or3o Posted July 30, 2016 Share Posted July 30, 2016 A few months ago I got the crazy idea to buy broken junk and fix it. Â It has actually been working out better than i had even hoped. Â I am making a decent game collection and using the profit to fund some other projects as well. I started by buying a lot of 13 broken sega gamegears for 70 dollars, I spent about 10 dollars in capacitors and managed to repair all but one of them. (I used the shell for another project anyway) Â Fixing a Gamegear takes about 30 mins if you are decent with a soldering iron. After getting them all working I sold them on ebay and bought a few more lots of broken systems and some replacement shells as well. After reshelling and fixing the broken systems I put custom firmware on the psp's and kept one of each system for myself and sold the rest. Vus and xChimerical 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
or3o Posted July 30, 2016 Author Share Posted July 30, 2016 With the profit From the sales i bought a few more lots of broken systems and a few raspberry pie's. Â People started asking if i could make them a custom little emulator box For my first attempt IÂ Chose an old gamecube shell for the housing . Overall it looked ok but i didn't like the power switch. For the next one i used another gamecube shell but made it a bit more subtle. The controller 1 and 4 are now usb and can be used to upload more games or for the controllers. It looked better but i still wasnt 100% happy with it. Â The customer loved it and soon i had other odd requests. This time i used an old nes shell But wired the power switch to work with the raspberry pi, I replaced the controller ports with usb as before and replaced the game slot with a backlit Nintendo logo. Â I like the way this one looks. xChimerical 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
or3o Posted July 30, 2016 Author Share Posted July 30, 2016 With that broken sega gamegear shell from before i began the process of making a custom handheld. This before and after shows that i replaced the standard buttons with those off an Snes controller as well as the upper shoulder buttons, The lower shoulder buttons are off a playstation one controller. This took about 30 hours of sanding I replaced the standard 3.6 inch screen with a 5 inch backlit lcd. And replaced all the membrane buttons with full tactile switches I then pulled apart a few laptop batteries to scavenge some 18650 cells, wired that to a voltage regulator and charge controller. After wiring all the buttons to the pins on the pi , I spent entirely too long trying to firgure out how to map the gpio to key presses (if anyone wants to try this i can sure help!) once that was figured out i screwed it together and tested it. With this console I could emulate everything up to a N64 and it had pretty good battery life. xChimerical and Henry 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
or3o Posted July 30, 2016 Author Share Posted July 30, 2016 The handheld project works and all but i consider it a failure.  After spending around 70 dollars getting everything to work I found that a Psp offer's a superior emulation experience therefore my handheld has been relegated to my shelf of interesting items . I still fix around 10 - 15 systems a week and like to keep the really interesting ones i get. This is most of my collection so far, The 3ds is actually the only console I bought working. I have repaired a few 3ds console's and I can tell you they are not worth the headache. Gameboy colors and pockets are really easy to work on due to the fact that they dont have many ribbon cables. In one of the lots I found a relatively rare Ags 101,  The first backlit gameboy. I work on all kinds of wierd little projects and ill be sure to keep this updated as I go. The best thing about this so far is all the cool wierd stuff i manage to get in these lot's This is an old radio I fixed.  I even found some mad science looking stuff! (these are ociliscopes and are really useful when working with ac current.)  I work on old tube amplifiers often as well so i have some really cool 1960's tube testers as well If anyone has any questions about any project I have done feel free to ask and i would be happy to help.  I have been working on an arduino project to convert an old car i have to digital gauges, Since the arduino works at 5 volts i have been using optoisolators to keep the 12 volt signal wires from frying the system. When this is done it will be hooked to servos to make the dash look stock but be a bit more accurate. Beefy Kasplant, xChimerical and Henry 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kibbelz Posted July 30, 2016 Share Posted July 30, 2016 Holy dude, I don't even know how to respond to this. Considering my degree is computer science with electronics this fascinates me a lot. I look forward to seeing more! I'm curious, what profit do you think you make on average per console? (the ones you actually sell of course) or3o 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
or3o Posted July 30, 2016 Author Share Posted July 30, 2016 On average IÂ triple my money but after considering parts cost, shipping and ebay fees's i pretty much double my money on each lot including keeping a few consoles for myself. Ill be sure to post updates next time i work on something of interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damian666 Posted July 30, 2016 Share Posted July 30, 2016 that's some awesome looking stuff man, I love it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giligis Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 Bro this is sweet, I love that handheld that can play up to N64 thats crazy! I wish I had the time and knowledge to do something like this in my spare time. Cant wait to see more! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
or3o Posted August 7, 2016 Author Share Posted August 7, 2016 Thanks guys. I have been moving stuff around trying to make room for some projects but I am soo close to finishing my Gameboy collection! All i need is a Japanese Gameboy Light! I am currently saving for a Tig Welder so soon I should have some more crazy projects started lol. Henry 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
or3o Posted August 21, 2016 Author Share Posted August 21, 2016 Managed to score a pretty rare Gba sp Nes edition, The screen quality still isnt as good as the ags 101 but the shell looks amazing. Agoraphobic 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agoraphobic Posted August 21, 2016 Share Posted August 21, 2016 I want one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phenomenal Posted August 22, 2016 Share Posted August 22, 2016 @or3o You ever thought about modding any consoles? You can backlight Gameboys and install things like speed switches and make homebrews Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
or3o Posted August 22, 2016 Author Share Posted August 22, 2016 Yes I have backlit a few gamboys and done the bivert mod, I just hadn't remembered to take any pictures recently. Â Ill have to look around for pics of some of the more custom stuff I have made recently. Â I didnt do the paint job But she is backlit and bivert modded with a few led's added for bling. Â This isnt mine and i actually worked on it for my brother. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
or3o Posted September 8, 2016 Author Share Posted September 8, 2016 I got my gameboy light!! I now have one of every model of gameboy. Next i need a few more ds's lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sekiguchi Okitsugu Posted September 8, 2016 Share Posted September 8, 2016 Amazing!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xChimerical Posted September 8, 2016 Share Posted September 8, 2016 Absolute Respect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kem Posted September 8, 2016 Share Posted September 8, 2016 Interesting, how did you start learning how to fix this stuff? I've always wanted to mess with it but I've never really known where to start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
or3o Posted September 9, 2016 Author Share Posted September 9, 2016 12 hours ago, Kem said: Interesting, how did you start learning how to fix this stuff? I've always wanted to mess with it but I've never really known where to start. Honestly when I was younger I worked at a radioshack and my boss did care if I tried to fix some of the stuff that got returned for being broken. It took some trial and error but when you start with something thats already broken its not like you are gonna make it any worse.  I reccomend getting a soldering iron and just tinkering with any broken electronics you may have. Just always remember that some of this stuff can hold a charge even with no batteries so every once in a while you may get a shock lol. If you ever take something apart and have any questions feel free to shoot me a pm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
or3o Posted September 16, 2016 Author Share Posted September 16, 2016 So I got bored yesterday and made a coffee table, I was really unhappy with using my bookshelf to display my handhelds. Now i have a bit more room for junk lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddly Posted September 19, 2016 Share Posted September 19, 2016 I love your shit oreo. I'm working on using a Raspberry Pi Zero to make a computing cartridge for gameboy colour. or3o 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vus Posted September 19, 2016 Share Posted September 19, 2016 This is just amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
or3o Posted October 5, 2016 Author Share Posted October 5, 2016 I convinced a retail store to wholesale me all of their broken consoles! Ill get pics when i get everything in but i should have around 90 consoles! Should keep me busy for a few days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beefy Kasplant Posted October 5, 2016 Share Posted October 5, 2016 I don't know why, but I freaking love this post so much. Those pictures with all the broken systems, you're like some crazy nerd scientist.  Awesome work! How do you get into this stuff? Did you follow youtubes or what? or3o 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
or3o Posted October 5, 2016 Author Share Posted October 5, 2016 I have always been into electronics and soldering and stuff I had not really worked on many games until last year when a friend asked me to fix his famicom, I started taking apart stuff i had and seeing what components they used and spent 70 bucks on a lot of broken systems on ebay, I figured if i could fix 3 of them i would make a profit.    I watch retreoGameTech  on youtube pretty often, Most of these things are pretty easy to figure out though (scorch marks on pcbs or popped caps) Honestly just find something broken and try to fix it, If it doesn't work its not like ya ruined it, it was broken anyway lol. Thanks for the kind words everyone, Ill be sure to take more pics when all my systems come in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
or3o Posted October 29, 2016 Author Share Posted October 29, 2016 I got a few psp's in the mail and also about 7 gba sp's so this weekend should be eventful. Â Kibbelz and Phenomenal 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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