My test game finally came in and I was finally able to test the system. After first it still gave me the blinking light, but a quick easer, ipa, then dexoit treatment to the game fixed it right up.
So far I’ve
- Cleaned the edge connector with the same easer, ipa, and dexoit treatment.
- Removed the old, rusted power board and built a new one
- cleaned the board and case
What’s left:
- Sand and paint the old case after filling in cracks and gashes
- Beat Super Mario Bros 3
Congrats! I love working on the NES, aside from having to desolder those PPUs. It’s such a simple system that debugging is relatively straightforward, given the right equipment.
Thanks. Yeah so far this was a fun project. I will also say desoldering the old power board was a bit of a pain but chip quik helped with those ground points.
Good work. Boiling the NES ZIF cart connector before going at it with IPA and deoxit has been fairly reliable for me. It has the knock-on effect of causing the “metal memory” of the pins to kick in and return to the gentle overall curve of the ZIF connector pins when new (maybe not technically “metal memory” but the effect is noticeable).
We used to just blow into the cartridge a few times to get it to work, but you do you!
It’s a placebo blowing into the carts. What actually worked was removing the cart from the slot, which got rid of the dust. All blowing does is oxodize the pins faster from breath and spit.
