Rescuing a Sega Genesis Model 2
A couple of years back, I was doing my usual circuit of game stores around the Twin Cities. At Legacy Games in Rosemont, MN (https://www.facebook.com/LegacyGamesRosemount) There were a couple of Sega Genesises (Genesii?) that they had bought as part of a lot. These systems were partially modded and were being sold for parts. I decided to buy one and see what I could do with it.
I picked up this poor thing. Someone had taken the time to sand it and paint the shell with a nice thick flat yellow primer. When I bought it – it had a note on it with masking tape that said “No Power”. Apparently they had started painting it before they tested it. My guess is that once they discovered that it didn’t work, they abandoned their project and sold it off for parts.
The first step was to plug it in and try it out. When I hooked it up to power – I noticed that the system would power on if you wiggled the plug around. At that point I already had an idea what was wrong with the thing. I had assumed that the power socket had gotten ripped off the board. That can be a challenging fix, but not impossible.
I opened up the system and took a look at the board. What I saw kind of surprised me:
Let’s take a closer look at that solder joint where the power plug is:
As you can see – the pad didn’t get torn off the board, as I expected. Instead, the solder joint was just broken. I did a little research and discovered that is not a totally uncommon problem for the Genesis Model 2.
The fix was pretty simple, I just desoldered the plug and then I put some fresh solder on there.
Here is what it looked like when it was done:
I powered the system on and it worked right away!
The next step was to do something about the case. I had a great idea that involved a pile of sharpie markers and a 5 year old that loved to scribble on stuff. I gave her the shell with the pile of Sharpies and told her to go nuts. Once she was happy with her work – I sprayed it with some clear lacquer and let it dry for a few days. The result was adorable 🙂
The last step was to put it back together and play some awesome games! Here is the finished system all hooked up:
Happy gaming!
Malicious Carp
