I’m not particularly handy with a soldering iron or spudger… but does that mean that the skills of retro repair are totally beyond my grasp? Let’s find out. Updated: Now with an attempt at power button repair! Updated again! Can I fix the Y3 button?
I feel like it’s not a secret that I’m something of a retro games fan, having written rather extensively on the subject over the years. It’s a badge I wear quite proudly, but it’s also one that has more than its fair share of problems.
Prices for some titles are, frankly, stupid in many cases – few games are actually worth hundreds of dollars or even thousands in a playability sense, and if you’re the type of “retro gamer” who buys things to encase them in plastic tombs then in my eyes you’re a monster… but I digress.
Also read:
Why Retro Gaming Matters For Every Gamer
Retro Game Shopping In Japan: Are The Good Times Really Over?
The other issue is that much of what is now considered retro was built to be essentially disposable. Perhaps the most identifiable game “brand” on the planet, Nintendo, has always built its systems on the cheap, but it’s far from the only company guilty of making products that weren’t built to stand the test of time.
Honestly, it’s kind of amazing that there are systems that are 20, 30, even 40 years old that are still functioning at all, because I’m sure the original designers never thought about that kind of durability at all, just how they could build them to meet a price point that hopefully equalled profitability at some point. To my understanding for example, Nintendo’s never built systems that cost them money to sell in terms of parts costs, though clearly R&D itself isn’t “free”.
Still, components wear out or break over time, and that means that some of my beloved retro gear has seen better days. The solution is to repair and in some cases improve, but that takes a certain amount of skill and a willingness to tinker.
I am not someone who has natural tinkering skill, and to give that some context, in year 8 at High School, I was advised not to take woodworking as a future subject (not that I intended to anyway) because I was told “you’d end the course with fewer thumbs than you started with”.
That wasn’t subtle on the part of my woodworking teacher, but it was undeniably honest.
In terms of woodworking skills, I’m on par with Emo Philips. This is not a good place to be.
However, in relation to retro repair, this is something that I’ve wanted to improve my skills in, and like any other skill, you can only do that by trying.
I may succeed, I may fail… but hopefully in the failing I will at least learn a little something to apply to the next project.
To be 100% clear, I’m not writing this as a direct how-to guide for this particular retro repair – it’s more to note down what I’ve found challenging, even where I might admit my mistakes if they happen (yes, I’m writing this live, not after the fact) – and to help others take those first tentative steps into this kind of approach.
It is daunting, but I figure if I can do it, anyone can.
I might even have all of my thumbs intact at the end of it all. Let’s find out.
The Patient: Bandai WonderSwan Color (Release Year: 2000)
This particular WonderSwan Color is quite a new entry into my own retro collection, though I’ve wanted one for some time.
Fun fact: Its immediate prior owner was Alex “Ausretrogamer” Boz. Go read Austretrogamer’s site, it’s great and fun (tell him I sent you), and one of the reasons I bought this particular unit from him is that I’ve known him a long while and I trust that I won’t get a unit that’s totally stuffed, which is always a risk when buying retro gear online.
Indeed, this WonderSwan Color is functional, but not without its problems.
Not blaming Ausretrogamer here, it’s mostly wear-and-tear stuff. Let’s list them out:
- The plastic cover for the Y3 button is missing, presumed eaten by somebody’s dog
- The power button doesn’t work for switching off
- The screen is quite dim unless directly lit by a lamp or the sun
So how do I solve those particular issues?
The Y3 button is missing its little plastic hat. It feels lonely, I think.
The Y3 button issue simply affects feel, not functionality, but I suspect in order to fix that, I’ll need to cannibalise an otherwise dead WonderSwan Color to get the part.
I can’t find anywhere selling button covers to speak of. That might be something I can fix via a Hard-Off Junk Pile search the next time I’m able to be in Japan kind of deal, unless anyone knows of a source for parts like that? Comment below if so.
The power button is a super common fault, and it’s 100% Bandai’s fault, because at some point they changed design plans on the WonderSwan Color from a physical switch to a rubber button but didn’t change the circuit board layout beneath.
Bandai made some weird design decisions, but then again, this was only 6,800 yen (or about $68 AUD) brand new back in the day. Corners are inevitably going to be cut.
There is a popular fix for this that involves sticking on some capacitive parts, and they’re on order… but could be some weeks or even months away from arriving on Australian shores.
I shall wait this one out, because the rather simpler approach of pulling the battery compartment out does suffice in the meantime.
Update: See below, keep on reading on the power button issue
The screen issue isn’t a fault per se, but much more a limitation of the technology of the time.
As a still photo this doesn’t look “bad” per se… but that’s with quite direct light shining on it at a specific angle. It’s hard to see generally, which makes it hard to play.
That’s going to be what I try to tackle today, because it’s by far the most challenging “fix” for this particular system. I accept that it will affect the battery life, which on the WonderSwan Color is pretty legendary, but I’ll take that in return for being able to actually see my games in progress.
Once again, this isn’t intended to be a fully instructional guide; I’m using the many written and YouTube guides out there to help me along, and there’s more than a few of those. It’s well worth getting a grip on what any of these kinds of jobs entail before you start, especially if you’re using an instructional video because some of them are very nicely filmed… and others less so.
Step One: Disassembly
Difficulty: 1/5
Trepidation: 2/5
The screen mod kit I purchased did come with a Torx screwdriver for opening up the WonderSwan Color, so I decided to use it, though not surprisingly it’s a simple, cheap kind of tool.
It’s a fairly cheap kit that begs me for an online review. Consider this your online review, fairly cheap kit.
The only reason I had any trepidation here was because I genuinely don’t know what might have been done to this particular WonderSwan Color in the past, and there’s always the possibility of an already stripped screw in play, which would be problematic.
However that doesn’t happen, and six screw removals later, the back of the WonderSwan Color comes off with ease.
Step Two: LCD Ribbon Cable Removal
Difficulty: 2/5
Trepidation: 3/5
This is finer unlatching and removing work, so I’m a little more nervous as a result.
Taking it slowly matters, as does making sure that the latches that hold the cable into place are fully popped open, but it’s not terribly hard to manage.
This allows me to fully remove the motherboard from the front of the LCD.
Step Three: Cleanup and foam spacer pad removal
Difficulty: 2/5
Trepidation: 1/5
The motherboard has foam spacers that need to come out to make way for the new driver board, and I expected this to be an easy peel off kind of job.
It wasn’t, which is why some guides suggest using a heat gun – which I don’t have – so I end up doing a more manual peeling and cleaning job. It didn’t end up being the best looking part of the job, but I don’t think it’s damaged anything. It’s just kind of ugly… but hopefully should work.
Some guides don’t remove the spacers at all, they just squish them into place, so I guess we’ll find out shortly.
It’s not absolutely mandatory to remove the buttons from the screen half of the WonderSwan Color (some guides don’t do this at all) but I do so to make it easier to handle.
I also take the opportunity to give the button contacts on the motherboard a quick isopropyl alcohol clean; while this probably won’t solve my power button problem, it certainly can’t hurt.
Step Four: Soldering
Difficulty: 4/5
Trepidation: 5/5
That’s difficulty for me, to be clear, as judged in my head.
I’m sure there’s plenty of more experienced soldering types who would view this particular job as absolute child’s play. That’s a fine viewpoint, I don’t mind being “the child” in this situation, because I very much am tackling this particular job from the viewpoint of learning as a child might.
And it’s… OK, as long as I take it slow and steady.
I don’t feel like my solder joints are the best the world has ever seen, but with a little work I get the very, very thin wires that the kit comes with to attach to the relevant points on the WonderSwan Color’s motherboard and the new screen driver board.
Here’s to hoping they worked and that they hold!
Step Five: Insulating and cables, oh my!
Difficulty: 3/5
Trepidation: 3/5
Honestly, getting the soldering done really did do a number to relieve my stress along the way, because that felt like the bit that could go wrong the quickest.
So naturally I hit an issue seconds later, just to keep that adrenaline pumping.
Not a big issue, just a “look at the board in front of you” issue, because I couldn’t figure out how to get the video cable to attach properly, and many of the guides kind of float over this one. It’s because it holds down with a plastic flap just above it, and it took me a few observational seconds to work that bit out. Like I said, I’m learning, but one key educational concept here is taking my time and slowly working it out.
Step Six: Removing the old LCD
Difficulty: 1/5
Trepidation: 3/5
The nerves are still in play here for sure, mostly because a lot of guides, while stating that you should take it slow, state that it can be quite hard to get the old LCD to actually come out cleanly. Some guides suggest using spudgers, others want you to twist frames to see… it’s all a tad unclear and it did worry me.
Honestly, I need not have worried. I gave it a small preparatory tap, just to see how strong the adhesive was, and I got immediate movement followed by the very easy removal of the entire original screen.
Is that going to be true for every WonderSwan Color? Probably not, otherwise other guides wouldn’t call out this step, though it does make me wonder if this particular unit hadn’t been opened up previously. That would also perhaps explain the missing Y3 button cover, too. I put it aside carefully, however, as it’s still a functional, if somewhat dated, part.
Step Seven: Cables, Sensors and Reassembly
Difficulty: 2/5
Trepidation: 3/5
From here, it’s a matter of hooking up the new LCD screen, removing its cover film and adding an insulating layer between it and the driver board and then putting the whole shebang back together again.
I did hit a few quirky points – once again, the video cable driver board was a fiddly little sod to get to stay in place, and it does become something of a logical mess getting cables that didn’t previously exist within the frame to play nicely with each other – but a slow approach and a little patience saw it all eventually fit back together again.
Step Eight: I HAVE THE POWER… Or do I?
Difficulty: 0/5
Trepidation: 5/5
But of course, what you really want to know is if it all worked when I was done and dusted.
And the answer is….
No.
I reassembled the WonderSwan Color, put in a fresh battery, popped in a game (it won’t run without one, not even a startup screen)… and nothing happened.
At all.
Or at least, at first.
In a few seconds I started to get some sound, but no picture from the WonderSwan Color.
So I sighed, and may have issued a few internal expletives as well, and decided that the only thing to do was a little troubleshooting. While I’ve been a tech journo for most of my adult working life, before I started slinging words for a living, I did some time in the trenches slinging out tech advice for a now-defunct (but international) computer company.
If you were there, you know what I’m talking about.
I even look a little bit like Brando these days. Hmm…
So I’m well versed in troubleshooting from way back in the day – actually, slightly before the OG WonderSwan came out, now that I think about it – and I set to trying to puzzle out what was going on.
At first, I pondered on the video cables, because if they’re not seated right, or if I’d damaged them folding them down to fit, that would be an obvious culprit. One cable point was slightly at an angle, so I removed it, reseated and powered the WonderSwan back on.
Same result.
Sound, but no screen display at all.
This did raise the possibility that I’d been sold a dud screen, which would be a different problem entirely, especially for a part I’d ordered from overseas. Such is the way of the modern Internet life and all that.
But before I reached for the “this is busted, please refund” button, I figured there was one more thing to consider.
Which part of my attempted retro repair was I the least happy with?
The answer there was obvious; it was the soldering, because it was the part that made me the most nervous, and the part that was relying on some remarkably thin wires.
So I retraced my steps, all the way back to step four. This was more convoluted than it was originally because all the other parts were still in place, but I slowly, and carefully desoldered and then re-soldered each point with a little more solder in place to try to create a more solid joint through which power could flow.
I still don’t feel like I have strong soldering skills, but I’m persistent.
Soldering done, I repacked the WonderSwan Color back together again, put its screws back in place and nervously tapped the power button.
Mental note: Insert the Zelda “Item Found” DADADADAAAAH sound here, somehow.
Success. At last. That tint to the screen, by the way, is not indicative of a problem; the screen kit has colour tinting options for older WonderSwan greyscale games (like Gunpey) that you can adjust via touch. This works, as does the sensor for adjusting screen brightness.
What I’ve learned about retro repair
I’m still not massively mechanically adept, but with a little patience and time, I managed to get this particular retro repair/upgrade working.
The WonderSwan Color still needs a little more TLC – the power button still needs fixing and if I can source some way to get a Y3 button cover I’ll go for that too – but the big lesson here is that if I can do it, there’s very good odds you can too. It might even start to become fun, if I can improve my confidence with soldering.
Update (20/12/2024)
Step Nine: Can I fix the power button?
Difficulty: 2/5
Trepidation: 4/5
So I mentioned when I first wrote this up that the power button wasn’t working for switching the WonderSwan Color off — a very common problem — but that I would have to wait for replacement parts to arrive from the US. That’s through an outfit called ButtonWorx, and I ordered my set via eBay but noted that they got in touch quickly to say that delivery to Australia could take some weeks or maybe more than a month.
Less than a fortnight later, they arrived, so I figured I may as well get that part of the repair job done as well.
First step involves opening the Wonderswan Color back up again, and this I’m now quite au fait with. My trepidation about this whole process isn’t really about the difficulty of doing it; it’s the fact that I have a technically-working WonderSwan Color and this is just a power button tweak. It would truly suck to fix the power button but break the screen or see my own bodgy soldering job fall apart as a result.
Also, I 3D-printed a little tray for holding screws and other internal parts. It’s not pretty, but it does its job well enough.
Naked WonderSwan Color action. But will my soldered wires hold up to being opened up again?
The actual membranes are tiny and thin, and it’s kind of wild to think that they alone can solve this problem.
The trickiest initial part here was actually getting the paper that protects the adhesive off each button membrane part, but with a little fingernail persistence, I get there, and place the power button membrane — the really critical fix part of this job.
Is that down to the micrometre straight? Hopefully it’s straight enough…
Strictly speaking, I could have stopped there, because the other buttons are basically functional. However, I’ve got the kit, there’s nothing else that it’s useful for and the WonderSwan Color is open right now, so I figure I may as well drop the other button membranes in place to ensure better operation for the future.
That being done, it’s time to put the WonderSwan Color back together again. Once more, thanks to having to re-do those earlier solder joints, I’m quite familiar with this process.
It all screws back together again… but have I busted my earlier fix with the newer one? Will it even switch on again?
And now, the critical moment… will it also switch off without needing me to pull the battery out?
Mission accomplished — and I feel quite accomplished. Now all I need to do is track down a replacement Y3 button cover and I’ll have a 100% functional unit.
Stay tuned…
Update! (14/02/2025)
So, it’s been a couple of months, and I did indeed manage to make a trek to Japan — in truth, I knew one was upcoming when I wrote the original article in late 2024 — with a junked Wanderswan firmly in my sights.
Also general tourism as well, which you can see some of in this review:
But if the chance to hit a retro games store, hard-off, Surugaya or Mandarake presented itself where I might find a very dead, affordable Wonderswan, I did not miss it.
Just one problem.
I couldn’t find an affordable Wonderswan at all.
A number of working good ones at eye-watering prices — seriously, some Book-Offs have gone totally crazy in their pricing schemes — but even the junk places were keen on very high prices if they had a Wonderswan to sell in the first place.
This was the other problem, because both consoles and software is not common for this platform at all any more.
I did expand out my catalogue of games considerably because I was travelling around a lot, but all the time I was keeping a keen eye out for a Wonderswan with a busted screen, or even half a Wonderswan, given all I needed really was the plastic Y3 button cover.
The worst Wonderswan I saw in Japan was in totally shattered condition… and the store wanted more for it than I’d paid for my original, working unit.
So that was a big fat no, leaving me out of luck.
At least… out of luck on Japanese shores. Upon my return home, I started scouring Yahoo! Japan on the off chance that there might be somebody selling a junk unit.
Lo and behold, I only went and found one at quite a reasonable price given it was categorically stated as “not working”. Here it is, side by side with my already upgraded unit.
That silver colour is quite nice… but this unit is in rough condition for sure.
When I say rough, I mean… rough.
The battery tray is missing, and I don’t want to think about what the gunk on the X1/X2 buttons actually is.
Added odd bonus: A Digimon game in the cartridge slot. I didn’t expect that one, but hey, free game and all that.
However, even with a transplanted battery pack in the silver Wonderswan color, it won’t switch on… but then I didn’t buy it thinking it would work. Time to get to work!
Step Ten: Button Transplant Time!
Difficulty: 1/5
Trepidation: 3/5
This should, by rights, be the easiest part of the whole repair process. I’m already quite au fait with opening up the Wonderswan, and technically I don’t even have to be that gentle with the silver model such as it is.
Opening up the back to reveal the naked Wonderswan Color. I don’t even need to remove the screen ribbon cable this time!
Getting the Y3 button cover out was easy enough, and then it was time to open up the good, working blue Wonderswan Color. Here I had nerves because I didn’t want the existing screen or button mods to stop working, or for a cable to break. But with gentle touch and patience, I placed the button cover in, flipped it back over and screwed the back on… only to discover I’d made a particularly stupid mistake.
Can you see what the problem is?
None of the existing guides mention that it is actually possible to put the buttons back in the wrong way around. Possibly because nobody’s ever been stupid this way before, but I can tell you it’s a thing that can be done.
Now, technically this should work just fine; the button cap names don’t mean much and they should work under my thumbs… but no. This is not good enough. So with a sigh, I unscrewed the back, gently lifted the main board and flipped the Y buttons 180 degrees.
My OCD can stop nagging me now. I’ve fixed it up.
But of course, the question nagged at me… had all this malarkey for a simple plastic button cover left the Wonderswan inoperable?
It’s ALIVE! (and finding a cheap copy of Ghosts & Goblins for the Wonderswan was NOT easy…)
So that’s it, happy ending and all is done, right?
Not quite.
I mean, I still have that non-functional Silver Wonderswan to work on, so that’s my next project, especially as I still have the old, working screen from the OG Wonderswan Color that I can try swapping in there to see if that’s the problem.
Oh yeah… and then there’s the fact that I might have bought some… ahem… “spares”.
Wonderswan Colors breed like Tribbles around these parts.
Why?
Well, mostly because what I was buying was in “Junk” condition, but I had to ship to Australia, and I didn’t want to take the risk of the silver unit showing up only to discover all of its plastic button covers were shattered on the side, or that they had slightly different shapes because it was some later revision, or anything like that.
You buy “Junk” consoles, and sometimes you really do get Junk, and outside my original one (on the right in that picture) they were all listed as non-working junk, only for parts and so on. So I got some spares in case I had to get seriously Frankenstein (he was the scientist, you know…) on them.
So why not use one of the blue ones for the blue consoles?
Because they turned up, I cleaned them up a little… and they only work, that’s why!
I think this is a matter of the sellers knowing nearly nothing about the platform, because the reality of the Wonderswan is that unless you have a clean working game in the cartridge slot, they won’t power up at all in any way.
They can be fussy about how clean a game is too, so sometimes you need to try more than once. I suspect they tried once with a game, or maybe not at all, thinking that an error screen would come up. That’s not how the Wonderswan Color works, though.
So now I have three working Wonderswan Colors, and one work in progress one. Now I just have to figure out what I’m going to do with them…
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