A few days ago I decided to buy some faulty consoles on the cheap for repair purposes. My choice was the PS1 because they are usually easily fixed, they are very common and repair parts are available and cheap. Not to mention that I have a PS1 already that I have some extra parts for. My goal is to practice repairing consoles, reselling these is not the point.
First I bought a single PS1 for $7 console only. The owner suspected it had a faulty disc drive. On examination I found that the disc spinner motor rattled but even so it managed to boot games after a few tries.
The unit is an SCPH-7000 series model with a KSM-440ADM optical drive. I only have KSM-440AEM replacement units in storage which would work fine if the ribbon cable reached the connector which it doesn't. So replace the whole optical drive was not an option, I had to replace the motor in the ADM unit. It is a pretty easy task, you just have to desolder 2 wires and solder the new motor back on. I used some helical grease (which I got for photo lenses) on the plastic gearing in the laser positioning system to reduce wear.
The rattle disappeared, the discs spun quietly but read success rate was still not good so the laser diode's potentiometer had to be adjusted a bit and voilá, games start on first try. I used Gran Turismo for testing since it has a pretty long FMV intro which is perfect for testing if the disc skips and I'm happy to say that it doesn't.
The console has a modchip already installed. The modwork looks clean with short cable runs. The laser has problems with burned discs. Booting backups works fine with a different drive so the modchip works.
The device is still in pieces because the shell and the innards need thorough cleaning.
The next batch will consist of 4 untested PS1 fat consoles (they look like 5000, 7000 and 9000 series but the eBay listing does not say). This will be a bigger job, considering that I have no information about the state of these so the testing phase will take a lot of time. I also have some replacement parts and accessories in transit. If I manage to get them working the plan is to install MM3 modchips in them, which I haven't done before but it shouldn't be very hard.
First I bought a single PS1 for $7 console only. The owner suspected it had a faulty disc drive. On examination I found that the disc spinner motor rattled but even so it managed to boot games after a few tries.
The unit is an SCPH-7000 series model with a KSM-440ADM optical drive. I only have KSM-440AEM replacement units in storage which would work fine if the ribbon cable reached the connector which it doesn't. So replace the whole optical drive was not an option, I had to replace the motor in the ADM unit. It is a pretty easy task, you just have to desolder 2 wires and solder the new motor back on. I used some helical grease (which I got for photo lenses) on the plastic gearing in the laser positioning system to reduce wear.
The rattle disappeared, the discs spun quietly but read success rate was still not good so the laser diode's potentiometer had to be adjusted a bit and voilá, games start on first try. I used Gran Turismo for testing since it has a pretty long FMV intro which is perfect for testing if the disc skips and I'm happy to say that it doesn't.
The console has a modchip already installed. The modwork looks clean with short cable runs. The laser has problems with burned discs. Booting backups works fine with a different drive so the modchip works.
The device is still in pieces because the shell and the innards need thorough cleaning.
The next batch will consist of 4 untested PS1 fat consoles (they look like 5000, 7000 and 9000 series but the eBay listing does not say). This will be a bigger job, considering that I have no information about the state of these so the testing phase will take a lot of time. I also have some replacement parts and accessories in transit. If I manage to get them working the plan is to install MM3 modchips in them, which I haven't done before but it shouldn't be very hard.
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