Mildly linked I suppose but fun to type out and show anyway.
A member of the community reached out and asked if I’d take a look a few newly acquired items, with the idea that I could give them a freshen up and a bit of TLC.
A couple of GameBoy Advance carts (
Final Fantasy Tactics and Zone of the Enders) and a Nintendo GameCube Wavebird controller.
Clearly, I was dead keen to get my screwdrivers out and take a look.
Firstly the games.
The boards and pins were actually in very condition. No signs of any corrosion, or physical damaged to either.
Although by the looks of things the Final Fantasy cart had once been stepped on I'd say, as the inside of the outer case has some white stress marks, but the board was untouched.
Both were cleaned thoroughly with Isopropanol, polishing clothes and a fibreglass pen.
I had some fresh batteries ready to be soldered in but neither game has the use or need for battery back-up due to the EEPROM memory used in the GBA carts game data can be saved to the memory.
The only games that require battery back-up are games that require in game clocks for things, or that use older RAM. Pokemon, Castlevanias, Warioland, etc...
I did what I could with the labels.
Etsy actually do very good replacement labels but didn't go for those, as I expected that the owner would prefer the original(even if bad) label to a replacement, as good as it would be - I'd be the same.
The Wavebird.
So, this was in pretty good condition too really. The sticks were still tight, and the buttons still had some punch.
The only real note of word was that there was quite a bit of dust, grime hair and what looked like Wotsit dust around the analogue stick bases on the board.
I took apart the whole pad, (apart from the detail on the board as it was really clean anyway - if you can, you don't really want to take apart things like that as they'll never go back quite as they were.)
Washed, cleaned and polished all of the plastics. They came up real nice.
I then gave the board, analogue bases and contacts a detailed clean with Isopropanol, a lot of grime and grease came off them.
I was going to change the rubbers for a good OEM replacement set that I have in my spares, but honesty, these were better than my spares, so I cleaned those and used those again - nice and punchy.
It was a similar story with the sticks, both were very good. I have a set of brand-new replacements, but they're not OEM. They are good, but not the same as OEM, so I stuck with originals. It's what I would have done if this was own unit.
Battery connectors, radio, lights, all cleaned too and tip top.
Both were in fairly good condition really. The carts, one more so than the other looked as if it had had a bit of a rough time cosmetically but other than that was very good.
The controller was great, I’d say a pretty low use unit, it just needed a damn good clean and responded well to it I think.
All were tested and checked over with instant boot ups and button input responses.
I only took a few photos of progress and didn’t think to take a photo of them as I sent them back home to their owner.
I hope the owner is happy with the work and knowledge that their possessions should now perform for perhaps a little longer as they age further.
If nothing more, they have had an excellent clean which will certainly protect them from any bit rot for a while longer and if used with new batteries should keep nasty corrosion away.