I so badly want to learn how to fix old tech like this. I’m fascinated by the tech repair YouTubers that can bring an old gba back to life. Someone I know has an old Pokemon Crystal with a dead battery from childhood and was broken up about losing their childhood save. I don’t think it’s possible to bring the file back but I’d love to get the cart working again at least.
Pinecil, haven’t heard of that. I’ll take a look, thanks! Is there anything you used to practice ahead of time? Before jumping right into the actually hardware you were trying to fix?
Another happy owner of a pinecil here. For me it gets plenty hot and works great. There isn’t a battery though, you’re meant to use it wired with either USB C PD 65 Watts or 12V standard size barrel plug at similar wattage. More info on the pinecil wiki: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Pinecil_Power_Supplies
Maybe, but it is pretty affordable (~$26 USD), the hardware and software is open source, and it is very portable due to the lack of a soldering station. It is also temp adjustable and has features like temp boost for heat sucking components like ground planes. For nerds, they have a risc-v devboard that you can use with the soldering iron’s CPU. So, there are reasons it has a CPU, but some would probably still prefer a regular dumb soldering iron.
I so badly want to learn how to fix old tech like this. I’m fascinated by the tech repair YouTubers that can bring an old gba back to life. Someone I know has an old Pokemon Crystal with a dead battery from childhood and was broken up about losing their childhood save. I don’t think it’s possible to bring the file back but I’d love to get the cart working again at least.
It’s not hard. My Game Gears were broken and now I fixed 4 of them by replacing all caps.
I got the Pinecil for soldering and it’s so easy to use and versatile. I got a couple of flux pens so the result looks nice and clean.
Pinecil, haven’t heard of that. I’ll take a look, thanks! Is there anything you used to practice ahead of time? Before jumping right into the actually hardware you were trying to fix?
I went right off the deep end. I followed along with someone else doing it, some YT video.
Oh damn lol. Brave.
Just took a look at the pinecil. That looks pretty slick. Have you run into any issues with it? Battery not lasting or it not getting hot enough?
Another happy owner of a pinecil here. For me it gets plenty hot and works great. There isn’t a battery though, you’re meant to use it wired with either USB C PD 65 Watts or 12V standard size barrel plug at similar wattage. More info on the pinecil wiki: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Pinecil_Power_Supplies
Also, here’s some more general info about pinecil from their wiki: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Pinecil
Seems a bit over-engineered to me. Why would a soldering iron need a CPU?
Maybe, but it is pretty affordable (~$26 USD), the hardware and software is open source, and it is very portable due to the lack of a soldering station. It is also temp adjustable and has features like temp boost for heat sucking components like ground planes. For nerds, they have a risc-v devboard that you can use with the soldering iron’s CPU. So, there are reasons it has a CPU, but some would probably still prefer a regular dumb soldering iron.