I have an old Famiclone from 1990 that is a complete hardware clone of a Famicom and not a NOAC.
I opened it up recently and noticed that has socketed connectors for its CPU and PPU. Since its chips it uses are clones and not as good as the real thing, I want to drop in the chips I have on an NES that has a dead power supply.
Is there a way to easily remove the NES CPU and PPU? I think I've heard there are tools designed to do this. Can anyone shed some light on this? The more info the better. Thanks.
Here's what I use -
http://www.circuitspecialists.com/prod.itml/icOid/10146 Looks like they have a slightly cheaper one on that site now too. And there's unpowered spring-loaded ones around, I haven't used one but they are cheaper.
One thing the wikipedia article didn't mention is that often to desolder through-hole, you have to add more solder. No matter what tool, you won't be taking anything off if there's not enough solder for it to flow properly and completely (and there rarely is for professionally assembled stuff).
Might be a bit easier for you to fix the dead power supply.
Hmm..that's slightly outside of my price range. I was hoping for a tool to do the job for less than $20.
If I'm not mistaken, I need a RP2A03 and RP2C02. It's a long shot, but could I buy the chips themselves from anyone?
This requires skill to do perfectly without burning the board or damaging the chips so practice first, but I use a 15 to 25 watt weller soldering iron and some desoldering braid when I install copyNES. This is your cheapest option.
If there's no power, have you checked if the regulator is bad? It's part 7805, a 3-pin IC which is screwed to a heatsink. If that's the problem, it will cost less than a dollar to replace and you can remove that with a soldering iron because you can heat all 3 pins at the same time.
I have spare PPUs, but AFAIK a CPU will cost as much as the whole system.
On another thread I mentioned the website digchip.com. There are resellers on there that claim to have CPUs and PPUs in stock, but I have no idea what they want for them, and until you ask for a quote you have no idea who you're dealing with and if you're even getting real chips rather than ones dug out of the trash from the IC foundry or whatnot.
If you try what peppers said, you may want to practice on a cartridge or something else besides the CPU. Desoldering braid doesn't have enough suction to easily pull the solder (it has to remove all the solder from both sides of the board and completely surrounding the pin).
The manual desoldering pump might be about $20 or so at Radio Shack. I've seen some where you squeeze a rubber bulb to pump air, and others with a spring-loaded mechanism that you just trigger.
I wouldn't assume that the clone CPU and PPU would have the same pinouts as the real thing.
I never cared for the pumps, I always had better luck with braid, but if you get one go with the squeeze bulb kind, you can at least do something with one of those.
Super-Hampster is right, just plugging in the chips to your clone wont necessarily work, there is a good chance they have different pin-outs.
Super-Hampster wrote:
I wouldn't assume that the clone CPU and PPU would have the same pinouts as the real thing.
I was thinking about that too. Before dropping the Nintendo ICs there I would follow some traces to figure out the pinouts of the cloned ICs, because if they differ you might end up frying something.
The Famiclone I have is an exact hardware clone of a real Famicom except that it supports AV instead of RF.
What I want to do has already been done by a friend who has the exact same Famiclone, only his is from 1991 and mine is 1990.
http://133fsb.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/ ... ne-part-2/
I tried what he did with the paper and heatgun but I guess I'm not as skilled as he to remove the chips.
peppers wrote:
I never cared for the pumps, I always had better luck with braid, but if you get one go with the squeeze bulb kind, you can at least do something with one of those.
Super-Hampster is right, just plugging in the chips to your clone wont necessarily work, there is a good chance they have different pin-outs.
I like the spring action pumps, but you have to clean them and use some vaseline to maintain maximum suction. I just clean and lube it when I'm done for the day so it's ready for the next time. The trigger is nice for me because I can desolder without three hands then.
the only use I had for the mechanical ones was when I was younger I would sometimes use it to try to extract pimples, did not often work though.
if you want something maybe faster on the cheap I remember reading about how some people have made a hot air device out of a desoldering iron and aquarium pumps/tubing, you'll have to find it though and I can not vouch for how well it works
Best bet here would be to go to the nearest RadioShack and get their $20 desoldering iron. It's a 45Watt'er, so it can damage some things, but with enough patience, it can remove those chips no problem.
Oh, and Memblers, get your NES CPUs from Mike's Arcade for $5 US. They're 2A03H from suposedly the last ever batch.
http://mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/store.pl?sku=RP2A03
Radio Shack? You mean that place that sells cell phone plans and has nothing to do with electronics?
The heat gun is your friend if used right.
you will be there forever trying to desolder the double sided pcb on the toaster nes.
I have done many rgb mods and repairs with the heat gun.
i put my pcb in a vice with the chip facing down.
i then heat the back side of ic the moving the heat gun along the path
of the pins.
don't go too slow or you will never heat up everything enough before burning the pcb.
I normally slide a real thin wire under the ic and tug on it lightly to help the chip out.
You can always shield part of the pcb a little with some foil to avoid over heating other spots.
After you are all done you can use solder wick to clean out the holes if needed.
one problem with having the component side facing down is that some components that you don't want to desolder might drop down from the pcb them self. i think it's better to put it upright (or with a little angle so the component side is pointing slightly upwards), this way you both have a good look where you are heating and it's easy to pull out the components when the solder have reached the melting point and you don't need to fight gravity
I'm not tryin to ague or anything but I don't see whats wrong with using braid, I realize I may be more practiced than some but takes me about 10 min to get the chip out and clean the rest of the solder out of the board, with perfect results.
For desoldering I just use a really cheap solder sucker. You have to push down this pump thing so it clicks in, then you just push this button on the side so it releases the pump and it causes a split second of suction. So yeah, you have the iron coming in contact with the solder so it's hot/melted, then you really quick put the solder sucker over the melted solder and push the button. It works surprisingly well for looking like such a piece of crap. I think it was like $7.
Solder suckers ftw.
Heat the solder, and click the button. POOF, the solder's gone up into the sucker tube. My dad fixed TVs for 40 years and this was all he ever needed.
-Rob
rbudrick wrote:
Solder suckers ftw.
Heat the solder, and click the button. POOF, the solder's gone up into the sucker tube.
That's how I do it too. I usually put the soldering iron on the side of the board where the IC is and put the solder sucker on the other side. I put the iron on the IC's pin and once the solder melts and the pin moves down a bit I push the button to suck the solder. Most holes get clean on the first try, some need more attention.
Quote:
My dad fixed TVs for 40 years and this was all he ever needed.
My dad also fixed TVs for quite a while, and this was his method as well.
peppers wrote:
I'm not tryin to ague or anything but I don't see whats wrong with using braid, I realize I may be more practiced than some but takes me about 10 min to get the chip out and clean the rest of the solder out of the board, with perfect results.
Desoldering braid was probably the first thing I ever touched with a soldering iron, I'm pretty sure it would have worked much better if I had known at the time to add just a little more solder. It was a UNROM cart I wanted to modify, the problem was that the ROM pins' solder joints were almost flat, it's the bare minimum of solder in there. So there was really poor heat transfer, the braid could only suck part it up because the solder wasn't hot enough to flow on both sides of the board (thus compounding the problem). But yeah I'm sure it would work good if used right, me personally messing around with stuff on my own I used up the whole roll by the time I knew how to use the stuff properly, heheh. The cart had 'battle damage', but it worked and I used it a lot.
yeah I was pretty use to doing modchips but the first nes card I modded did not go very smoothly for me , ultimately I did not burn the board but it appeared black at first, I cleaned it with isopropyl and everything was clean and shiny, my biggest mistake was the way I wired it up, I should have cut traces and used a little wire but instead I used a lot of wire, it worked for a good wile eventually after a few trys but I had to fix it after a few years. My later attempts went much better.
AWal wrote:
Oh, and Memblers, get your NES CPUs from Mike's Arcade for $5 US. They're 2A03H from suposedly the last ever batch.
http://mikesarcade.com/cgi-bin/store.pl?sku=RP2A03Thanks for the tip, I picked up a couple of those. They look brand new.
That makes me curious if they changed anything in the H revision, I had heard the original (no letter) revision had stronger outputs, so it could drive more chips. That could mean the common G revision wouldn't be as good of a replacement for the VS board.
I already traded one of H revisions for an original revision one, now that I have a VS board too (no adapter to run it with yet) maybe I'll find something out. The parts on this VS board are dated 1984 and 1983, it's pretty old. One of the original AA batteries on had tested at 1.56V ! The other one had leaked.
I've seen that site, and I've considered buying from them, but they charge $15 shipping to Canada for one chip, bringing the cost to $20. Obviously a terrible deal since you can buy a whole NES for that.
Memblers, you said you picked up a couple 2A03's. Would you consider selling me one? Realistically you should be able to ship it via lettermail, making it probably cost around $2 at most. I consider $7-10 a much more reasonable price.
I'm also still looking for the NES PPU if anyone knows where I could possibly find that.
If you don't want to buy a desoldering iron, simply get a solder wick (copper braid), drip plenty of fresh solder on all of the ICs contact points, and between them, then aply the braid, heat it, and lift the solder from an entire row of pins at one time.
It's much faster and cleaner than the desoldering irons, and you won't burn the logic board.
What are the part numbers on the components in your Famicom clone?
-Xious
^ thats what I've been saying
SatoshiMatrix wrote:
I've seen that site, and I've considered buying from them, but they charge $15 shipping to Canada for one chip, bringing the cost to $20. Obviously a terrible deal since you can buy a whole NES for that.
Yeah, I paid $17 for those 2 chips, that sure beats $20 for one. I would have ordered more if they had them, as I recently received a bunch of NES's (minus CPU), which may be great for some compatibility tests between some board revisions. Unfortunately though both of those are already traded away to see what's different about the H revision, so I'll be back to just having the one in my toploader. I could have some 2A03Gs left over, $10 would be alright. It will be a little while since I have some other stuff going on.
I'll definitely have some extra PPUs.
I will soon be installing a copynes and i was reviewing this post.
I would like as much advice as possible. I have an open wallet for supplies and such.
Im pretty worried about the procedure since i have little to no desoldering experience. I do however grasp skills quickly. My first soldering job was soldering a modchip into my xbox.
I have been praticing with circuit boards i have laying around the house in desoldering similar sized ICs
I tried using a 15 watt radioshack pencil and it was worthless Just would not melt the solder even if i held it there for 20 seconds. i changed to a brand new 30 watt radioshack and it was slightly less worthless. i hold it on the pin and it would take 10 seconds to melt the solder. The tip was laughably solder repellant and couldent be tinned with either my 60-40 solder or with my low melting silver bearing solder. also even no fresh solder did not melt on immediate contact. They both seemed to have poor heat conductance.
I changed to a 23 watt weller thats been rather mistreated.
I cleaned the tip and re tinned it.
worked much better using a spring vaccume pump it sucked much of the solder of the pin however the pins still stick to the board. i used a prod tool underneath the ic and slowly tilted it cracking the small bits of solder. i wasent being rough.
i played with it and eventually sucessfully got the IC off the board
it wasnt a bad task however it was just a single sided board relitively easy
Now i was considering getting something a little more professional
would you recomend a radioshack desoldering iron?
The heated one with the rubber ball on the end?
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2062731
Its 45 watt however wattage does not necessarely mean its hotter since the entire assembly is much larger metal it would have a lower tempeture then a 45 watt pencil iron with a normal tip
i am running out of things to remove ICs from
But i still have my copy of castlequest...
i saw the desoldering station in the earlier post and i would like to know what tempture you have it set at when working. im considering picking it up. does it have an ACTUAL vaccume on it (for on off suction) or is it a one time click and suck like a spring pump kind.
Thank you for your tips
The machine im working on is the one my parents gave me 20 years ago when i went to kindergarden so its important to me.
I recently bought a desoldering iron similar to this one:
It has a built in solder sucker. So far I've found it slightly more efficient than the RadioShack one (which is also very good, but mine isn't working very well anymore). Holding it in way that you can push the button is a little awkward, but so is pressing and releasing the rubber ball on the other one.
There is one thing I realized about the Circuit Specialists desoldering station I'm using, the tips wear out a lot faster than I'd prefer. If that's the one you're asking about, yeah it uses an electric air pump. I don't know what the temperature is, it's a 1-to-9 dial and I just set to 7 or 8. I want it hot so it can melt fast and I can move on to the next one. Maybe these cheaper-made tips don't like the higher temps, I dunno.