Damn, i wished i had such an Ability to repair broken stuff like you..

good job it is always so fulfilling to fix electronics that were left for dead ...

It's a beautiful thing you do, sir.

Thanks dude. Yeah I hate it when people say they just threw something away because it had a small fault. Even if it's totally trashed then you can use the parts from it to repair another. It's rare that anything is really broken beyond repair.

Ive been watching your vids for the past few weeks and you have inspired me to start fixing faulty consoles again. Just love it how you able to bring retro consoles back from the dead just superb.

I found one of these in a charity shop about five years ago. RF mod was wrecked, the cable tailed through a hole at the back of the console. £5 'complete' in box, with Telesales AC adaptor. Scared to plug it in, did so, worked perfectly apart from a buzzing sound from the console. Sold it.

i see a multimeter, soldering iron, white lithium grease, screwdrivers, clamps, cable ties, wire cutters, and pliers. What else is in your toolbag? Can you make a little video on it for those of us wanting to get into repairs?

Very well done, I imagine the crack developed due to the PAL convertor helping himself to half of the components back then and the megadrive running for years with their bodge job.

My PAL-modded JP MD was found in Thailand with an RF modulator soldered to the ground plane on the left and a hole drilled for the RCA jack. The ones with the RF modulator stuck on the heat sink with mounting tape typically have an RF lead coming out the back where the threaded insert for mounting a Power Base Converter goes. I can see the residue on the heat sink here. :) Though it requires drilling, I like the way they did it on mine since it doesn’t insulate the heat sink and doesn’t add a cable you can’t disconnect from the outside. They also added a switch for PAL frequency or subcarrier or something with a capacitor and clock crystal soldered to the encoder. They mounted the switch to the side of the modulator such that the hole only needed to fit the shaft/plunger. Very subtle and almost looked factory from the outside. I removed the extra components, restored the two traces they cut, and repurposed the switch for region/language. I also gutted the RF modulator to install a 9P mini DIN… MD2-style with a 3BP V2 Triple Bypass. It works great and is just close enough to reach a 32X with stock and aftermarket MD2 cables. :) One thing I noticed on American consoles is that 3BP V2 buzzes a lot when you connect the headphone jack without shielding. Since JP consoles have no shielding and typically have no RF modulator to replace with a mini DIN, most 3BP installs are forced to use the headphone jack to output line level stereo. Buzz city unless you have some kind of shielded coaxial or something. I usually connect it anyway so people can use their old DIN 8 + stereo cables and though the buzz wouldn’t be too bad since the RF can is grounded, mounted almost entirely off the board, is much closer to the headphone jack, and the wires don’t even pass over the board. Unfortunately it still buzzes so I’m going to have to go back in with shielded coaxial to see if that helps.

After seeing the damage I didn't know how you were going to do it but you did! Love the videos, you're my hero.

That is insanely impressive, to be able to get something that nackered to work perfectly again!

I would never have thought it would even be possible to fix something that far gone. That's amazing. My repairing abilities are limited to cleaning and replacing simple parts. lol

RDC over at xbox scene (among others) had a guide to bad trace repair. it was interesting, he would tape over the areas around the broken traces, sand down to the trace, place insulated wire with tinned tips directly overtop the trace line with a touch of glue, and the tag the line. made it look like a super clean repair every time instead of botch botch botch everywhere. now as he himself would say, who cares what it looks like - does it work... and i tip my hat to you sir on this fine repair work.

this channel is awesome.i wish there was a much detailed presentation of the repairs but even without that the channel kicks ass.

im a fellow retro gamer from down here in new zealand , unfortunatly there isnt a big market for retro games and console , so picking them up can be a hard costly expierience , keep up the good work !

Was aghast when you said converted = "butchered". Went to my asian '91 Mega Drive (same year and model as the one in the video) to prove you wrong and BAM! it has a crack on the motherboard. 3 screws hold it on the chassis (I thought it was normal). And the cartridge input has just one screw too, cause the plastic that hold the other one cracked, probably in the 90's. The board's crack is on a useless part, no problem at all. The screws I will have to find some. But both the control inputs are hold by the solder only, no screws on them, whatsoever. And the freaking thing holds it together since 91!!! Now on the hunt for asian MD screws :(. Could be worse as we saw on the video, though. Thanks for the heads up.

"IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIVE! now I know how it feels to be a god!" Seriously though, well done, further proof that it's hard to kill a MegaDrive, sit down Nokia!

Man I miss your repair videos!

It's crazy to think that these guys invested good money importing brand new Mega Drives from Japan and then did that to them! With workmanship standards like that I'd imagine they killed half their stock before it even left the factory! It must have been really profitable to convert systems for the Asian market back then.

Very interesting. I am in the process of fixing one badly damaged megadrive, too. Inspiring work, it feels good when it's working again !:)

This is actually really inspirational man. Awesome work.

Would love to visit New Zealand some day. Looks like a great place to live. Lots of my gran's family emigrated out there from Scotland back in the 50's. Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment! :)

Your like a console doctor mate well impressed I have a dreamcast that is a tad messed up been trying to get it going for a while managed to get it to run for about 15 mins at a time and it conks out. Respect to a fellow scotsman lol

Pretty Horrifying condition but you got it working again! Awesome Job!

You are amazing!! It's so damn good to know there are people out there that can keep these old systems from dying out. Greetings from all the way over here in California.

Your repair videos are the best man, thanks for sharing your knowledge with everyone!

For anyone wanting a very easy money maker from the likes of eBay.....The Stihl TS series of cutting tools are reasonably cheap to get hold of in many similar states of disrepair, very cheap and simple to fully service or completely rebuild if necessary and the turnaround of 300% return each during the landscaping/scrapping season is very lucrative. This is my experience here in England, it maybe the same in most territories where such tools are as common.

You've just won yourself a new subscriber man! You are a great!

I've done many a cracked-board repair, nicely done! I even have an old boom-box radio I put together from two busted ones of the same model, using the least smashed from each and wiring them together! XD

Thanks! Glad you enjoy the vids and find them useful :)

its not pretty like you said, but it works, and that is the important part which makes me happy you saved this machine.

Great job,you're obviously very skilled in console repairs. Watching this video reminded me of a memory from my childhood.I went to an independent games shop in Leeds with my mum back in the early 90s and the shop was packed.Everyone was buying Japanese megadrives in boxes.But I just didn't understand why there was so much interest in the 'funny looking megadrives' at the time. Now looking back I wonder if the shop had modified the megadrives internally to operate with PAL TVs.

nice job, saving the retro hardware like a 'god'. this kind of hardware (retro) always has a special place for me....

So good to see, that theese good old consoles are getting this good treatment. I doubt, somebody in 20 years or so, will be fixing Xbox or PS3 as efficiently, as this.

Thanks. It probably looked worse than it was. Luckily the traces and components on a MD mobo are pretty big and easy to work with :)

Japanese consoles never had the shielding. In fact, that’s how I distinguish certain variants. Example: VA6.8 has no DIP-packaged encoder which I can often see through the vents in listing pictures. VA7 has completely different trace routing.

Thanks for watching :)

Thanks for watching! :)

That was my MD!!! I stood on it when i was pissed..... The shell was fine,but for some reason the edge of the board split? I wondered why it wouldnt power on until i opened it!! I made it 60hz jap lang before the damage if memory serves? I could never re trace the board so sold on ebay as shell/spares/repairs...ha i feel famous now : )

Haha, when I turned the board over for the first time and saw all the damage I did consider emailing Daz to say it was dead :P

Thanks dude! Glad you liked it :)

You Sir, are the fricken Ganesh of console repair!!

Thanks dude. It wasn't all that difficult tbh :) . SEGA hardware is great quality and very well built. Nice simple designs and big components make working on this stuff pretty easy. :)

Wow, you repaired a cracked mobo! Great job, man!

It's very possible. Although if the store was trustworthy then they would have been imported direct from Japan. Thanks for watching! :)

Truly outstanding work my friend!

Wow, you're lucky these boards were only double layered and didn't have any traces between the top and bottom sections otherwise that would be a dead board! Great work

you sir, are a wizard. im no expert, but I am a sega fan boy. been soever since the master system came out. you are a credit to the sega 16 bit community. Mega Drive 1 is my fave console of all time. Nowadays, when ever I get the urge, I have mega drive emulator and games on my psp, that's all I need for now.

An amazing repair job. The mother board looked to me like it was finished, an awful mess.

Another great video. Cant wait till you make more. Also love the Dio wristband as well mate \m/

impressive work o-o... I did not see that Mega drive coming back to life XD

Very impressive repair. Wish I had your skills and patience.

Passion to revive console games. nice!

Really love to watch your repairs!!

I was watching some random videos, stumbled upon your channel, and 3 hours later, still loving them. What I wanted to ask, was that, I'm newly out of high school, love video games, but also wanted to get into the dirty side, the repairs as you do in some of your recent videos. What exact college courses would they be under, and info and help would be greatly appreciated, keep up the good work!!

Dude, I love your videos. Makes me wish I had some broken stuff to fix! Thanks so much for the entertainment and inside looks.

That's some good work. Fair play. Always good to watch.

Your skills are amazing...I watch all your videos and you help me improving my fixing skills...Keep on the good job...

wow I think I posted on his original vid how difficult that would be to fix - impressive!

The RF shield was never present on the Japanese MD.

EPIC rescue Martin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow! I had your video playing at the background while I was writing an e-mail and I had to stop and rewind!!! ARE MY EARS OK?! I was sure I hear something about COJONES DEL ORO hahahahha, now I see that you were talking about the parrot balls in spanish, Daz cojonesdeloro (DAZ PARROT BALLS) :D hahahahha

wow well done wish was gifted at repairs like you man

Great work dude and glad to see your skill prevailing :)

Awesome job man. I am good at repairing and soldering but honestly I don't know if I would have the patience for that one LOL

Awesome repair mate, another old classic get resurrected from the console graveyard.

It's on it's way back to you right now :)

Thanks. You should give it a go yourself :) . Those are good mods to try if you're new to this stuff!

Outstanding, simply outstanding work.

I have long thought Martin should do game repair full time! I thought he did when I f irst started watching but I seem to remember a response to a comment where he mentioned another occupation. Yeah, Martin, you are seriously knowledgeable and talented with video game tech of all sorts...you should be getting paid, big time. ..lol, not from Daz necessarily but paid career wise. (Daz shoulda still thrown u a few pounds!)

You are a miracle worker, dude!

Wow man, absolutely wonderful!

wow, that shows amazing dedication and patience! nice job.

Oh, the mmf 'shield' was only a concern with Sega in US, passed on to PAL Megadrives in UK. So I wouldn't expect one on Japanese model.

Astounding work, well done !!

Great video man and a great repair from a fellow Scot. Really been enjoying your stuff. If you don't mind me asking, where did you learn your electronic wizardry?

this video is hilarious, I would never have thought such damage caused could be repaired ^^ I will not let that ds lite digitizer screen port defeat me ^^ you're awesome just wow haha

WHOA !! DUDE !! You are amazing ! Great job !

Very impressive, enjoyed watching this. I know who i'm sending my consoles to if they ever need repairing, lol! Awesome.

Wow thanks! You have some skills there! I mean I tried to fix a PS2 controller, a PSP and a PS1.. All of them are not working :/ But I wont give up. Thanks for responding and keep posting these videos!

Excellent job on the repair Martin! well impressed :)

You are a legend if that was mine that would of been in the bin .

It would seem so. Poor little guy. Any updates or your arcade cabs?

The power connections got cut and the path between the audio ram and the z80 was messed up. Just a theory. Also the missing capacitors did something to the video.

damn finally man i actually missed you puttin vids up its been a while you narrate pretty nicely vids are interesting and all... keep puttin them up... you shud fix my original xbox needs a new PSU i guess

jesus that conversion mod hackjob looked nasty! ive never seen a solder point that bad, even when i started out and thats sad lol

Not seen to many of those but I'd guess a lot of them just have dirty/corroded battery terminals.

Crazy reparation. I would like to do Fractography on that crack to figure out how he managed to do it. Is there mechanical damage on the edge of the plastic cover?

Amazing mate, so impressed!

It seems to be the red colour keeps flickering to green and deep blues have a prob as well especially on sonic. Ill have another trouble shooting sesh tonight and so what i can uncover. Cheers.

think wire glue (or any conductive glue) placed over the traces would have fixed it? Minus the capacitor that will obviously need a little work.

Wow, awesome job, man!

It probably just need the caps replaced. Very easy to do. You can buy kits on ebay :)

"I bet you can't fix my console" You're on! "sucker" :)

If that was me I would’ve replaced the MB but your are a master repair man well done

It's not too difficult. Just reconnect the traces that were severed and solder on some new components :) . No formal training, just learn as I go and watching vids/reading tuts online.

Amazing job Retro. Have you ever thought of getting a rework station?

Do you have any suggestions for why my Sega wont play games. It turns on but the video displays a black screen full of static. I cleaned the pins and check to see if there was any blown capacitors but I can get it to work.

Your a very clever man and I respect that. Good job.

How do you crack the Mobo? These things were always built like titans--