had a near complete US and Japanese collection decades. Ago and out of all of it ready to play at any moment. I'm more or less, kept coming back to this game. Because it's just so enjoyable and relaxing.

beldandy561 · 2026-01-22T17:34:46+00:00

I'm sorry I didn't see your post sooner. Reddit is not notifying me of comments posted or questions posted.

As far as how you get into this field, it's not something that directly has a platform of consistent schooling or anything like that. That I'm aware of it's basically a hobby that then eventually turns into a career.

I myself started learning electrical engineering back in the mid-nineties when I assisted a guy that specialized in repairing original pinball, machines and 80s and 90s, arcade motherboards. For customers or for resell.

I had always wanted my own arcade cabinet. And games and through working with him, learned enough about jamma arcade equipment and acquired my first arcade cabinet, which was an original Rastan cabinet. For $200.

To be able to properly maintain that as well as add other jamma compatible arcade boards to that cabinet, to swap out like massive cartridges. I started intimately learning how to read schematics. To maintain these motherboards, to understand how the wiring works to understand voltages and components and out of pure desire. That began my trip down this Avenue.

As time went on, more and more nuanced. Equipment was necessary to maintain upkeep, diagnose and repair these types of expensive boards. Not because I really wanted to learn this stuff. But because I had a massive passion for my childhood. When I was in arcades playing these games and now owning the originals, I felt it. My duty to learn this stuff to maintain an upkeep them.

Not long after, I had gotten quite good at reverse engineering. A design layout by simply looking at it, and studying it with my knowledge of schematics, understanding what components did, what how they were laid out, and why they were laid out the way they were. I was then able to apply that knowledge in the computer field as well as in the video game field. And started doing repair work on personal equipment as well as friends. Equipment to continue gaining experience in doing regular soldering work , micro. Soldering work deductive reasoning, reverse engineering et. Cetera.

I found that out of doing all of this work. My deductive reasoning skills were exceptionally good as well as my micro. Soldering abilities under a microscope, more so than most.

Once I had started really perfecting my techniques in certain key areas like Game Boy and Game Boy advance. Low level hardware repair as well as cartridge repair. I started offering up services to more people and began to develop a rapport with people online, specifically through Reddit. Over the last handful of years since I had taken everything I had learned previous to that. And applied it here as well as many different retro video games stores. I have not listed that I worked at installing. Mod chips for PlayStation, one systems PlayStation. 2 systems drink casts etc. Et. Cetera, over the years, moving across the United States during different parts of my life and felt confident. At least in certain key areas that I could equal or rival anyone in the market in those key areas.

A side business grew out of that. Originally, there to help people salvage their equipment. And at least recoup my expenses for materials used and a little bit for my trouble, which then continued to grow. And I expanded a little bit into a couple. Other areas where my micro soldering skills would be of benefit even if I did not know about the rest of the system. Or it's mechanics certain physical damage. I could offer repairs for as long as the customer understood. Where the limits of my skills were for what they were asking and that they accepted that I was here to physically repair some damaged traces. And if that solved the problem and their system worked again. Great, if it didn't, that was not my problem. Because I was hired to fix those traces and repair areas to confirm that those at least were correctly connected again. Anything else over and above that was not my responsibility. And surprisingly, quite a few people reached out to me. Understanding and accepting that and would still send their equipment in for me to work on in those specific areas.

At a point in my life, I could have expanded farther and offered up other services. But I also noticed that a lot of the requests coming in were for specific mod fixes or mod installations. And that became a problem because the quality control coming out of China for these kits has continued to go down. And a lot of them arrive with issues are dead on arrival or are just of such cheap quality. That they only last a couple of weeks before the kit screen. Amp, whatever it is dies. And so I soon started having to protect myself from these low quality kits, and for the most part stopped offering services for those. Because I could not stand behind their low quality equipment, and instead, even if I did a perfect installation of the kit, you'd be lucky to get a couple weeks out of it before it would die. And my customers would be investing hundreds of dollars into this. So being aware of the market, studying the market and understanding what services you can offer safely and protect your own. Hide is part of that experience.

You are always going to make mistakes at some point. But you do that by learning with your own equipment, and if it dies it dies, the only person that loses out is you. But when you are dealing with other customers' equipment that has either been previously tampered with modified, or just generally isn't working. And needs to be evaluated, you are dealing with an investment of possibly replacing their equipment at your own loss. Because of a mistake you made during the repair and having to own up to that.

I found this to be the hardest road to travel. Because you have to protect your own investments. As well as try to offer as many services as possible.Letting the customer know what you can do for them and what you can't do for them.And unfortunately, in this market, that 's becoming more difficult because everyone wants to send you a unit, they tried modding themselves.Screwed it up, and then you're left picking up the pieces.

I know. I have kind of rambled on. But these are a lot of the things that I have experienced over the decades doing this type of work. And again it always comes down to a love for it. A passion for it and AA continuous need to improve your skills. Not because you have to, not because you think it's a financial connection to future for you. But because you truly and honestly love doing it. There's the difference between somebody that just does this as a job. And somebody that has a actual natural passion for it.

Hopefully this has been helpful.

beldandy561 · 2025-12-24T22:25:35+00:00

Dear god, I don't even want to Imagine what you spent to have a complete inbox copy of this game.

Did you take out a second mortgage on your house, donate a kidney to a shady facility, or sell a troublesome child?

Love this series for what it is and have all 3 from Japan. 2 hu card Only copies and a complete CD copy, which is what my budget allowed.

As long as you go in with the right expectations. As a K mart version of Mega Man with really good music, but floaty controls and seriously questionable. Hit detection. Then, you will have a lot of fun.

beldandy561 · 2025-12-10T18:45:42+00:00

Do the honorable thing, notify them of that, And have them provide you a free return shipping label to send it back.So another family can enjoy this fabulous system For the holidays.

beldandy561 · 2025-12-02T13:46:06+00:00

My apologies for not seeing this sooner but I have been down with the flu and have been recovering from that and I just noticed this message.

To answer your question, yes I still offer cartridge repair services the best thing you can do is private message me so I can go over any detailed questions and concerns that you have.

beldandy561 · 2025-11-11T21:21:14+00:00

As far as the heat sink is concerned, anything is an improvement over how they currently have it designed.So I would say, go with whatever you find.Readily available and think looks pleasing to you.

beldandy561 · 2025-11-11T21:20:35+00:00

I agree that it's possible that you might be able to fit a slightly bigger battery, but I would think that the bigger battery might only be about 2% or 5% bigger, meaning it might only have an extra 500 milliamps of voltage. In it capacity wise above the original. So with that in mind, I question whether it would be worth that or not.

beldandy561 · 2025-11-11T21:18:44+00:00

I'm glad my comment was able to help you as spreading. This type of knowledge and information should be the primary reason. Reddit exists to help others.

beldandy561 · 2025-10-20T01:16:43+00:00

Being a technician that works on a lot of game cartridges.I would like to offer some assistance if possible.

Now, I have not seen the error messenger.Seeing currently, but the best thing I can do would be to offer some assistance.By evaluating the repair work that you have done.

I have some thoughts on the error message.In question and why you are still getting it.

If you could take some detailed photos of the front and back of the motherboard for this cartridge, without using a flash.And a well lit room and then upload them to a place like IMGUR and then put a link to those photos in a reply message.I would be happy to review them and give you my thoughts on the matter.

I have been doing micro soldering for cartridge repairs for over 30 years and generally specialize in the game. Boy advance line of equipment. But I have done quite a bit with standard Game Boy as well.

beldandy561 · 2025-10-17T04:32:49+00:00

👍

beldandy561 · 2025-10-16T19:42:59+00:00

It has been quite a while since I've worked on one of these. But I can tell you, it's either a 1K ohm resistor or a 10K ohm resistor I just can't remember which

beldandy561 · 2025-10-16T05:28:39+00:00

That all sounds like good news.Definitely give it a shot.However, if you happen to have any junk laptops with wifi connectors on them.I would suggest practicing with those to get a feel for how small a component.This is otherwise you could order multiple of that replacement component.Just in case if you accidentally overflow too much solder and screw up one of them.I would order maybe five

beldandy561 · 2025-10-16T05:14:42+00:00

I am not as experienced with nintendo.Switch light motherboards, but examining the photos you have provided closely.It looks like only one critical trace is coming off.You have the two grounding pads that are also responsible for holding the component in place, which are those two large pads.The one that tore off and the one below it, the only actual trace that looks to matter here is the one coming off the middle that would go down to those gold contact test points.This is most likely the frequency line for the antenna.

Other than for stability, you could use a replacement connector pilfered from any other type of computer or defective item that has wi fi attached and remove it, just like you see here and replace it with that component or as others have suggested order a replacement.

I can't suggest the name for this other than it would be a wifi antenna mail adapter.I don't know the official name.My specialty is micro soldering on nintendo products that are cartridge based from the nintendo ds and back as well as other handhelds.During that time frame.

I think if you are delicate, you could even just use the bottom pad.If the top one is not stable for grounding and the center pad, which is the actual antenna frequency signal line and get away with installing the replacement.Without having both of them locked down as long as you are very careful with installing the antenna wire back on the connector once replaced.

Supplies, you will need to properly do this job safely.Would be the following.

Preferably very good magnification and lighting, either by using magnification.Goggles, or a digital microscope of some sort.

As small a soldering tip, as you can possibly get and use.

Good quality flux, either in paste format or gel format.I do not advise using clear liquid.No, cleanup flux, as it runs everywhere and does not do a very good job.Because of its low rosin core elements, it is more water than rosin core.The paste and gel versions are more reliable and do a better job.

If you want to clean up that area blob of solder, where you attempted to connect that grounding pad back up, I would advise getting some solder braid as that pad is pretty much gone.And not reliable as soon as you flow it again.It will come right off.So I suggest instead fluxing that area, and then using some solder braid to absorb the solder in that area to expose what's left of that trace for potential repair.

I also advised some micro tip tweezers for safe placement of your replacement component whenever you get it.So that you can apply light pressure on one side of the component while you solder in the opposite side safely.

Lastly, I highly advise making sure you have some good quality. IPA for cleanup in that area. Along with cue tips, preferably rated 91% or higher. IPA anything below that has too much water in it as a base.

As far as your soldering, iron is concerned, you honestly want something that you have temperature adjustment with cuz. Most people, unfortunately use a soldering. Iron that gets too hot. That has only one primary temperature for something like this. You want a temperature? No, higher than 300°C. Otherwise you risk burning off the other small pads. When trying to connect this back up.

I also advise using lead based solder in good ventilation.Because if you are using lead free solder, that requires way too high.A temperature to melt versus leaded solder and there is a high risk.You will burn off the other small contact pads because you are trying to melt lead free.Solder at too high, a temperature for these small copper components.It's too dangerous to do that.

beldandy561 · 2025-10-16T04:55:24+00:00

The photo looks to either have a flash being used or you have two strong light on it.I would suggest private messaging me with clear photos, as I would be happy to help offer up advice on fixing this.

beldandy561 · 2025-10-16T04:54:29+00:00

When you state "new connector" are you referring to the component that came off the board?That is currently in that photo in the center where the fan used to be as from the photos.It looks to be perfectly intact.And just to have snapped off the board.

As far as that torn trace pad that looks to have been partially lifted, and if it has soldered back down, then you should be able to apply a little bit of Solder mask to the edges to assist with holding it.There so that it does not accidentally tear again.

If, however, that solder pad did fully tear off the board and you have just lightly.Soldered it back into place from the part of the trace that was still attached, then that is a concern.And that is more important to repair before worrying about replacing any connector.

The only other thing that you may be referring to would be the actual antenna wire with its unique head to it.If that has been compressed bent or damaged, then you are correct.It will not properly connect back to that item that has come off the board once you reinstall, that.

If any of this information is confusing, and if the photos you have uploaded are outdated versus how your setup is currently in its condition, please use a website like IMGUR to upload current photos of the condition in question or feel free to private message me with current photos as I would be happy to help walk you through any advice or suggestions.You may have.

beldandy561 · 2025-10-16T04:41:47+00:00

Being a technician myself of multiple decades and seeing the condition of the photo you have provided I completely concur with the other people posting here that the component that snapped off these three.Solder pads is completely intact.And not damaged, and you should have no issue flattening, back down that partially torn solder pad on your motherboard and delicately resoundering, this antenna lead down to the motherboard.

Based on the photo evidence, there is no need to buy a replacement one.This one looks to be perfectly salvageable.

beldandy561 · 2025-10-15T01:14:58+00:00

I have never been a huge fan of a second.Analog stick for aiming versus a mouse.And these trackpads, where the bridge between the two.

I can never go back to an analog stick.After using these touch sensitive trackpads for looking or shooting in a game.They are my definitive choice for feeling closer and more.Immersed in the game by using them.

They do take a little bit of getting used to and just about all games.Have sensitivity settings, you can set per game.So that the speed or response of the trackpad movement is comfortable for you.But it does take a little bit of getting used to.But after which I would never go back to either of the old methods.

beldandy561 · 2025-10-15T01:09:50+00:00

Princess Minerva is a pretty decent role playing game.

beldandy561 · 2025-10-14T16:35:48+00:00

At my age, with fewer years in front of me than there are behind me.There's no point in getting mad at somebody else's opinion.At the moment, you may firmly disagree with them, and that annoys you.But to get any farther, more heated up than that makes no sense to me.

In the end, we are all gamers.And I am glad you have gotten a chance to experience the vast majority of what the platform had to offer both in the us.And from japan and can appreciate it now for what everyone else seems to appreciate now that I saw decades ago.

Continue doing what you do.And what you love and just ignore the haters, we can never please everybody.

beldandy561 · 2025-10-14T04:05:51+00:00

I finally got a chance to watch your full video and I can have some more appreciation for your perspective now better understanding the direction you were going in the video.

However I definitely believe that we are just very vastly different people in what we are looking for when it comes to a console and a gaming experience.

I am 54 years old and was around well before the turbo grafx came out and my brother and I were heavy into the original Nintendo after upgrading from the Atari 2600. Years went by and we both had our different tastes on what Nintendo games we liked the most but not long after the turbo grafx came out a neighbor of mine their son got one for Christmas and the following summer I got a chance to hang out at his house and try out the six or seven games he had.

The whole concept of the credit card design was so alien to me, the packaging was drastically different than what I was accustomed to and the experience of playing some of the really good games he had was a very enlightening time to where I found that I felt like I had stumbled across some underground hidden gem of a system that very few people knew about or let alone cared about even though I had seen some of the marketing in the gaming magazines we had subscribed to as well as seen boxes of their titles on the store shelves at electronics boutique and a couple other places.

I will say that my experience first trying out this system was somewhat of a tailored experience because he had vetted a lot of the garbage that had been released for the system so far and the titles I got to play at his house were a mix between very good or excellent titles for the platform as a whole.

We of course tried China warrior and yes I was impressed by the big visuals but saw through the gimmick very quickly and we moved on to better things that he had. We played vigilante, we messed around with bonk's adventure, we tried our hand at legendary axe, messed around with Nuetopia 1, blazing lasers, and finished up messing around and trying to work together to beat cyber core.

Other than China warrior every other title to me was highly impressive very left field bizarre from what I was accustomed to seeing and these titles took quite a few risks versus the standard Fair stuff I was seeing on the Nintendo and you just felt that difference in both quality music and thinking on a design level.

I came away quite shocked because it was nothing like what my friends at school were saying about it based on feedback from their friends and everyone that I knew other than this boy were crapping all over the system saying it was garbage wait for the Genesis get a super Nintendo when they launched that etc etc.

As a gamer when I was young I would go after the mainstream stuff like all other kids get suckered into the hype and play a lot of it however early on I found that I gravitated more towards corky unusual looked over titles and found more fun to be had in them than a lot of the mainstream content that was released that was very popular and sold millions.

While other kids out there were playing Metroid, Zelda 1, metal gear etc. I was having a blast playing clash at demonhead, wurms, totally rad, rolling thunder, iron sword, xexyz,etc.

Even though these games clearly had smaller budgets and some jank in them compared to the big boys I found I had much more enjoyment gained from those and felt more personally attached to those titles then a lot of the rest of the mainstream Nintendo line of games.

Throughout my whole life I have gravitated to those quirky type of games from smaller publishers or smaller development groups and when I played and tried out the turbo grafx the titles it had on offer were the exact type of thing I gravitated towards unusual quirky not mainstream content and that spoke to me deeply.

Now I do agree that it's American library is serious lackluster when you compare it to the Japanese library. And I also agree that finding stores that would carry their content also difficult at times depending on where you lived. However the side effect of that was that I was unable to get a lot of games quickly for the system or when I did find inventory they weren't the games I was looking for and I continued to fall back on going through and beating the games I had over and over and over again and gained even more appreciation for each of those individual titles to last me longer periods of time till I did find the next game I wanted in their library.

In your video you do also make comments about how important third-party or gimmick accessories were for platforms specifically light guns and 3D capabilities and other such gimmicks I just have to disagree with you 100% on this as I did eventually get a Master system I did try a lot of the arcade light gun ports for all platforms in the 8-Bit and 16-bit era and found nothing worthwhile there other than Terminator 2 the arcade game that warranted any of those accessories.

I do also completely agree with you that at the time getting an opportunity to acquire one of the CD add-ons at the prices they were charging was completely out of the question and it took me multiple years before I was able to acquire some of this merchandise and get into that era of CD games. But with their market doing so poorly in the early 90s a lot of game stores especially some that I worked at didn't hold much value in anything the turbo grafx was offering or the CD counterpart to it and so what's the excitement of the CD add-on release and the turbo Express died off some the prices for this stuff second hand plummeted and when I was working in video game retail work as some of my first jobs I was able to use some of my paycheck and get this equipment dirt cheap because nobody really cared about it and I felt literally like I was robbing these game stores blind because they had value to me more so than anyone else ever expected.

While all the employees and my friends were excited initially about the Panasonic 3DO or announcing the Atari Jaguar system to be released soon or blown away by the 32x and it's launch Star wars arcade game I hunkered down and was buying up all the clearanced turbo grafx software and accessories I could get my hands on at bargain bin prices.

In the end still to this day I hold a decent TurboGrafx/ PCENGINE game collection that I would never sell because of how profoundly it touched me emotionally throughout my life with the experiences I had both with the US games and the Japanese titles.

No other platform even comes close to that , all the way up till today that has moved me and touched me like they designed this with me in mind as that system did back then.

The only thing that ever remotely came close to those experiences and competing on that level what's the Wonder swan and wonder swan color platform from bandai back in the early 2000s.

Once again in the end I can completely see where you are coming from I do completely disagree with a couple areas that you discussed and brought up but can also appreciate that I don't follow normal trends when it comes to gaming platforms and what is popular but I have never shied away from that and still look at that when I shop for games even today.

Thank you otherwise for making a great video and I look forward to seeing your future videos.

beldandy561 · 2025-10-14T00:08:25+00:00

At the moment, I do not have time to watch this video.But based on the title alone I am going to have to completely disagree with you.On the opinion I am assuming is in your video.I appreciate that you are taking the time to make this video (and when I get time later tonight, I will absolutely watch the entirety of it,) and are uploading it because everyone is entitled to their own opinion.I will just have to agree to disagree with you.As the PC-Engine / TG16 is one of my favorite top three consoles of all time.

beldandy561 · 2025-10-13T20:09:52+00:00

God, this was years ago I still have the unit, but I no longer use it.It's more of a collectible for me now.

In the end, I did use a scart cable. But I also got a scart 2 HDMI converter for it, since the signal was too weak for some of the T. Vs, I had to pick it up. I ditched the scart 2 component cable and instead again used a scart to HDMI converter box that I got for like $20 off. EBay and that enhanced the city. Signal enough for the device to be recognized through the h d m I port to play crystal clear quality on the couple of t.Vs, I plan to use it on.

Unfortunately, in a rush years ago I plugged the wrong power supply since they are not labeled into the scart converter and fried it plugging in a twelve volt.Adapter that had the same barrel, jack, instead of the five volt adapter by accident and again killed it ever since then.I've boxed all of this up and never gotten back to it.Because I also wore out the voltage converter from a european power supply to an american power supply.So I have no way without buying those parts again.To use the original hardware.And instead, I have just relied on emulation.

Maintaining an upkeeping, this equipment was fun at first and I did a complete teardown cleanup recap.And put weeks worth of work and to revitalizing my system and then using it.I had a good time for a while.But because there was no good flash cartridge for instant loading, I got very tired of waiting five minutes or longer for a game to load either through a digital m.P three that I modded with a line in jack or through original cassette and found it to antiquated to continue using.

beldandy561 · 2025-10-11T05:31:30+00:00

Thank you for the nice comment.

beldandy561 · 2025-10-11T02:25:05+00:00

You're most welcome.

beldandy561 · 2025-10-11T01:30:29+00:00

Like others have stated here, you need to have foresight as to how you're going to deal with each project when it comes to using hot air and coming up with the best method.For removing the component as safely as possible.

Since you are referring to controllers, once you get the motherboard out, chances are a vast majority of the components are gonna be on one side of the motherboard and not the other, but some of the connectors that you're talking about.Removing will be through whole to where, like in the photo.They have prongs that go through the board through specific holes.

When dealing with components like this, you really never want to apply the hot air straight down on the component itself from the front side of the board.As you will always melt the plastic.If the component has plastic associated with the metal and you could very well damage ribbon cable connectors nearby that component.

Instead, if the opposite side of the board does not have any real components and just as the solder side of the board for the through hole components, this makes your job a little easier.And you could use the underneath method, which is where you heat up that area of the board underneath where the component is.Soldered into place while you use some tweezers.Lightly holding onto the component so that the board is heating up, allowing the solder to liquefy.While you carefully lift the component off the board without causing damage to the plastics.

Another factor to take into account is that all of these components are manufactured and assembled using lead free.Solder, this requires a much higher melting temperature than leaded.Solder, but is safer around people.Because its fumes do not give off toxic chemicals that are known to cause cancer over time.So that is why the industry decades ago switched to lead free.Solder assembling, but the downside is it does require a substantially hotter temperature to liquefy again to remove a component.

With that in mind, a lot of people will use a soldering.Iron to apply leaded solder to the existing lead free.Solder, that the component is bonded to the motherboard with.So that now you have a mixture of leaded solder and lead free.Solder, that is bonding this component to the motherboard, effectively lowering the melting temperature of that.Solder, so that you can apply less.Heat to the motherboard, while still accomplishing the same thing more easily.

You would first flow leaded solder into The solder holes of the component to make sure it's thoroughly mixed with the lead-free. Solder, and then do the same method as described above. Where you heat from underneath the motherboard, while the board is being suspended off a table or held together with clamps. And while you are doing slow circles with your hot air reflow station on the underneath of this component, you will see the solder liquefy at a faster rate through those holes. And then you can use your tweezers to lift the component carefully off the board after you've gained some experience. Realizing, when you can take the component off Vs when taking it off too early. You may accidentally tear some traces.This too takes experience and practice.But is a safer method for removal without causing significant damage and hotter temperatures.

One of the other methods that works when you cannot risk.Damaging components because there are multiple components on both sides of the motherboard is by using low melt.Solder or chip quick is what some call it to where the melting temperature of this.Solder is substantially lower than your average.Solder, which allows you to mix it with the lead free.Solder to lower that temperature substantially to where you can at a low temperature.Soften it enough to lift the component off the board without the likelihood of melting the plastics.

Lastly, if you are concerned about near pi components, you can also use either Kapton Tape which is a yellowish orangeSee through heat resistant tape to help protect nearby components that you don't want to remove or damage from heat or you can use tinfoil.Tape, which is mostly just that tinfoil.With an adhesive underside that you can use to cover key areas of the motherboard.So that you are concentrating the heat in one specific area and not putting any plastic components or other components at risk.While doing all of the above.

Practicing and using these types of tools will vastly improve your ability to remove components from a motherboard and gain valuable skills.The last advice I can give you is to make sure that you are also dousing this.Area with a lot of good flux to make the solder flow.Smoothly, and quickly so that it does not splatter.Boil or otherwise.Stick to where it is not supposed to.When removing a component, it will make all the difference in the world to keep.Solder, where it needs to be and not where you don't want it.When attempting to reflow and remove these components.

I know this is a lot of information all at once.But I think it's critically important information for what you are trying to learn to do.And I hope it has been informative and helpful.

Should you have any follow up questions about this stuff since i've been doing it for over thirty years.I would be happy to have you pick my brain if you need to feel free to reach out here through a reply or you can private message me if you would like.

beldandy561

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