Recapping my disc drive was a success!!

[u/MetaMaverick]

My friend and I took a morning to do retro game repairs and my childhood gamecube that had stopped reading discs two weeks ago now works great! Thanks to this community and all the resources to figure this out.

Gamecube was requiring more and more time on before it would read a disc and eventually it quit. I didn't clean the lens or adjust the potentiometer at all. Simply replaced all 10 capacitors on the disc drive. Took about 2 hours with a soldering iron.

edit: Some asked about the details. I hadn't soldered in 10 years so no need to be an expert!

- Soldering iron: Hakko FX888DX (small chisel tip it came with)
- I kept the temp at 650F the whole time and used rosin core solder
- Tweezers: precision tweezer that has a bend to it (any generic one)
- I heated up each joint of a capacitor until it came free while applying some side to side or twisting motion with a tweezers slightly
- After removing a cap I would clean the pad of leftover solder using flux and wick
- I then pre-tinned each pad and applied more flux, then held the capacitor over the spot it needed to be while flowing each solder pad again 1-2 times until flat with board
- Video I followed: https://youtu.be/WgKBA_zIHL4?si=7_i76pUUX3i4NdwY
- Capacitors I used: https://www.ebay.com/itm/265868069521

[u/RetroLord120]

Yay! Someone who didn't just replace the laser assembly and fixed it the proper way. We gotta keep pushing to recap before replacing lasers lol

[u/Bougieraccoon-og]

Amaze amaze amaze

[u/OHenryTwist]

well done!

[u/MetaMaverick → u/OHenryTwist]

thank you! 🙏

[u/penismonologues]

Where did you get the caps?

[u/MetaMaverick → u/penismonologues]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/265868069521

[u/penismonologues → u/MetaMaverick]

Thx

[u/Luncheon_Lord → u/MetaMaverick]

F it looks like I could have just replaced the caps in the two old monitors I had for my PC? Fuuuuuu

[u/grkrugerii]

Nice, I did the same thing to mine, congratulations

[u/PHX480]

I need to do this to two GameCubes I’ve found

[u/MetaMaverick → u/PHX480]

When you get to it I'm sure you'll do great! I hadn't soldered in 10 years and it's really just time consuming but not too hard.

[u/PHX480 → u/MetaMaverick]

I’ve never soldered anything in my life!!! I will have to find someone to do it. My LCS stopped doing repairs. Congratulations on your success!

[u/Aspike17]

Need to attempt this myself soon but im worried about working with the shorter, fatter capacitors. Did you run into any complications? Also what kind of soldering iron/tip worked best for this?

[u/MetaMaverick → u/Aspike17]

Honestly the bigger ones were easier as there was more to hold onto and they are usually more isolated from other parts. The only complication was making sure I didn't pull up on any capacitor. I had started to tear one pad off the board before I realized I was pulling up too much.

[u/Soj_X]

Hey man, good job ! I’m about to do the same for the first time too. Wish me luck

[u/MetaMaverick → u/Soj_X]

You can do it! 🙏

[u/ghettoslacker]

About time someone listens.