PCE Duo-R Won't read hu cards? What could be the cause?

[JohnnyPhantom]

Hey Everyone, It's been about 6 years since I sold off my PCE/TG16 stuff and was on this site. (big regrets selling it, looks like prices have shot up a ton since then)
Anyway, I'm working on getting back into the PCE/TG16. I picked up a Turbo Express broken that I think just needs a recap, the caps come in tomorrow from console5, as well as a LCD I haven't decided if I want to install or not in the express, so I'll know soon if that's all it needs. I also just won a PCE Duo-R last night https://www.ebay.com/itm/334056446113 looks like it powers on, it's in pretty good shape, and it's playing some game (anyone know what game that is in the pictures?) I'm assuming the game is a CD based game. The description says the system works but won't play hu card games. Any idea what might cause this? Would bad capacitors cause this? I hope it's repairable and not something like a bad special chip/processor/cart connector destroyed (something that's not easily sourced to be replaced, like capacitors would be).

Just looking for some possible ideas on what it could be, It should arrive in about a week (also ordered the controller that shipped with that system, it's super yellow, so UV+peroxide based de-yellowing is in my future)

Thanks in advance everyone! It's great to be back!

[NightWolve]

Welcome back, you were one of my account-undelete/rebuild experiments (about ~30-40) which works 100% now...

I extracted a better shot of the game, but no, I can make out what it is.



As for your repairs, we pretty much have only ONE active repair person (maybe two if you're willing to pay Canada shipping rates to Jodi/Turbo Reproductions as a last resort), ChrisComputers (KeithKourage). I'll forward him your thread, he's one of the few I privately invited to test the rebuilt forum and say hello.

TheSteve/TurboKon pretty much retired from repair/mod service, as did others... Voultar might take 1 Duo once in a blue moon as a special request for a friend, they require too much time to offer service for general customers. Oh, there's Leon on Twitter that's active.

[Keith Courage]

As far as Hu cards not working, I've seen a few DUO-Rs where the solder joints for the Card slot go bad on the board. So it might just need to have all the pins for the card slot re-soldered. The 2nd possibility could be a Dirty card slot (fix by putting rubbing alcohol on a hu cards pins) or that one or more of the pins of the slot are actually bent/damaged. Usually these pins can be bent back into position again.

Most likely there isn't anything super major broken with the console since CD games load up just fine.

While you have the console open, you should also put new solder on the Power, AV, and Controllers ports. The solder for the pins on those all fail inside R and RX consoles as well.

R and RX consoles do not suffer from bad caps. Only the Black DUO systems have the bad cap problem.

If at any point you decide that you don't want to mess with the repair yourself just let me know and I can help out.

[JohnnyPhantom]

Oh man, I remember thesteve. He fixed my TurboDuo 6 years ago. The one I got couldn't read CD's and I couldn't get the pots just right, I replaced all the caps, but the sound caps had dissolved their traces, so I barely got the caps on, but wasn't pretty. He got it, fixed the drive, reworked the sound circuit better with ceramic caps, and made it better than ever! He didn't even charge me! I just supplied the shipping. He was a class act and a great member! I'm not afraid of doing repairs myself, just re-capped my turbo express last night, works great now! But glad to see other members here who might be able to help me when something could be too far gone for even me.

Welcome back, you were one of my account-undelete/rebuild experiments (about ~30-40) which works 100% now...

I extracted a better shot of the game, but no, I can make out what it is.



As for your repairs, we pretty much have only ONE active repair person (maybe two if you're willing to pay Canada shipping rates to Jodi/Turbo Reproductions as a last resort), ChrisComputers (KeithKourage). I'll forward him your thread, he's one of the few I privately invited to test the rebuilt forum and say hello. TheSteve/TurboKon pretty much retired from it, as did others... Voultar might take 1 Duo once in a blue moon as a special request for a friend, they require too much time to offer service for general customers.

[JohnnyPhantom]

Awesome! Good to hear, was worried it could be something major like a bad CPU or something I couldn't replace without a donor machine for parts. Glad to see it's most likely something like dirty contacts or cold solder points/weak broken solder that need to be reflowed. Not bad, I'll know Monday (give or take) how bad it is, that's when it arrives. If I need any help, I'll be sure to let you know.
Thanks!

As far as Hu cards not working, I've seen a few DUO-Rs where the solder joints for the Card slot go bad on the board. So it might just need to have all the pins for the card slot re-soldered. The 2nd possibility could be a Dirty card slot (fix by putting rubbing alcohol on a hu cards pins) or that one or more of the pins of the slot are actually bent/damaged. Usually these pins can be bent back into position again.

Most likely there isn't anything super major broken with the console since CD games load up just fine.

While you have the console open, you should also put new solder on the Power, AV, and Controllers ports. The solder for the pins on those all fail inside R and RX consoles as well.

R and RX consoles do not suffer from bad caps. Only the Black DUO systems have the bad cap problem.

If at any point you decide that you don't want to mess with the repair yourself just let me know and I can help out.

[JohnnyPhantom]

System came in and works great! Just had to clean the hu cart pins a little. Other than that, no problems. Now to give it a good cleaning and some retro brighting love! I do have another issue, but I'll open a new topic for that one (if a site search gives no results)

[NightWolve]

Wait, this was sold with the "Condition:For parts or not working" caveat. Sounds too good to be true...

It needed just a little cleaning ?? The seller wasn't bright enough to try some basics ?

[JohnnyPhantom]

That's all it was! (almost, the other issue I had was random controller inputs. I reflowed the port connectors on the board for the controller as well as AV out and cleaned the controller inside and out, since then it's been flawless!)

Too bad there's no 1UpCard for TG16/PCE, had to use a Keith Courage with a coffee filter+Rubbing Alcohol combo, but it did the trick!