[KR155E]

A problem often encountered by Virtual Boy users are glitchy displays, leading to horizontal lines, reversed or generally distorted images, or even complete loss of display activity.

All those symptoms are usually caused by the ribbon cables connecting the LEDs to the motherboard becoming loose, or peeling away from the display PCB.

Fixing your Diplay: Oven method

DogP has come up with a way to fix the problem by opening the system up, removing the display, sticking it in the oven to re-melt the adhesive, and reassemble. It’s not a difficult procedure, except that the typical security bit can’t get to the deepest screws on the VB, so you either need a special screwdiver, a modified bit, or a modified screwdriver.

You can find a guide to fix your displays on DogP’s Project:VB.

Fixing your Diplay: Bypass method

Another way has been proposed by DanB. To permanently fix the problem, his idea was to replace the loosening ribbon cables with some better wires, which he soldered to the PCB. This solution requires much more skill, though, and should only be performed by solder experienced people with a steady hand and a huge portion of patience.

The complete guide can be found here.

Fixing your Diplay: New methods (RECOMMENDED)

Some more methods have recently been developed by DogP to permanently fix the cable problem (contrary to the probably non-permanent oven method): Thread.

• This topic was modified 15 years, 10 months ago by KR155E.

it seems weird that both boards would have the identical problem.

Not really, since most of the address lines are actually shared between both displays. That means that a short on one side will affect both screens. 🙁

DanB wrote:

it seems weird that both boards would have the identical problem.

Not really, since most of the address lines are actually shared between both displays. That means that a short on one side will affect both screens. 🙁

Shoot, so what you’re saying is only one of my displays is most likely bad? I don’t see any other problems with the image except for those evenly-spaced horizontal lines in both displays. If one of my displays is bad, could I just disconnect it and the other display should appear normal? At least that way I could narrow down my problem to one display.

Vaughanabe13 wrote:

DanB wrote:

it seems weird that both boards would have the identical problem.

Not really, since most of the address lines are actually shared between both displays. That means that a short on one side will affect both screens. 🙁

Shoot, so what you’re saying is only one of my displays is most likely bad? I don’t see any other problems with the image except for those evenly-spaced horizontal lines in both displays. If one of my displays is bad, could I just disconnect it and the other display should appear normal? At least that way I could narrow down my problem to one display.

Yes… unhook one of them to narrow down the bad display. If hooking one of them up causes them both to have lines, you’ve got a short on that display.

DogP

Tinning does indeed matter when doing anything with an iron! You tin in order to aid in heat transfer. And heat transfer is sorta the name of the game…

It for sure sounds like your issue is only one display. So to remedy your problem, you need to first isolate which one as just discussed. Then, just start at the copper braid section and do that again. You really shouldnt need more flux or solder. And if that doesnt work, you could try the whole process over, but i suspect it will be fixed by then! Sometimes you need to redo it. Magnifying glasses dont help.

Tinning does indeed matter when doing anything with an iron! You tin in order to aid in heat transfer. And heat transfer is sorta the name of the game…

Yes, but you have to create a solder ball on the tip of the iron before you touch the ribbon cable, and simply by playing with the ball on the iron and adding more solder you are tinning the tip. So I was saying it’s basically a self-tinning process. But yes, I do understand the importance of tinning.

Magnifying glasses dont help.

😯 It’s not a magnifying glass, it’s a high-zoom lighted lab microscope specifically used in surface mount soldering. It’s hugely important in being able to clearly see the traces. I’m not saying you can’t do it without one (clearly others on here have been successful) but it REALLY helps.

Also, what is the consensus on using a heat gun? I have access to a very nice focused heat gun that is capable of reflowing the solder on the traces. I’m wondering if that would be easier than using the iron? The only thing I’m worried about is the ribbon cable shifting and getting misaligned while using the heat gun (since the majority of the traces will be moveable under the heat).

I wouldn’t use hot air for this. I’ve destroyed a couple VB displays w/ hot air… it’s too easy to overheat the IC. And really, you can’t roll the solder ball around with hot air like you can by dragging the solder w/ an iron.

You really need to expose the copper from the cable more than anything, which the hot solder ball does. I personally like using NaOH to expose the copper, then it’s just a matter of soldering the cable to the PCB, but as mbuchman’s video shows… it’s definitely possible without.

DogP

I checked my VB displays last night. Turns out the left screen has horizontal lines. And the right screen….has horizontal lines, but not as bad. I’ve been going at this for a few days now and I don’t like where I’m at, so I think I’m going to crack open one of my DB-9 cables and solder individual wires from the display board to the main board. I would rather have a permanent solution that I know won’t get damaged over time.

Also, in the process of taking my VB apart, I realized what the function is of the red plastic lenses on the eyes is:
1) To protect the mirrors, obviously
2) To hide the LED light bar when the unit is turned off. There’s enough light in the system that without the red eye pieces you can see a magnified version of the light bar in each eye. It’s actually pretty cool.

Lol @ taking apart db9… only way you will get that to work is with 30 gauge kynar wire…

My theory is that if simple glue held for the first 10 years then I am sure this method will last long enough…

You probably can get away with just repeating the wick part. I can assure you that you are close. The first one I did I had a similar problem, but it was just a quick fix and I didnt have the problem again. No reason to use a $300 soldering iron, or verify with a microscope or xray or whatever else, it is way simpler than you make it seem.

Trust me, I thought it was much more complex too. I spent way too much time researching connectors and trying to come up with other methods… but at the end of the day it just has to work, it doesnt have to be production quality. And this is coming from me, a profectionist!

mbuchman wrote:
Lol @ taking apart db9… only way you will get that to work is with 30 gauge kynar wire…

My theory is that if simple glue held for the first 10 years then I am sure this method will last long enough…

You probably can get away with just repeating the wick part. I can assure you that you are close. The first one I did I had a similar problem, but it was just a quick fix and I didnt have the problem again. No reason to use a $300 soldering iron, or verify with a microscope or xray or whatever else, it is way simpler than you make it seem.

Trust me, I thought it was much more complex too. I spent way too much time researching connectors and trying to come up with other methods… but at the end of the day it just has to work, it doesnt have to be production quality. And this is coming from me, a profectionist!

I actually meant DB-15 (only difference is the number of wires). I have no clue why you’re laughing, if you are a hacker or DIY person you would know they are great cables for things like this. Inside are 15 individually insulated wires at a small gauge and the insulation of the DB-15 makes for perfect wire management. Wire is wire dude, it will work. But I’m going to try again with the ribbon cable before I go to all the trouble…

I think he’s laughing because the wire is a kinda big. It’d be pretty tough to get anything besides 30AWG or smaller (since you need 30 wires in that tight space).

DogP

My DB-15 cables have 28AWG wire so I really don’t see the problem.

Well I fixed both of my displays. I used the microscope again and a really nice Weller soldering iron with a fine tip (for SMD work). Maybe it was overkill, sure, but the tip of the iron was almost the exact width of one trace, so I was able to run my iron (and the wick) all the way across each trace without lifting anything. Another thing I noticed is the wick sucked up some of the melted adhesive and generally helped to clean off the traces. Without that I’m sure the problem would still be there. If I had to do this again I would for SURE use the NaOH method to clean off the adhesive. It’s just too much trouble and too hard to get good connections without cleaning off some of the adhesive. Perhaps I just didn’t do a good enough job with the solder ball in the first place, I don’t know.

So now I just have to get a can of compressed air to clean off the mirrors, displays, internals and get some philips screws to replace the VB security screws.

I have a quick question. Is there any way to lubricate the gearing mechanism for the IPD? Mine seems very sticky/squeaky and it doesn’t like to be moved in fine adjustments. It’s not a huge deal but it’s one of those peace of mind things.

Nice… glad you got it working. For lubricating the IPD, IIRC they used a white lithium grease… you could probably use the same. IIRC it’s all plastic, so you should make sure it’s plastic safe.

DogP

hi Guys,

i still need help with two Displays.
Who can help me out?

thanks

Sorry this doesn’t solve your problem Fire-WSP, but thanks so much for bumping the thread! The left display on the Virtual Boy that I use most frequently went out AGAIN a couple weeks ago, and I was trying to fix it last night. Since the oven method had never really worked for me, I was trying putting a paperclip across the ribbon cable where it joins the display and heating it with my soldering iron to remelt the plastic to the board. It was only sort of working… the display I had “fixed” still had red lines… (But at least I got rid of the image ghosting.) I had seen DogP’s NaOH method, but I didn’t really want to risk my displays by having to rinse the stuff off, plus I’d have to go buy the stuff and some way to heat it since I’m sure use of our oven for that would not have been approved. After this thread was bumped, I crawled it really quick for solutions and saw mbuchman’s video and well… I’m a believer in it now! The left eye display came out working flawlessly on the first try. The right display took two tries, and a few lines are dead, but it was that way before I started, so at least I’m no worse off. (I think that some of the LEDs might just be fried.)

Since I’ve done this now, I can give some pointers: the iron doesn’t even need to be fine tipped, I just used the stock tip that came on my Aoyue 937+. (Which is an iron I highly recommend BTW.) As long as you let the solder blob do the work, don’t touch the cable with your iron, and only move the iron parallel to the cable you should be fine. The temp I set my iron for was 300°C, or about 550°F. I found that “scrubbing” the solder blob back and forth from the board up onto the cable a bit worked the best for removing the plastic coating. (Note that when I say scrubbing, I was not letting my iron tip touch the material, let the liquid do all the work. I’m sure if you actually scrubbed with the iron you would damage the copper.) They did come out looking pretty ugly, but as long as this fixes the problem for good, I’m super happy.

One question though: should I worry about cleaning off the flux from the solder? Will flux that’s left on there eat through the copper eventually?

I have white lines coming in mostly on the left eye but a little on the right one as well. That oven trick sounds very… dangerous. But I have no technical skills… One odd thing is that some games have the problem more than others.

Today the lines are gone…… Weird.

Protoman85, no that’s not very weird, the connection is somewhere in between good and bad and will continue doing that until it stays bad.

Something very weird is that you had white lines – something that probably no other VB owner has ever seen… 😉

I soldered all four display PCB:s in my units recently, no solder ball, just melted some flux core solder on top of the flex cable edge at about 380 degrees Centigrades, plastic kind of melted/vanished and then I slid the tip along the cleared metal strip over to the PCB – and only in this direction so that the wires wouldn’t bend in the wrong direction.
After all wires were done I washed the flux off with alcohol, being careful not to get anything in any holes (not in the clear plastic cover over the led ramp).

If there was any clogged together strips I’d just put some solder on the iron and slide it along to clear it. Had to use solder wick at one point as well. Before closing up I measured the resistance between each pin on the connector and the attaching surface on the display PCB to make sure I had a good connection.
When done none of them had more than 0.6 Ohms, when getting as much as 2-3 Ohm on some pins it helped cleaning and reattaching the flex cable on the main PCB – so this can also be a source for problems.
Testing was more painful than soldering them actually. 😉

All in all things went very smooth, I have two fully working units now, time to make that link-cable…

Hi everyone.

I bought a used Virtual Boy with six games a week ago, but to my dismay, I started seeing the dreaded “horizontal lines” on my display yesterday. The problem seems to be with the right display. While I wait for a 4.5mm gamebit to show up in the mail, I was wondering if anyone here has found a quick fix for this issue that doesn’t involve opening the system. Something along the lines of the Xbox 360 “towel trick”, perhaps?

Thanks.

There are fixes, but all of them involve superstition… 🙂

I’ve heard that leaving the IPD all the way to the left (so it looks like a “/” viewed from above) when you’re not playing the VB will decrease the chance of it happening.

Some games don’t exhibit any (or very few) problems on glitchy screens, and some (Red Alarm and Wario Land) appear to get better or worse depending on the in-game brightness (which is adjustable in both games).