Things you have fixed/modded recently

[Marc_LFD]

DualShock 3 controllers (clean and change battery + analog sticks), but whoa, DS5 looks super complex!

Plus, the DS5 isn't natively compatible with PS4 which I would love if it did. It's basically an improved DS4.

 

[slaphappygamer]

Just fixed a pencil sharpener. It wouldn't sharpen anything. Someone (an 8 year old) tried to sharpen the eraser of a pencil. I took it apart and fished the eraser out of there.

 

[AncientBoi]

Just fixed a pencil sharpener. It wouldn't sharpen anything. Someone (an 8 year old) tried to sharpen the eraser of a pencil. I took it apart and fished the eraser out of there.

[inserts a drafting pencil into it] [accidently of course]

 

[Mayo1990]

I finally modded my PS Vita 1000 with an USB type C mod! I bought it off Oxyll though, in case someone needed the same stuff. I was tired to have the connector always burning up, so at some point I decided to do it.

The deformed shell however is barely noticeable

 

[slaphappygamer]

Fixed our dryer. Something was burning.

I swear, all the lint that I pulled out. It could’ve made a full size pillow!

 

[Chary]

I found my old MacBook from 2008. The last time it was used, I was panicked, trying to use its battery to charge my phone via USB so I could call the coast guard, during Hurricane Harvey.

Needless to say, it had some water damage, and it ended up getting knocked about. I had a 2.5 SSD laying around, and a few YouTube videos came up about repairing the plastic era MacBooks, so I felt inspired. I opened it to see how bad it was, and it wasn't really that hurt--the screen has some weird water stains on the inside, but the CPU/RAM/etc all seemed fine, no rust, and they'd obviously dried in the 5 years since it'd been last touched.

So I bought a charger to see if it'd turn on, and it took a charge, and even made that old Mac chime, trying to turn on. No drive detected though, so I slapped in the SSD and installed Mac OS El Capitan, which is the latest OSX it can take. Sluggish, watery screen, and ran burning hot to the touch. Pretty much unusable.

So I took it back apart--starting with the battery, then the SSD, the brackets, and eventually the heatsink covering the CPU. I cleaned it with isopropyl, reapplied the thermal paste, put the cleaned heatsink back on, and picked up 2x4GB of really old RAM, to replace the 1GB stick. It ran SO much better--warm, but not painfully hot to the touch, and it could actually be used like a laptop, if you didn't mind all the smudges inside the screen.

I don't know exactly why I invested time into it--I'm not dire for a laptop, but there was some sort of therapeutic process of taking apart and reassembling something that was destroyed by the hurricane and then making it work again once more. I really had a good time with the whole deal.

I'm not sure how to repair the screen, if it's even possible with my skill level, or if I even want to, but it made me happy to get it back to usable.

 

[slaphappygamer]

I don't know exactly why I invested time into it--I'm not dire for a laptop, but there was some sort of therapeutic process of taking apart and reassembling something that was destroyed by the hurricane and then making it work again once more. I really had a good time with the whole deal.

This is exactly why I like fixing things. For me, it’s about the process. It’s like a puzzle. Soothing and rewarding.

 

[hippy dave]

I found my old MacBook from 2008. The last time it was used, I was panicked, trying to use its battery to charge my phone via USB so I could call the coast guard, during Hurricane Harvey.

Needless to say, it had some water damage, and it ended up getting knocked about. I had a 2.5 SSD laying around, and a few YouTube videos came up about repairing the plastic era MacBooks, so I felt inspired. I opened it to see how bad it was, and it wasn't really that hurt--the screen has some weird water stains on the inside, but the CPU/RAM/etc all seemed fine, no rust, and they'd obviously dried in the 5 years since it'd been last touched.

So I bought a charger to see if it'd turn on, and it took a charge, and even made that old Mac chime, trying to turn on. No drive detected though, so I slapped in the SSD and installed Mac OS El Capitan, which is the latest OSX it can take. Sluggish, watery screen, and ran burning hot to the touch. Pretty much unusable.

So I took it back apart--starting with the battery, then the SSD, the brackets, and eventually the heatsink covering the CPU. I cleaned it with isopropyl, reapplied the thermal paste, put the cleaned heatsink back on, and picked up 2x4GB of really old RAM, to replace the 1GB stick. It ran SO much better--warm, but not painfully hot to the touch, and it could actually be used like a laptop, if you didn't mind all the smudges inside the screen.

I don't know exactly why I invested time into it--I'm not dire for a laptop, but there was some sort of therapeutic process of taking apart and reassembling something that was destroyed by the hurricane and then making it work again once more. I really had a good time with the whole deal.

I'm not sure how to repair the screen, if it's even possible with my skill level, or if I even want to, but it made me happy to get it back to usable.

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View attachment 314661

You'd probably find a whole replacement screen assembly in the top portion of the case for pretty cheap for a MacBook of that age. I did that type of replacement on an also fairly old MacBook air, and replacing the whole cased screen unit rather than opening it up and dealing with the different components of the display makes it a pretty straightforward job, you wouldn't have trouble with it compared to the other stuff you've already done to it.

 

[codenameTOSTR]

So I got this Band Hero drum controller for Wii of eBay auctions recently and it arrived in pretty good condition, except for the red pad. I tested it out on Guitar Hero 5 and all the other pads work, but the red pad only seemed to register a hit 30% of the time. So today I opened the thing up and reconnected the wires and now it seems to work much better. They put waaaaay to much glue on the connectors tho. It also didn't come with a foot pedal, so now I'm trying to figure out how to use my actual foot pedal as an input on my PC.

 

[Jayro]

I made a mini (7-track) "Best of BLACKPINK" album for my GBA, using the Zelda 7-in-1 cartridge I got from AliExpress. Sounds best on a DS Lite and DS phat, due to having stereo speakers and a louder volume. Each track just loops, so after each song you have to manually reboot the Gameboy and choose a different track.

I made this using downloaded YouTube videos converted to MPEG-1 encoded AVI files, then converted those again in METEOS. I made sure the videos only showed the album cover and not the music video. That kept each song down to just under 4MB in size.
After that, I resize the ROMs using XSE (A pokemon script editor with a ROM expander/trimmer built-in), and pasted the ROMs into the correct address spaces using a hex editor. After fixing the checksums, it flashes to the 64MB cartridge and boots on actual hardware. The audio quality is actually quite good, given the technical limitations of the Gameboy Advance. Probably close to a 160kb/s MP3 if I'm being honest. Music on a GBA without the Play-Yan Micro cartridge is indeed impressive for me.

 

[Chary]

Bought a real janky ipod from an ebay auction for $10. The hold switch was broken, and the front case looked like it'd been wrecked up. So I bought a new click wheel and faceplate! Now it works and looks great

Flash modding it to have a micro sd is the next step!

 

[Jayro]

The plastic screw holes on my iODD 2531 broke, and it's a common problem with these. So I spent a few hours on TinkerCAD with just a tape measure and "eyeballing it", and made a couple prototype prints. Nailed it with just the 2nd one!

 

[nasune]

While it's nothing too exciting, i decided to replace the drive LEDS on one of my Wii's.

Spoiler

Not too visible due to the flash...

But nice and bright in the dark.

The resulting unit will henceforth be designated Darth Wii.

 

[godreborn]

I fixed a Juan-bot earlier. his suction cup wasn't working correctly. I feel a bit drained now, talk about a lot of hard work.

 

[Deleted member 578956]

I Built a PC out of Salvage hardware

 

[Jayro]

I did the PicoBoot mod on my DOL-001 GameCube.
(And by some mystical miracle of unlucky butt-fuckery, of the 3 different Gamecubes I own... Not a single one has an SP2 port on it!!!)

 

[Blauhasenpopo]

I did the PicoBoot mod on my DOL-001 GameCube.
(And by some mystical miracle of unlucky butt-fuckery, of the 3 different Gamecubes I own... Not a single one has an SP2 port on it!!!)

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Did you change the Thermal Pads (Paste) ?

What kind did you choose/use?

 

[Jayro]

Did you change the Thermal Pads (Paste) ?

What kind did you choose/use?

No, my OEM pads stayed intact on the heatsink and were still soft, so I kept them.

 

[emmanu888]

Found an EVGA 600 B power supply for 20$ and was able to use it to power a Sega Lindbergh that belongs to a buddy of mine that runs a private room/arcade to get Rambo reinstalled on the hard drive.

 

[Jayro]

Designed and printed a VESA-like monitor stand for my 7-inch Pi LCD screen. (Waveshare)