WTS: Junk Supergrafx "Not FS any more"

[saturndual32]

I have a non working Supergrafx and would like to sell it. I bought it from Ebay last year. The seller was offering the console with nothing else, claiming that he didnt know if it worked at all.

So i sold my white PCE, and a junk Turbo Duo, and ordered all the SGX cables and a SCDROM2.

Unfortunately, the SGX didnt work, i just opened it, and the PCB has a 3 inch crack and a smaller one both in the middle, just below the card slot. The cracks seem to be a single line each, as far as i can see, and cuts all the traces on the right side of the HuC6202 chip. The rest of the unit looks OK.

So what would be the value for one of this?. I am now looking to get a Coregrafx for my Super CDROM2.

Thanks in advance.

[futureman2000]

That's pretty sad... No clue what it's worth.

[NecroPhile]

That's pretty sad... No clue what it's worth.

+1, though I suspect it's not worth much of anything.

[pulstar]

If you want to sell I might take it off your hands and try and fix it...try being the most important word in that sentence

[lastcallhall]

Do you have any pics of the damage. It might be as easy as soldering a copper wire between the breaks if they're small enough.

[Lochlan]

PM incoming.  I need a supergrafx case and have some PCE consoles I could trade.

[saturndual32]

Still listening to offers. I will try to upload a couple pics later.
To me it looks like what lastcallhall says is doable, soldering wires to replace the traces, but they are so many and so little... i definitely dont have the skill to do so, and electronics workshops around here are so annoying, they have never been able to help me out when it comes to classic consoles.

[thesteve]

I'm sure I have the skill, but could be quite the job 2

[saturndual32]

Here are the pics:
https://imageshack.com/i/n1dqt8j
https://imageshack.com/i/nap0dej
https://imageshack.com/i/4jm2wfj
How much would you charge for such a job, thesteve?. It blows my mind to even think about doing it myself, i suck with the soldering iron...

[sirhcman]

please someone fix this sgx for this man!

im no expert but looking at the pics it seems as though you should be able to solder in jumper wires for all those busted traces. i'd wait for a real expert like thesteve to chime in first tho

[BlueBMW]

Looks tedious but repairable.  Let me know if you want me to give it a shot saturndual.  No charge, just want to see if it can be done!

[saturndual32]

BlueBMW, as nice as always. Thanks for the offer, i will send a PM later.

[PCEngineHell]

If that is the only damage to the unit then it is doable. It will be about a 26 wire job. Some can be sent directly from the 6202 to the 6260. Others can be sent directly from the 6202 to the other side of the traces past the cut. Gut feeling though that this may end up not being the only issue with the system. Cross those fingers.

[saturndual32]

Well, its not for sale anymore, BlueBMW is gonna help me with it. We will see if its fixable.
Thanks for the replies guys.

[sirhcman]

beemer is the man! please keep us updated on the repair process and if you get everything working blue! 

[BlueBMW]

Will do!  Looks like a fun challenge and I hate to see hardware wasted.

[sirhcman]

any updates Dr. Beemer?  :

[BlueBMW]

Its coming from Mexico so it might be a while before it arrives.

[GohanX]

Also, all repairs are postponed while the doctor plays in the snow.

[BlueBMW]

And just like that almost all the snow has melted

[BlueBMW]

And the Supergrafx arrived today!

[BlueBMW]

Some progress.... there are a TON of broken traces.... This will be a miracle if it works....

/sgx2_zps578ce386.jpg

[sirhcman]

Oh wow it's going to be the Darth Vader SuperGrafx!! Good luck Beemer, it looks like a lot of work!

[BlueBMW]

Well I completed jumping all the traces I could find that were broken....  Powered it up but just got a blank white screen.  So now its time to start testing each and every little trace again....

[sirhcman]

Well I completed jumping all the traces I could find that were broken....  Powered it up but just got a blank white screen.  So now its time to start testing each and every little trace again....

oof! how many jumpers do you end up doing?

[BlueBMW]

Around 60 so far

[pulstar]

Wow! Hope you get it working after all that work.

[sirhcman]

i hope saturn appreciates all the time you are putting into this blue, so tedious and time consuming for sure!

[BlueBMW]

Its a fun challenge.  It'll all be worth it the first time some game boots up!  I went into it knowing there was maybe a 10% chance of success though.

[SuperPlay]

Some mean soldering there :-)

Makes me realise that I need to get some soldering practice in as it took me a while last night to solder a  D-Sub connector lol

Hope that you get this sucker to work after all the effort

[saturndual32]

Some progress.... there are a TON of broken traces.... This will be a miracle if it works....
/sgx2_zps578ce386.jpg

Damn that image blows my mind, i cant even imagine how dificult it must be to solder all those cables. Crap, 60 traces and it still doesnt work?
I dont have anything but praise for the BlueBMW, hes one of the nicest guys around. Thanks fo the effort Blue.

[BlueBMW]

Hopefully I can put some more time into it this weekend.  Right now its basically behaving the way a system does when either a region mod isnt connected right or a hucard is making bad contact.  I'm going to focus on the data lines to the hucard slot and see what I come up with.

Some more pron:

/sgx3_zps60eccb05.jpg

[roflmao]

Sexay!

[Mathius]

Damn! Wonder what kind of trauma that poor PGX went through to cause the PCB to crack like that?

[Dicer]

I can't wait to see this back from the dead...go go go

[sirhcman]

I'd like to know who would abuse such a great machine! 

[BlueBMW]

It looks like it took an impact on the bottom middle of the shell.  The plastic stand that holds up the mainboard looks to have pressed the board too hard and cracked it.

[Mathius]

It looks like it took an impact on the bottom middle of the shell.  The plastic stand that holds up the mainboard looks to have pressed the board too hard and cracked it.

I don't see a fall causing what you describe. I could be wrong. Maybe it was crushed.

[saturndual32]

The SGX was the third system i have bought from Ebay, with a disclaimer saying something like: "Untested, i lost all the conections and cant test the unit, but it worked last time i had them".

The other 2 systems i bought like that worked fine, but my luck ran out with this SGX. The others were a SMS 2 PAL, and an Atari 7800, needless to say, the one i really would have liked to work was the awesome SGX  !

Although maybe the damage was done while going through shipping. I have received a broken SFC and a FM TOWNS 2 with a cracked CD door ( ), a Sega Saturn with an out of place cd drive, that were in perfect condition judging by the pics i got before buying them. So, who knows...

But hey, if someone can resurrect it, it is BlueBMW  !

[BlueBMW]

I don't see a fall causing what you describe. I could be wrong. Maybe it was crushed.

Yeah I'd say it was crushed by something.  Though the outer shell doesnt show the evidence of that...

[pceslayer]

I have a SuperGrafx with the exact same damage. Kind of odd that the shell is in perfect condition with this much damage to the mobo. I wonder if its common on these systems...

I bough mine from Dalder a few years back and was in the process of doing the same repair except I got distracted and its been sitting on my workbench. Not trying to Hijack the thread...





I will be following this with great interest!

[saturndual32]

Its like some evildoer is smashing SGXs boards!

[BlueBMW]

i think its a design flaw with the shell... there is a plastic post that holds the center of the board there  but there doesnt seem to be anything on the other side of it.  Any good impact or pressure put on the bottom middle of the board could crack it like that.

[thesteve]

if you have fixed everything you see start with a logic probe cart removed
confirm pulse on all address lines
then insert cart and check data pins at each processor (D0-D7)

[Vecanti]

If you get this working, then a few sales/trades and 15 years from now someone is going to open this thing and be like WTF?  Or think they have a prototype or something. 

Pretty amazing to watch your work!

[BlueBMW]

Pceslayers work quality looks a bit better than mine....

[bishopcruz]

Pceslayers work quality looks a bit better than mine....

Both look amazing to me, especially as someone looking to get back into soldering after having done nothing on it for about 15 years. I understand conceptually what you guys are doing, but dear god, it feels a bit like necromancy.

[pceslayer]

Pceslayers work quality looks a bit better than mine....

I don't know about that... I'd have to say yours looks a bit better than mine. :/

Do you have to keep desoldering the Hu slot when finished testing? I kind of don't want to have to do that...

[sirhcman]

either of you guys make headway on the broken supergrafx systems?

[pceslayer]

I haven't had the time to mess with mine... Maybe in the next few weeks I'll get around to working on it again.

Hopefully BlueBMW has had some luck!