Back to the Aiwa Mega-CD CSD-GM1! This poor machine has suffered some pretty spectacular damage to its mainboard, with cracks running through the PCB and taking quite a few copper traces with them. Time to see whether we can put it back together again!

I’ve started checking continuity across the damaged sections and adding jumper wires wherever the original traces have been broken. A few green wires here, some orange ones there, and the board is slowly starting to look like a rather colourful repair project. There are even places where I’ve scraped away the coating and bridged damaged traces with solder.

One particularly troublesome area involves a transistor and several connections running towards the radio, CD and tape selector switch. Naturally, I manage to wire one connection to the wrong transistor leg along the way. Thankfully I notice the mistake before applying power. That could have ended rather badly!

After a few more repairs, and a fair bit of watching The Avengers while working on the board, I think we’ve finally got somewhere. Iron Man is pretty cool, by the way. My back, on the other hand, isn’t particularly impressed with the height of this desk!

With the continuity checks looking promising, it’s time to connect the power and hope for the best.

No flames! And we’ve got a red power light!

That’s an excellent start. It doesn’t mean the entire Aiwa is repaired, but at least the machine is showing some signs of life. Next on the agenda is getting the speakers connected and seeing whether the radio has anything to say about all this.

Progress! Little by little!