I recently released a video showcasing a detailed restoration of a pretty uncommon console, the NEC SuperGRAFX. There were only 75,000 of these produced and the console only had five unique titles developed for it, although it is fully backwards compatible with the entire PC Engine library.
In the video I did a full recap (replaced all the electrolytic capacitors) as well as a deep clean of the shell and the motherboard. In addition to the restoration, I also installed one of my favorite mods for PC Engine/TurboGRAFX consoles, the Zaxour Turbonanza which adds component video support (with Sega Genesis HD Retro Vision cables) as well as S-Video and Composite support. It’s one of my favorite mods which I covered extensively in the video below:
Now, one thing that I didn’t go over in the video was fixing a well known flaw that can actually destroy the console. After I uploaded the video, I received a lot of comments regarding a pretty serious issue with the console that can cause the motherboard to form a crack, or at a minimum, damage traces. Here’s a post from Smoke Monster documenting the issue:
SuperGrafx: The plastic standoff that rests behind the cart slot is a common console killer! Trim it so no pressure is ever placed on the PCB here, to avoid severing leads. Luckily, thesteve was able to fix mine @FBXGargoyle pic.twitter.com/QfAdtA7J7F
— SmokeMonster (@SmokeMonsterTWI) May 25, 2018
Since becoming aware of the issue I have made a YouTube Short that demonstrates how to fix the problem, and thankfully it very simple! All you need to do is trim the support post that lies directly below the HuCard reader.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the restoration and learned something new about the SuperGRAFX, I definitely did!
