Thanks for the replies guys. Yeah a new ribbon cable definitely looks the way to go, the only hard part would be getting the ribbon cable socket off the main board. Well, that and getting a ribbon cable I guess haha. I have no way of printing something like that, I’d have to wait for someone else to start making them. Let me know if you get that printer working again.
I did actually try to use the original ribbon cable for the left display, it’s just I didn’t have a fiberglass pen or anything so I tried to burn away the plastic, the cable got really mangled and was hard to work with. I tried to make the best of it but I gave up after that and switched to wires, which at the end of it all, weren’t actually better than the ribbon cable… I could try the soldering method again on the other cable, but I figure the same thing will happen again. Those ribbon cables are extremely, extremely fragile, they don’t take heat very well.
I need to find a thinner tip for my iron some time… That’s part of my problem here. It can easily touch two traces on those ribbon cable solder pads.
I couldn’t imagine playing Pokemon on Virtual Boy. Even Red and Blue take hundreds of hours to get any significant enjoyment out of them. There’s also the ability to save whenever and its pick-up and play factor, all things that don’t work on Virtual Boy. I mean, it’s a decent console, but Pokemon is not a good game for it…
It sounds like you guys have information on the display pinout, may I have it if you do? I’d like to better understand what the signal lines do.
It’s encouraging to see these displays take that kind of “abuse” and still work. Perhaps my Virtual Boy can live again, if I can just dedicate several afternoons to soldering like… 62 wires… For both displays.
I think I see what I need to solder on the display board… But how does it go on the FFC connector at the main board? Do I just solder one wire for the two “double traces” which are probably ground or voltage? Do I just determine the wires needed on the display board by the number of contacts on the FFC connector?
(I don’t know what you guys call them, but technically the black ribbon cable connectors are for flat flex cables, FFC)
Again thanks for the words of encouragement and your answers to my questions, guys. If I get this Virtual Boy working, I intend to use it. I’ll celebrate with Wario Land.
Oh yeah I forgot to ask earlier… How many wires are required for one display? I counted 31, not sure if I included the “double traces” or not. I guess I should depend on the FFC connector for that haha, but I just want to be sure.
Absolutely incredible soldering job, hats off to you man! The cherry on the cake is that your VB works now!
Sad thing is I will have to do this for my own Virtual Boy. I have kynar wire, but I’m also thinking of doing it with IDE wire, mostly because IDE comes in a nice ribbon cable-like arrangement, unless you peel wires off. That and I hate stripping kynar wires, the insulation never wants to let go. The downside though is IDE can break rather easily, kynar is pretty tough.
Any suggestions for soldering to the FFC connector on the main board? Did you just angle the board so you’re solder right onto the back panel of the connector? How often did the other parts nearby get in the way?
Thank you for the help, it encourages me to pick up this project again and wire up the displays “the hard way”, since there might be some guarantee the system is not totally screwed.
What I meant by main board damage is, can shorting lines somewhere on the display board connections, damage the main board in some way? Or no?
Also, can somebody show me specifically which traces have to be connected on the display board? And how they connect to the FFC connector on the main board? I just want to be sure. I think there are two traces that do the same function (probably ground). Also, it seems like there are three traces on each side of the display board edge that don’t do anything… Is this correct?
Yes one of the ribbon cables is totaled. How creased does one ribbon cable have to get before it doesn’t work anymore?
What I’m trying to ask is how durable are the displays? And is it possible that the main board can be damaged in a way that it can’t output to the display boards? Should I bother attempting a bypass surgery on the one display to start? I don’t want to bother if the display boards can be damaged easily.
