iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

André Coelho @hitmanmcc.com · 29/09/2026

And here's the second pak. @misirajeduart.bsky.social was complaining so I opened up that one too in order to show that 0603 can work with a steady hand.

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André Coelho @hitmanmcc.com · 29/09/2026

Finally circled back to fix something here. As per @nosIndulgences' research (x.com/nosIndulgenc...), this is the proper way to do this mod, in order to avoid data corruption in the long haul. Sadly, I couldn't make this as neat as I wanted to, my 10K resistors are too small.

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Then the finishing touch, applying some UV protectant to the shell, packing it up, ready for its new home. What a journey that was!

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A final test, with some CDs, backups and originals.

So then, I have to strip everything down again and recap that too. 😩

Disconnected everything, remove the old laser, put in the new one and voilà. It works!

The owner eventually supplied a NOS laser, so off to the races we went again.

Here's a video of the spindle working.

Then I tested the motor for the spindle too and it was fine. So... laser it was... as I feared

And here is said F-RAM installation.

At some point I did replace the supercapacitor too. This was later superseded by an F-RAM chip installation.

Just look at that, how pretty, no visible jailbars. ☺️

Now we admire the results. First pic is from BVM, the rest is from the TINK, all using Jeff Chen's NTSC Saturn to VGA dongle.

Then you route the ribbon cable as shown in the pics, underneath the plastic structure that holds the motor and gears for the CD-ROM's motorized lid. Make sure the V-shaped cut on the black portion of the ribbon faces the back side of the console, when inserting into the DIN QSB.

Then you wire-up composite, left and right audio and, power to the QSB that houses the new DIN.

After that, you remove the OEM bodge-wire and S-video ports, to make way for the new Saturn-style DIN.

The kit comes with a QSB that solders on to the Sony CXA1145M encoder. This is what taps into the RGB signals.

How do we fix this, you say? Well, it's easy, you install an RGB kit from Oleg Endo.

In the meantime, we take a detour to handle this. I don't know if it will make it past the compression algorithm but this thing has vertical jailbars (composite and S-video) on the native outputs. First 2 pics are from my BVM, the other 2 are from a RetroTINK 5X Pro.

So, does it work, well... yeah, partially as I expected, still nothing from the CD side. Streets of Rage 2 and Earthion were kicking ass though.

Now it was fully recapped, it was the moment of truth... FYI, there's 70 caps worth of work in these bowls.

Here we can see a fully recapped CD-ROM board and laser, so we're close to the finish line, maybe, lol.

Next up, we move to the left side (CD-side) of the console to apply the same treatment. White vinegar and isopropyl baths and busting out the Deoxit, for the pots for the karaoke effects and microphone jacks. Also fully recapped the audio control board.

At this stage, I ran quick validation test. Just to see if everything was as expected.

Afterwards, I proceeded to treat the problem areas with flux and new solder. Refurbishing and covering up some dodgy looking vias and surface components, as well as all the regulators, which usually get attacked too. After cleaning, both boards from the right side got a recap.

With that out of the way, I proceeded with the removal of the old electrolytics and treating the boards with white vinegar, followed by an isopropyl rinse. There were a lot of capacitors giving off a fishy smell on removal.

Inspecting the underside, I managed to find our missing capacitor's location, right next to the DC input jack. My assumption is this thing took a hard knock. As you can see, there's some adhesive beneath the SMD components.

I proceeded with disassembly and inspection and found some problem areas on the board that would need treating.

I powered it on and it worked but only with cartridges. It would refuse to read any CDs. Maybe it would be a simple fix but my experience with Mega-CD systems was telling me otherwise. I haven't personally seen one cured of this with a recap, so I was assuming dead laser.

The thing rolling around on the inside turned out to be a capacitor from an, somewhere I'd discover later.

Today we're going on another journey through Wondermega town, as someone sent me their unit for refurbishment; boy was it a PITA. It started off with a blown up supercapacitor and something rolling around inside the shell. It was allegedly fully functional... #retrogaming #sega

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I did a quick power-on test and nothing more because it was already very late. This was an all-day affair, pretty exhausting. Seems like it at least continues to power on, so tentatively a good result, pending further testing.

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Finally, I replaced the single capacitor on the PCB for peripheral input (keyboard, mouse, controller) and reassembled the machine.

I followed up with recapping the PCBs on the FDD drives. In case you guys don't believe me when I say every single cap in the system had leaked, the very first pic shows exactly what happened inside the FDD drives. I also cleaned and lubricated the shafts for the motors.

Then I proceeded to remove the THT electrolytics and fully recap the board. First pic is the board fully recapped, second pic shows the carnage in waste material generated from cleaning.

Same process but now for the SMD pads on the mainboard. Last pic shows that all pads are clean and none was lost.

In-between the white vinegar and isopropyl baths, I circled back to treat the pads on the expansion card PCB with some fresh solder and flux, then sucking up the solder with desoldering braid and cleaning the area, to remove contamination and make way for new caps.

I removed all the SMDs first from the mainboard and treated the areas with white vinegar. Followed by an isopropyl alcohol rinse.

Picking up where I had left off with the X68K Compact. This is pretty much the state of every single pad, for every single capacitor, on every single board. Electrolyte contamination everywhere! 🤮

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This thing is even tinnier than I expected.

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That did the trick, it now reliably powers on every time and it loads disks, as can be seen on the third pic, where it's loading HumanOS. It still needs a full recap because every single cap in the other PCBs has lead, so stay tuned for the next episode. 😉

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Then I put new capacitors on, marked them and proceeded to reflow every single joint on the solder side of the PCB.

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With it fully decapped, I cleaned it with white vinegar and isopropyl alcohol, very thoroughly.

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A couple of days later, I disassembled it enough to recap the PSU.

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Do not copy this at home. I have no idea where you can source a new cable for the PSU, so I spliced in a cable from another Japanese chord I had lying around, using some of those soldering tubes that have solder rings and shrink as you heat them up. I also added more insulation.

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