PSA: A cracked solder joint on the NES 72-pin connector fixed 3 of my consoles

I bought a lot of 4 NES consoles from a guy on Craigslist for $60 a few months back. Three of them had the classic blinking light problem. I tried boiling the pins, cleaning with alcohol, even bending the pins up a bit. Nothing worked for more than a week. Then a buddy from a retro repair shop told me to look at the solder joints on the back of the connector where it meets the motherboard. Got my iron out, reflowed all 12 pins on three connectors, and all three booted up first try. That was 6 months ago and they still work perfect. Has anyone else run into this fix instead of just replacing the whole pin connector?

2 comments

2 Comments

jenny1989d ago

Honestly, "reflowing those pins" is what I'm curious about - did you use any extra flux or just hit them with the iron dry? I tried reflowing a connector once and it worked for like a month, then the problem came back worse than before. I'm wondering if I didn't get the heat even enough or if I missed a cold joint somewhere. You think using a little fresh solder on each pin makes a difference vs just melting the old stuff?

jenny_lane129d ago

Oh man, that's a great tip! I've had the same luck with reflowing those pins on a couple of my consoles and it totally stabilizes the connection. It's way more reliable than just bending pins or boiling the connector for sure.