Mad respect for someone who publicly and openly admits they made mistakes. Shows humility goes a long way. And good job on the new video. Good techniques too! Some people take this information for granted, but it takes a while to learn and implement these concepts and everyone is different.

Damn, people of the internet aren't usually kind when they see a hack job of something so I respect you for taking them in stride and learning to be better.

I appreciate a more laymans view of this. I haven't used a soldering kit for quite a few years and getting a "good vs bad" practices view of it was more helpful than I would have expected. Thank you for your time in making this!

Nicely done, looks great! Thank you for addressing the issues with the previous video(s). It takes a lot to own up to a mistake and it really reflects on one's character when they do so.

I've been tinkering, building, fixing, and wiring for over a decade and have never seen desoldering braid. Glad I watched this. I'll be adding that to the toolkit. Looks easier and less finicky than a suction desolderer.

thanks to your tutorial I was just able to replace my silver battery, which has been in my possession ever since it was released, and could restore my nostalgia. thank you

I was wondering why i hadn't seen this video last week when i looked up the process then i saw this was uploaded only 6 hours ago. Great redo, you fixed everything i wasn't too sure i would want to agree with.

Late comment but very happy with this video. Showing the mistakes you made helps me not make those mistakes because I am new. Some things more experienced people take for granted because they do not think about them anymore, and seeing you explain why some of the things you did in your previous video were bad helped me learn a ton. Thanks!

This video inspired me to solder (and successfully, I might add), so I just wanted to say thanks and kudos for making such an explicitly straight forward tutorial to follow. I ended up replacing 3 batteries in my old GBC game cartridges, some that I have had for over 2 decades (1 Silver version and 2 Gold version).

Nice job on the soldering this time around. I solder guitar electronics and it would surprise people how even people who have been working on stuff like this for years still aren't good at it. Well done!

Your effort is noticed in your videos. I just discovered your channel and hope the level of videography, and narration (audio quality too) is maintained for DIY content. I wish your channel well!

lol, just commented what to do on the old one before I notice this one. Great job. As you said, a smaller tip needs higher temps, so for larger things like battery tabs a chisel tip works better since you can get more heat to a larger area without the high temps that can scorch pcbs and lift traces. Unless I'm soldering small components next to each other I almost always go with a chisel tip, it just seems to get the heat into the components quicker, which usually helps not overheat things.

1:48 Moments like that just wrench my heart, can’t stand the sight of lost saves.... I’m reminded every time I boot up Sonic 3...

Much better techniques used in this video compared to your old one!

This video is brilliant and guided me (soldering for the first time) through a job I would have never have taken on otherwise. Thank you!

I am brand new to soldering and I learned quite a bit from you explaining your mistakes. Thank you!

Nice to see a bit more detail about how to solder retro game stuff. I'm not an experienced solderer, so I always just eyeball the temperature. On my last mod, I learned that a smaller tip isn't always better and a slightly stubbier tip actually helps a lot with getting the solder to transfer to the board cleanly

If your iron isn’t hot enough to melt the solder then it isn’t hot enough to start the 3-second countdown. :) Also, that guideline doesn’t really apply to high thermal masses like battery tabs on power and heavy/thick ground planes. That said, your iron was hot enough in that first video, it just didn’t have a digital temperature control so it couldn’t recover its temperature very fast. You can overcome this limitation with technique. You needed to dwell longer without moving so much. Moving the way you were makes it appear like you are spreading the heat around but the real reason it looks like that is because the old solder doesn’t bead when heated until you add fresh solder/flux. While a bit of a swirl can help get heat transfer going, moving with strokes interrupts the heat transfer and generally makes it take longer. My tips: Always use leaded solder with rosin flux for these because Game Boy games were never lead-free. There is no good reason to mix solder chemistries and raise the melting temperature. Tin your tip with excess solder and wait for the temperature to recover before melting existing solder. This has more to do with thermal mass than adding fresh solder, since the flux core will have already spent before you touch the old solder. Having the bulk of the solder already molten and at temperature allows it to instantly merge with the old solder for maximum heat transfer immediately. Even if it re-freezes due to tip heat sinking into the ground plane/battery tab, the heat from your iron will saturate and liquify again much sooner than if you started with a dry tip. You can add fresh solder to get the heat transfer going, but save some until just before removing heat. Leave it wet. This is how you avoid spending the flux too early and having dull joints with wisps and pointy bits. Just a tiny kiss of fresh flux core solder as you remove the iron is all it takes. There’s little reason to waste braid flattening both sides. If you want to make sure the battery is perfectly flat, remove all the solder from one side and then solder the other side first. The molten solder won’t hold it up off the PCB and the other side won’t either since it’s the one you flattened removing solder.

I followed these exact steps and my Metroid 2 can now save!! I bought all the tools you showed as well. Thank you for the video!!!

1:57 I suggest adding another step before soldering. Backup GB cart data first. The Retrode2 + GB plugin works well in this instance. That way you do not have to worry about losing saved data.

I have a pokemon red game that has never had the ability to save since my brother bought it when we were kids. I want to attempt to fix it, and this really helped me understand the steps to do so. I've also never used a soldering iron before, so wish me luck!

Now THATS some great soldering!

Thank you for this video and listing those possible mistakes. I would 100% have made some of those if I didn't watch this video. I am going to replace some batteries this weekend. I hope the soldering iron I ordered will work. It wasn't very expensive. I haven't soldered a lot myself, but I know how it should look like at least. That soldering on that Zelda game looked great.

This video, is worth many praises for two different reasons: First and most important, owning your mistakes humblely (it may not mean much to you coming from a stranger but you've earned my deepest respect); Second, and comming from an electronics technitian with over 20 years of experience soldering, great technique, very nice job. Keep it up. Lot's of love from Spain.

I know this might be a little late, but you can make it easier by adding fresh solder to the pads before placing the battery. But this is the best video about battery replacement I've seen.

Thank you for making this; I've done soldering before, but it's nice to see how someone does the whole process. I especially appreciated the tips at the end for how to avoid causing issues as you do it.

This is awesome 👍, I wished I knew when I was younger. But then again little kids shouldn't be playing with soldering iron.

I started a new job this year that uses all of these supplies and have gotten skilled in soldering, so now I can start bringing Nintendo games in when I need a battery swap 😄

Great followup and love your work my friend! Awesome to see somebody in the community addressing the importance of safe practices

Thank you for the video! I'm looking into replacing my batteries in my games, and this is wonderful. :D

Just seeing you hold the gameboy brought back some serious memories

Thanks for the great tutorial! It was the first time I ever used a soldering iron and it was a great help getting my Wario Land 2 and Pokémon Crystal to save again. It's such a joy to see them working properly like they used to. Time to play!

Repaired my old pokemon crystal with this video. My first time using a soldering kit but it works! Hopefully I did everything right.

Great video thank you. I realized the battery prongs on my new battery stick out pretty high so pushing the plastic cart back together bent them a little. But it works. Appreciate you being humble for the sake of your viewers brother.

great work, you don't need to use so much flux though, especially that thick stuff you just need a tiny dot

I'm starting out my journey to learn how to solder correctly so thank you greatly for sharing what you would do differently 😃

Looks like I’ve got great news for you all here: I’ve found a video on KZfaq where instead of replacing a battery on the Game Boy or Game Boy Color cartridge, the user replaces the SRAM chip with an FRAM chip, that way it will save without a battery. The video is in German though unfortunately, but it does show and prove that FRAM saves are possible on original Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges. Though I believe the user does an additional step where he adds something else (I don’t know what it is but) with the FRAM chip. I don’t know if the chip has to be a specific one though and the video only tests it on Pokémon Red & Blue (German Versions), so I can’t confirm if every game (with saves) can do this too.

I didn't see the first version, but I'm definitely saving this video for later...i love the detailed instruction and the tips i didn't realize soldering required so much equipment--it seems like it'll cost a fortune to get a few games back up and running :P

Just watched this and your old vide bought all the proper materials needed to replace all my gba and gbc Pokémon game batteries. Had all 5 run out. Thanks man.

Cheers finally did mine. The ‘proper’ way.

Thanks for the video, I will get the tools I require, then give it a go & replace the battery on my Zelda game.

Great video, I just watched the previous one and found this one after. Definetly alot higher quality work and some good tips too, thank you.

Thank you for this! I just replaced my battery in my copy of Pokemon Red.

Really liked the part where you explain the mistakes you did from the first video. U earned a sub. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Watching this video helped me repair my copy of Pokémon crystal. Thank you very much

This is going to be really useful when I get my gameboy cartridges and I’m going to get a 12 pack of those batteries and before I use the cartridges I’ll change the batterie just in case

Thanks so much for the detailed video this saved me a lot of time and got it right on the first try.

Something I want to add here. When I went to boot up my copy of Oracle of Seasons, the save files were all corrupted. I wasn’t able to load any of the profiles. I suspect the game was hacked at one point with a game genie. To fix this, I ran my soldering iron over the contacts of the SRAM chip, and it booted up fine! So, if anyone has similar issues, start there.

Now I’ve just watched this updated video. Great improvements!

This has inspired me to restore old broken nintendo games, what parts should I look for when investing in tools? I saw: Multimeter, soldering iron, flux, and some screwdriver things, would you be so kind to post which stuff I need to do this myself? Thanks alot, and I appreciate the video a bunch!

Awesome man! I like this new video better, since I did see the older one first and quite frankly this final result is a very clean solder! And I kept looking for more videos, because I saw the of the guy prying those flaps open and it really gave me the creeps. So now I will go get the of the necessary tools to change all the batteries from my Pokemon collection, from GB to GBA. Thank you so much for the effort!

Thank you for sharing. Now I know how to replace the dead batteries from my game boy games in order for the save function to work again.

I have never soldered before so please humor me a moment here as I have a couple of questions. 1. What does flux actually do? 2. When the flux melts doesn't it run the risk of damaging the game board? As it seems to spread quite far when melting.

U have touch all the interesting point of the discussion,now i know all the errors i have do trying to repair my ps4 controller ✌️that is a good help have a good time

Nice tutorial! I'm going to need to do this on some gbc games I just got and I've only soldered twice before. Oracle of seasons is pretty fun!

Get rosin core solder wire won’t need flux then as it’s in it’s core, worked fine for me

Can also use one of the de soldering tools that “extracts” the solder with suction. But that braid seems to do well!

Battery spot welders are pretty cheap. I got one with the nickel strips for building my own Lithium Ion 18650 packs. I mentioned in your previous video that I put a copy of Ken Griffey Jr, Present Major League Baseball in the freezer to make some adhesive labels brittle and it somehow popped all the spot welds (battery rattling around inside). I wasn’t able to duplicate this with my Game Boy games but it might be useful somewhere. :)

Solder suckers like the Soldapult make this job radically easier. Also take something small and wood and make a little stick with it, you can push down the SMD contacts while they cool without your push tool getting attached.

Sometimes you have to pull the cart out and put it back in. Ive had a DMG hold a save on a zelda cart before for a while with a dry battery. Once you pull it out and put it back in, the save is gone.

I've never soldered anything, but I'm decently handy with tools, I can follow instructions, and my brother has a soldering iron I can borrow. Would you recommend that someone who's never used a soldering iron try this tutorial? After watching your original video, I can't decide whether I should attempt this without practice. I just don't want to fuck up my old games lol.

Thanks for showing how it's done!

You’re actually not supposed to touch the solder to the iron when you’re placing it on the connection. But that’s probably a minor issue and this is a very helpful video.

I don't have much experience with a soldering iron, aside that I installed pickups in one of my guitars and I fixed a guitar effect pedal. How could I learn more about using a soldering iron? I'm afraid of damaging an original gbc game and a (I think replica) gba cartridge. I've got the tools and I've got the batteries, I just don't have much experience with soldering iron.

Thanks for the updated tutorial :)

lmao "or ill smack you." xD cool vid. will have to try it on my copies of PKMN Gold and Silver

Great video. I'm wanting to replace the batteries in 2 GBA Carts and was wondering if it's pretty much the same method?

AMAZING tutorials thank you so much!

LOVED this!! Made replacing mine easy as pie. Many thanks!!

Hi, Great video! But I noticed a possible issue that I don't see anyone mentioned. The new battery is "reversed" from the original, meaning when you install it, you must bring the negative pin from the outside ring of the board flush into contact with the positive center of the board. All it takes is a scratch in the green solder mask beneath the battery to make a complete short circuit! Any thoughts on the risk of this? Thanks

I’m brand new to this so thanks for this awesome video! I think I’ll pass on a cheap pen and get the Hakko like you did.

Doing this on my Pokemon silver, thanks for the great video!

Could you do a video on what each chip on a gameboy cart is and where to buy them

Great video, thank you! Do you by chance have a specific brand of CR1616 battery that you would recommend for a Pokémon Yellow replacement? They seem readily available, but I want to try and match the OEM battery as best as possible. Thanks again!

I'm having trouble where I can melt the rosin core solder by itself but I cant make a dent in the solder on the circuit board. Every time I try to make a bridge between the melted solder and the solder on the board, it just cures on the board, making the mound of solder on the board bigger. I am using lead free solder, does anyone have any tips that could help fix this? I am getting flux tomorrow, should that help?

So far I've not had to do this with any of my carts but I did recently have to swap out the battery on my Sega Saturn for saves

Would you do a toturial where you use a keystone type batter holder for easy battery swap?

Kyle, you're awesome bro

Im very tempting to fix my battery in couple of my pokemon games

The little circular plastic peice popped out which way does it go back on and I’m scared to over tightening it

Great tutorial? Could you put the link of the batteries that you bought with the tabs on them? Thanks!

Is the additional flux necessary if you're using a solder wire that has 2% flux in the core? I was asking an electrician friend of mine and they said the flux used to be separate in older times but most of the time nowadays it is part of the wire?

I have the tabbed batteries, a cheap iron and stuff but I might just go with electrical tape again like when I was a kid 😅

Thanks for the great video! I'll have to give this a try

Great tutorial! Thanks for sharing!!!

Can I just use flux to clean off the old solder instead of using 40/60 tin lead rosin core solder?

Very nice video. Thanks!

Hello! In your first video you said to make sure you don't have residual power when you turn off the game. If I do, what do I do or what did I do wrong? Thanks

I pretty much have all the materials needed, except for the soldering braid, which I cannot find in any stores, except for Amazon online. Is there any alternative to using a soldering braid to remove all the remains of the old soldering?

I really wish I had the tools and materials necessary to do this

I'm dreading your answer to this but, if the battery dies does my save data die with it?

What kind of solder did you use? 50 tin 50 lead? 60 tin 40 lead? Also did you use a full face respirator? I think I should use full face protection when soldering the batteries for my gold, silver, and crystal games.

This is so cool. Thanks for doing this Kyle. Will check out your other video. Keep them coming brother. Usually I’m soldering copper pipe with a torch (plumber), what is that tool called to melt the solder?

I’ve just soldered my own battery in and it’s working but I know I didn’t do a good job how much will that effect me

Heya there are battery holders for such batterys so is it possible to replace it with that since you dont need to solder the pkmn games ever again ...

I can't recommend a solder vacuum enough. You can snag a cheap Chinese one for around $150. If you're doing a lot of de-soldering, it'll be the best investment ever.

Great tutorial! In your reddit post, I saw someone say that you can safely solder tabbed CR2032 batteries on any cart, even those which originally use CR1616s. Is this true? Because other reddit posts say the shell can crack because of the extra width of the 2032 battery.

What brand of 60/40 and which watt solder kit would you recommend for working with these sp’s? Great videos

So this will help fix my pokemon silver copy

what light mod is that for your gbc cant seem to find it also good tutorial