Decided to swap some caps over on all three of the SNES units. Here’s two of them being done at the same time, with the 1CHIP board on the right. We’re going at 20 times the normal speed in the video, which is probably just as well considering how much soldering was involved!

These old surface-mount electrolytic capacitors weren’t looking particularly healthy, so we got stuck into removing them. I had intended to use my Hakko desoldering tool, but naturally I forgot to bring the transformer. Never mind, there’s always another way to get the job done!

Unfortunately, I managed to lift a solder pad at C65 on one of the older boards. The capacitor had been leaking around that area, which certainly wasn’t helping matters. There was a bit of corrosion too, so the pad may already have been weakened. At least the other capacitors came away without too much trouble.

After cleaning up the boards and preparing the solder pads, it was time to install the replacements. Some of the radial capacitors needed to sit quite low so they wouldn’t interfere with the heatsink, particularly on the 1CHIP board. There was rather a lot of soldering involved!

The damaged pad also needed some special attention. Fortunately, I managed to make a connection through a nearby via and restore the circuit. Not the easiest little repair, especially with such small connections on the back of the board, but we got there in the end.

Sadly, replacing the capacitors didn’t actually solve the original faults affecting the consoles. At least the work was completed, and the boards were looking considerably tidier. It also gave me another opportunity to practise my soldering, which is never a bad thing.

I eventually ran out of “film” while recording, because my camera needs a new, bigger SD card. Apparently a weekend full of PlayStation, Xbox and Super Nintendo repair videos uses rather more space than I expected!