The PC Engine restoration thread.

[the klaxon]

A friend of mine has an old white PC Engine, I say white, more like fag ash yellow, the red writing on it, you know the symbol is still pretty vivid but it's just the casing.

It's in a right sorry state, it has no leads, a broken power supply, and a random Core Grafx grey controller!!

He said I can have it, been up in his loft in a cardboard box for years.

How can I get this baby back on it's feet again? I've heard of the bleaching process to clean them up, is it safe, will it fad the red too? And whilst I'm in the mood to tinker, I was thinking about enhancing the picture with an RGB mod, I'm pretty good with a soldering iron, is there much to it?

Thanks.

[Colin]

I just sold kurisu a PC-Engine last week that had slight little patches of discoloration he wanted to try and get off. He sent me a link to this method he's going to try http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/ but i haven't heard back from him to say if he's done it yet. I think the pics in the galleries speak for themselves though, very impressive results.

[the klaxon]

Cool mate, impressive to say the least. I love the way in Fig 5 Commodore 64 experiment, he has put in brackets ( "treated side is on the left" )

Really???!!!!

[NeoStuey]

If the power has failed it's likely to be a standard 1 amp fuse that's blown and quite an easy fix as your proficient with a soldering iron.

I would say that if the PCE hasn't been modded you will be stuck with an NTSC RF output which is hard enough to tune and get a picture from even on sets with an NTSC tuner built in. The resulting picture is usual dark and muddy. Next step up would be an A/V booster plugs onto the back and you can the use composite out or do the same using an Interface Unit.

As for RGB modding it can be done, I had mine done by chaoticjelly as I'm not a confident solderer. Replaced the whole RF unit with a DIN connector and RGB scart. Needed to add a colour boosting circuit to bring the brightness levels up. Non boosted signals are on the dark side.

http://www.gamesx.com/rgbadd/rgbturbo.htm

I've added a link but these are dark arts to me.

[the klaxon]

Nice link Stuey, will bookmark that just incase. How good is your current picture quality? Can you post up a game shot and on what sort CRT are you currently using, I know some sets are better than others. Thanks

[kurisu]

Should be a fun little project klaxon as the PCE is a relatively simple machine and there are still lots of parts floating round for them.
Haa you beat me to it Ikobo_1 I was going to mention the Neobright and PM you an update.
Basically I couldnt find Hydrogen Peroxide anywhere and I tried Boots and a few independant Chemists, I did find some sort of hair bleaching stuff but the Peroxide content was only 4% so I didn't bother getting it ,Ijust ordered 1 litre off fleabay for £8 including postage and it's 35%.I did pick up the oxy bright stuff that you add to make the NeoBrite so as soon as the Peroxide arrives I'll get some mixed up and test it out ,I'll do some before after pics so we can all compare.

I'm definately going to be needing this stuff as I just got a Junk PCE/CD-Rom2 for the CD-Rom unit and I kid you not when I say it's the colour of that Commodore 64 in the Neobrite pics lol.

[Colin]

Good luck, i'm looking forward to seeing the results mate. And looking at the pic you sent me of that CD-Rom, you'll need it!

[egparadigm]

From what I've read, a simple bleaching should sort it out:

http://www.superpcenginegrafx.com/cleaning_a_pcengine.html

Haven't got round to doing mine yet...

[dosucol]

Should be a fun little project klaxon as the PCE is a relatively simple machine and there are still lots of parts floating round for them.
Haa you beat me to it Ikobo_1 I was going to mention the Neobright and PM you an update.
Basically I couldnt find Hydrogen Peroxide anywhere and I tried Boots and a few independant Chemists, I did find some sort of hair bleaching stuff but the Peroxide content was only 4% so I didn't bother getting it ,Ijust ordered 1 litre off fleabay for ?8 including postage and it's 35%.I did pick up the oxy bright stuff that you add to make the NeoBrite so as soon as the Peroxide arrives I'll get some mixed up and test it out ,I'll do some before after pics so we can all compare.

I went into one chemist to ask about peroxide ,only to find i had now become a terrorist ,nazi i could maybe understand ,but a mad mullah , getting asked who what where and why i wanted with peroxide type questions !

When i left the place ,i was 100% sure the plods would be turning up ,wheels screeching ,(well at the very least the plastic plods).