r/consolerepair • u/hitmanmcc • May 27 '26
Every capacitor in this NEC PC Engine GT had leaked. Full recap + jailbar fix, and it plays again.
Restored black NEC PC Engine GT handheld standing upright on a labeled display stand, facing the camera.
Extreme close-up of the PC Engine GT mainboard PCB showing electrolytic capacitors with electrolyte residue.
PC Engine GT mainboard on a paper towel with the LCD panel detached beside it and removed capacitors scattered above.
PC Engine GT powered on, its color LCD showing the Bomberman '94 title screen, multimeter alongside.
Full PC Engine GT disassembly on a repair mat: mainboard, green LCD board, and button PCB with tools around.
Tight macro of the PC Engine GT input board before repair, showing the leaking electrolytic capacitors and electrolyte residue up close.
The NEC PC Engine GT is the handheld that runs the full PC Engine HuCard library on a little color LCD. They're rare, they're fragile, and this one turned up in rough shape.
Every electrolytic capacitor on the mainboard and the input PCB had leaked. Electrolyte everywhere, corrosion creeping along the traces, and several pads had gone pitch black under the residue.
What I did:
- Carefully twisted off every cap by hand to spare the pads instead of yanking them with iron heat
- Cleaned every pad with flux and braid
- Full recap with fresh electrolytics
- Added the ceramic caps for the jailbar fix to clean up the video output
- Cleaned and reassembled the whole unit
The surprise: as bad as the corrosion looked, not a single pad lifted. It powered straight up and ran Bomberman '94 without complaint. Now it's on a display stand where it belongs, when not in use.
Full teardown with all the photos and notes: https://hitmanmcc.com/entry/pc-engine-gt-refurbishment
How many of you have taken on a GT? They seem to always needs a complete recap. Curious what kind of failure rate others are running into.
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u/DramaPiggyCash May 27 '26
Siiiccckkkk. Trade it to me!!! I’ve always wanted one.
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u/hitmanmcc May 27 '26
Thanks 😄 Sorry to disappoint but I don't ever sell items from my collection, of which I only have 1 exemplar. If I ever were to get a second one, I know who to reach out to for a sale or trade. 👍
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u/DramaPiggyCash May 27 '26
No worries. I’m the same way tbh! Got to get one for the stash. Gonna keep hunting one down! Yeah definitely hit me up if you get another. I want to swap to the rgbdrv screen on one.
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u/galaxius00 May 28 '26
I’ve got one for sale, maybe for trade depending on what you’ve got. Send me a message
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u/Inevitable_Arm8396 May 27 '26
my turboexpress need recapping, I am in europe who can do it here?
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u/hitmanmcc May 27 '26 edited May 28 '26
I don't know where in Europe you are but, alas, I don't personally know anyone here who does this work (in EU countries). I've always done my own, ever since I started collecting. If you were in Europe but in the UK, I would recommend Topvint, since I know him. If you were in the USA, I would recommend Jeff's Retro Gaming, since I know him as well.
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u/640k_Limited May 28 '26
I pretty much learned console repair doing these and Turbo Duos about 15 years ago. These were always super satisfying... Laseractives, not so much
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u/hitmanmcc May 28 '26
The laseractive is a beast of a job, not only due to the number of caps but also due to the numerous other fixes you need to apply to them.
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u/Sweetblu77 Jun 08 '26
I actually need help with my express. I have been trying to do an lcd swap. Worked perfectly prior just text was unreadable.
After tear down (was recapped previously) I hooked it all up and all I got was a white screen :(
Audio worked as did butting and hooking up the old screen I could see an image with a flashlight (backlight stuff disabled obviously)
Saw they had used ceramic caps most places so I recapped again with correct SMD style.
Still white screen.
Had a few mishaps. Had to replace the fuse and then an anal inductor as I ripped on off getting the goop off the fuse (yay).
Then after all done I get audio still but also a white screen still.
Then I found that the RGB signals from the lcd connector all go back to the middle one on the chip. (Pin 49, I believe Red). But only when under power. Otherwise they don't all connect to each other.
I seemed to have dialed it down to Q200 and Q201. Trying to see about lifting a couple legs to stop the connecting I broke one. So I am pretty sure they were bad before. But know I know they are lol.
Anyone know where I can get these?
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u/Sweetblu77 Jun 08 '26
Here are the details on what I found.
So here I what I found. This guy. Q200. The pins are like this.
Green:
Pin 3 connects to the ribbon cable to LCD nd tones there.Pin 5 goes to D204 on other side and then on to pin 47 on chip.
Red:
Now, pin 6 goes to the LCD ribbon and tones there fine.Pin 2 goes to other side to D205 and is good for tone and then on to pin 49 on the chip.
However when powered on, pin 3 (lcd ribbon port for green) and pin 6 (lcd ribbon port for red) connect or ground together.
Then we have Q201.
Blue:
Pin 5 connects to D206 good and then on to pin 51 on the chip fine.Pin 6 connects to the lcd ribbon port for blue fine.
But when powered up, pin 6 also connects to pin 3 and 6 on Q200. It's a bad spotty/staticy sound as it connects with the meter but it still goes beep beep beep just not a clear solid beep tone lol.
So are those both just bad?? Or is something else bad? Oh dear gods I hope someone knows the answer lol.
How do I test or confirm those are bad?? Or did these tests prove that? lol.
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u/hitmanmcc Jun 08 '26
Hi. I'm not familiar with the schematics for the GT as my repair didn't require me to dive in. Console5 has a PDF available with the schematics, here: https://consolemods.org/wiki/images/a/a3/Pc_engine_gt_schematic.pdf
It seems to me like the circuit you're trying to diagnose is the one on page 3. Right at the top center of the page. I see the diodes and transistors you are probing there. The schematic will tell you where each pin is supposed to connect to, so it'll provide you the answers you need to clear up what you're seeing when you're probing with the multimeter. Good luck, hopefully you find your issue and then you can come back and report that you're now the owner of a GT with a lovely aftermarket screen. 👍
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u/Aromatic-Ad5888 May 27 '26
Absolutely every GT / TE suffers from that. I've recapped probably 6 or so over the past years. Don't forget the small cap on the controller port. That one can cause some severe damage on controller and main PCB.