Just some things I see looking at the stand that may or may not be the same as my other stand: It has the Nintendo logo on the part that the legs connect to. It also says “Made In Japan” and “Pat. Pend.” right below. On the clip that connects to the VB it says “VUE-003” and below that the word “PUSH”. The legs are in the shape of a cane at the end, and they each loop around a plastic peg inside the plastic piece. This stand is definitely not broken. A little scratched up but still working fine. Here are some phone pics I took, since my camera battery is dead right now. Sorry for the blurry-ness.

Ah ok, that explains it. I guess I must have missed the Japan part on my other unit. The weird thing is, the stand that this one came with is much different than my other stand. Where the legs attach to the stand they form a loop of metal at the end, so when I pick up my VB the stand legs fall to the center without holding their shape. I didn’t realize there was more than one version of the VB stand out there…

KR155E wrote:

Vaughanabe13 wrote:
My latest VB is VN106049750

It’s a Japanese model and has the associated Japanese stand.

If it’s a japanese unit the serial should be V106049750 (without the N), correct?

I have no idea, but I wrote exactly what my VB says on the barcode sticker. I just double checked it. And there is a stamp in the plastic above the controller port on the bottom of the unit that says “Made in Japan” and the stand also has a Japan tag on it.

I can take pictures later if you want proof, but I’m going to the state fair all day today.

Aha! I KNEW there were special moves. They’re called Machine Gun attacks and there are about 4 of them. I read through the manual again and found them toward the end. Page 20 or so.

Basically the way it works is you press and hold a direction until you start flashing, and then you hit L+R to do your machine gun special attack. Now I just have to figure out how to use it effectively.

My latest VB is VN106049750

It’s a Japanese model and has the associated Japanese stand.

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.

I’m glad my backup system is arriving at my door tonight, since I’m fixing the glitchy display on my other one. I have two games that came while fixing my display that I haven’t gotten to play yet (Golf and V-tetris). Yay!

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

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…

From what I have seen on eBay, people ask for around $30-40 for a VB with NO stand/shade/controller/games/anything and a glitchy display problem. It’s not a very good deal at all. You would get lucky to buy one for $20-30 including shipping.

The only VB packages that sell for a good amount are either unopened units or units in mint condition with the boxes/manuals, or 100% working systems that also have all the important accessories and a few games included. I have never seen one advertised as “permanently fixed” so I wonder how much (if anything) that would increase the attractiveness of the auction.

I wasn’t asking about this to see if you could make a profit, I just feel bad there are so many temporarily-broken units out there.

DaVince wrote:
Would they? What audience generally buys these VBs? Mostly collectors, right? Would they just throw them away?

But yeah, it would be nice if someone would actually actively repair and sell them. Heck, a nice profit could be made from doing that (as long as the added repair prices aren’t too high of course).

People that buy VB’s right now are probably collectors, sure, but you are forgetting there were some people that actually bought these years ago and have them sitting in their closets/attics/basements somewhere. I have a friend who threw away his VB (before I met him).

It’s not as high tech as it sounds (the tilt sensors are pretty basic), but it’s more fun than probably 80% of the cheap electronic games of the 90’s. Probably worth $20-30 for the novelty of it.

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.

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).

Those prices aren’t too bad. I’d almost like to pick one up, but I just bought another VB so I might hold off.

I wonder how the display works inside this game? I remember it was like a green(ish) on black mono display with a backlight, and when you look into the visor it gives you about the same size screen as the virtual boy. There is only one screen so no 3D effects.

The gameplay is pretty simple but surprisingly fun. You look pretty weird playing it though, because you have to move your head around to move your ship, all while holding this up to your face. Anyone else remember playing it?

Here is the Tank Assault game by Radica, mentioned earlier. I never played this one, but it looks very similar.

People hate the VB because:

1) The console failed, therefore they assume it is not good, and they just perpetuate that idea by making jokes about it.
2) There are a LOT of people saying that the VB gives you headaches, makes you go blind, gives you neck cramps, makes you sick, will bring about the apocalypse, etc. etc. Most of the people saying this either never adjusted their IPD/Focus or they are going along with the crowd to sound cool. Unfortunately people that have never played VB and are curious about it are usually dissuaded by listening to these people. And then they tell other people these myths even though they never actually played the system themselves.
3) There are very few games compared to other consoles, even though the proportion of good games to bad games is very high on this system.
4) The graphics are all in red, and people don’t understand that the games are 3 dimensions. They just assume it’s like looking into a red laser pointer.

Haha, I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking! It doesn’t happen to me often, I just wanted to know.

Thanks for the info. I’m going to take a few VB screws with me to the hardware store and try to find a good match. I’ll let you guys know what I come up with.

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.

mbuchman wrote:
You are using 60/40 solder, right? And you tinned your iron before using the wick, right? Did you try to use extra flux (as in beyond that in the solder and wick)? You represent yourself as someone who would already have done all this, but never hurts to ask.

When I did it, I did not find it to be tough at all. Maybe you are being too clean and not using enough solder?

And soldering 0603 components is not necessarily similar to soldering fine pitch components

Ok, maybe a better comparison would be that I regularly solder TSSOP and TQFP packages? Of course I tinned my iron, although that wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference since the iron is going to get tinned anyway when you start making a solder ball. I have a flux pen and a liquid flux syringe that I use and I made sure there was no shortage.

The solder is not the hard part, it’s the melted adhesive. It obstructs your view of the traces and it is nearly impossible to see if there are shorts or cold joints, even under a microscope. Also, I can’t test for shorts with a continuity tester because the traces are too small and it won’t conduct through the coating on the flat cable. So I got to a point yesterday where every line looked soldered ok and no traces were crossing each other. I came home and screwed it back into the VB. I booted up with my fingers crossed and it turns out BOTH displays have the exact same problem – solid/thin horizontal lines evenly spaced out on the screen. I have no clue what the problem is on the display board because I don’t know which line(s) would cause this problem. And it seems weird that both boards would have the identical problem.

It looks like I might have to take off the flat cable and solder wires to each of the traces, which is NOT going to be fun. I cannot recommend the solder method to anyone who is not an expert solderer, and even then it is very hard and prone to mistakes.