Throwing away infected classic consoles

[ffxik]

That's crazy! Great work ffxik!

x2. No way would I have assumed that was the same system. Wanna come over and clean my systems?

Lol.  That's what I do here outside of repair.  A lot of my friends can't be bothered with the up keep of their systems so they bring it to me and I gut'em, and clean'em.  I do charge for this service though.  Albeit this cost him 10 or 15 bucks.  I usually charge by time and difficulty.  This took hours too do.
Which I don't mind.  I love tearing stuff apart.

[desocietas]

Lol.  That's what I do here outside of repair.  A lot of my friends can't be bothered with the up keep of their systems so they bring it to me and I gut'em, and clean'em.  I do charge for this service though.  Albeit this cost him 10 or 15 bucks.  I usually charge by time and difficulty.  This took hours too do.
Which I don't mind.  I love tearing stuff apart.

Man, that's a a good price!  If you lived nearby, I'd definitely have you clean out all my consoles for me

[karyann]

Lol.  That's what I do here outside of repair.  A lot of my friends can't be bothered with the up keep of their systems so they bring it to me and I gut'em, and clean'em.  I do charge for this service though.  Albeit this cost him 10 or 15 bucks.  I usually charge by time and difficulty.  This took hours too do.
Which I don't mind.  I love tearing stuff apart.

I should start to offer the same, I love opening stuff and cleaning consoles, controllers and games. If only I knew more people who might need the service... I need to get more friends 

[90snostalga]

That's crazy! Great work ffxik!

x2. No way would I have assumed that was the same system. Wanna come over and clean my systems?

Lol.  That's what I do here outside of repair.  A lot of my friends can't be bothered with the up keep of their systems so they bring it to me and I gut'em, and clean'em.  I do charge for this service though.  Albeit this cost him 10 or 15 bucks.  I usually charge by time and difficulty.  This took hours too do.
Which I don't mind.  I love tearing stuff apart.

How much would you charge for a mail in type of service?

[ffxik]

That's crazy! Great work ffxik!

x2. No way would I have assumed that was the same system. Wanna come over and clean my systems?

Lol.  That's what I do here outside of repair.  A lot of my friends can't be bothered with the up keep of their systems so they bring it to me and I gut'em, and clean'em.  I do charge for this service though.  Albeit this cost him 10 or 15 bucks.  I usually charge by time and difficulty.  This took hours too do.
Which I don't mind.  I love tearing stuff apart.

How much would you charge for a mail in type of service?

Add shipping.  In the long run to and back it may not be worth a mail in.  Rather to do it yourself.  Not trying to be mean.  It's just shipping to and from plus the service charge on top would be on the steep side I would imagine.   

[GamingTheSystems]

I once got a 2600 from a flea market.  When I got it home I couldn't get it to work.  I took it apart I found a few dead roaches along with a lot of dirt.  The roaches looked like they died a long time ago.  I cleaned everything up, and to my amazement, it powered on and worked great.

[thecrypticodor]

I recently picked up a ColecoVision although not as disgusting as that PS3 was still pretty grody. It and the games included with it was $40 including the shipping. The only reason I bought it was for an included copy of Up N Down, which goes for $40+ easily just by itself. I didn't have any expectations that the console would be salvageable aside from it's controllers, and If it turned out to be unfixable than Up N Down alone would easily justify the purchase.The other three games included were mystery games which turned out to be all commons (Qbert, DK, SMURF) which is pretty much what I figured they'd be.


The ebay listing picture

One of the joysticks had a hole bunch of some kind of sticky crud inside it that was a dark purple color which I assume was ancient grape jelly that some kid somehow managed to cram inside it. The console was filthy and It must have been stored in a damp basement because a lot of the metal structures including the RF shielding and modulator had had quite a bit of rust on them. I sanded off all the rust off cleaned the motherboard and case and replaced all the electrolytic caps and re-flowed all the solder joints on the board. Cleaned and rebuilt the power switch ( a common point of failure for the CV) and It fired right up after all that. 



The end result. I hated having to remove the service sticker but it was falling off and completely filthy and stained and just looked terrible so I just to removed it.
Since I was already in there I also composite modified it.

[bikingjahuty]

I know someone who had live roaches come out of a N64 they purchased off of CL. Yeah, old gaming consoles and even games can be a haven for bugs. It is good to clean them out outside just in case they are infested or have dead bugs like your PS1. As someone said, PS1s are cheap and easy to find, so you did the right thing. If it were something like Sega CDX or 3DO I'd probably put the elbow grease into cleaning it, but still, not sure if could deal with roaches or bedbugs. . .

[ffxik]

thecryticodor.  That was one hell of a save.  Looks brand new.

[burningdoom]

thecryticodor.  That was one hell of a save.  Looks brand new.

Indeed! 

[90snostalga]

Excellent clean!!     Question.  I don't know anything about that console.  Is that from the 70s?

[burningdoom]

Excellent clean!!     Question.  I don't know anything about that console.  Is that from the 70s?

The Colecovision was a console released late during the 2nd generation (Atari 2600 & 5200, Magnavox 2, Intellivision, etc.) in 1982. It was easily the console with the best looking graphics of the bunch and had a solid library, of course not nearly as big as Atari 2600's, though. It had arcade-quality ports, for many of the games of the time. Which was a pretty big deal back then. And until the NES and Master System came out, the Colecovision had the best Nintendo and Sega home-ports (at least in the U.S., in Japan they had the Sega SG-1000 and Famicom).

It even had an add-on that allowed it to play the massive Atari 2600 library, which led to a legal battle between the two, with Coleco amazingly coming out on top.

But then the Nintendo NES came out and changed the landscape for everyone, and Coleco quietly exited the video game scene.

I still hate the controller, though. But then I hate most of the 2nd gen system's controllers.

[htimreimer]

my vic 20 has a bit of a styrofoam problem and i have been peeling it for 2 days now, i hear that super glue can eats styrofoam and i think i will try that sooner than later

[burningdoom]

my vic 20 has a bit of a styrofoam problem and i have been peeling it for 2 days now, i hear that super glue can eats styrofoam and i think i will try that sooner than later

Yuck, my Fami-clone I bought in the box (Super Joy) had that on the wires, too. Simply from sitting on the shelf in it's box for too long. I didn't bother to clean it, though.

The wires do have rubber covers, as long as you don't do it while it's plugged it, I'd imagine it would be safe to just clean it off with a wet sponge using the rough scrubby side of it.

[pceslayer]

There is nothing that a shopvac, soap n water and some vinegar cant clean. So no I don't throw anything out.

Nothing like finding roaches under/in the power supply since its nice n warm. I live in Florida so its like ehhhhhhhh  *shloomp* down into the shopvac they go.