NESRGB in Twin Famicom - no power

[dadjumper]

I recently installed one of etim's NESRGB boards into my Twin Famicom. I followed the guide on his website and went the route of repurposing the RF port so as not to ruin the case with unnecessary holes. Upon completion, I plugged it in for testing, but found the system isn't getting power. The power LED will blink momentarily when I hit the power button, but then turn off. The screen will flicker at the same time but remain black.

I've tried repairing the traces I cut to accommodate using the RF port and replacing the NESRGB with the original PPU again, but still the system won't get power. So my assumption here is either:
A :I haven't repaired the traces well enough and/or have cut an adjacent trace which is cutting off power (though I'm not sure which traces correspond to power so this may not be true)
B: I've either poorly soldered or messed up soldering the socket onto the motherboard causing a bad connection (entirely possible as my soldering isn't very good)
C: I've shorted something and fried the whole system

I (hopefully) assume that option C isn't the case because the power LED is still flickering.
Unfortunately I've run out of solder completely so I won't be able to resolder the mobo socket until that shows up in the mail, but right now I'm assuming that's it. I didn't apply solder to every pin as I was running low and figured that would be fine.

Here are a few images, please disregard my ugly amateur soldering "skills" (links, because big):
http://i.imgur.com/5cB0abj.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/tXuwInE.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/74VL8vj.jpg


I've emailed this info to Tim, too, but it seems like this forum is a good place for this kind of help. Does anyone have any further insight into what the issue might be?

Edit: Wow, that second image looks really hideous. The old solder really looks terrible. I'll for sure be improving that when I get more.

[eightbitminiboss]

You need to stop what you're doing and have someone else do the work. You have cold joints all over the adapter board or not even soldered at all in the first picture. Gigantic and imprecise cuts on the power/video board in the second picture which might as well be the problem and your third picture of the NESRGB is equivalent to a massacre. You have so many points of failure it's hard to find where your issues are. You should have not attempted this at all.

[kamiboy]

Wow...

[dadjumper]

You need to stop what you're doing and have someone else do the work. You have cold joints all over the adapter board or not even soldered at all in the first picture. Gigantic and imprecise cuts on the power/video board in the second picture which might as well be the problem and your third picture of the NESRGB is equivalent to a massacre. You have so many points of failure it's hard to find where your issues are. You should have not attempted this at all.

Well, sounds about right, I suppose! As I said, I'm not fantastic, but I figured I'd give it a shot. I've done some simpler mods before and those all turned out alright, but I knew this would be a challenge. I've never minded my ad-hoc mod work as long as it works, heh!

As this was my first time working with IC sockets, I guess I didn't know that cold joints were a bad thing, but I suppose I do now. I'll go through and redo everything when I can, then.

[darcagn]

What a waste of a good Twim Famicom

How could you possibly look at that work and think "yeah, this should turn on"?! You need to pay someone who knows what they're doing to finish this, if the project is even salvageable at this point.

As this was my first time working with IC sockets, I guess I didn't know that cold joints were a bad thing, but I suppose I do now. I'll go through and redo everything when I can, then.

Dude, many of those joints aren't even soldered!

[eightbitminiboss]

You need to stop what you're doing and have someone else do the work. You have cold joints all over the adapter board or not even soldered at all in the first picture. Gigantic and imprecise cuts on the power/video board in the second picture which might as well be the problem and your third picture of the NESRGB is equivalent to a massacre. You have so many points of failure it's hard to find where your issues are. You should have not attempted this at all.

Well, sounds about right, I suppose! As I said, I'm not fantastic, but I figured I'd give it a shot. I've done some simpler mods before and those all turned out alright, but I knew this would be a challenge. I've never minded my ad-hoc mod work as long as it works, heh!

As this was my first time working with IC sockets, I guess I didn't know that cold joints were a bad thing, but I suppose I do now. I'll go through and redo everything when I can, then.

Don't do this. Just stop.

[CkRtech]

You may want to hit up YouTube for some videos on how to solder. In fact, a good channel in general for this hobby is the eevblog run by Dave Jones. Start here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Sb21qbpEQ He'll walk you through tools of the trade, techniques, and everything. Take the time to watch it. Don't skip through it just to find the part of the video series where he physically sticks an iron on pad and applies solder.

We could list out all sorts of techniques here, but it would be best to watch the video series, take notes, and watch it again. You may also want to set this project aside and pick up some sort of practice kit before salvaging the Twin. As others have suggested, you may want to hire someone to complete the job for you.

I am concerned/surprised/impressed that you removed the PPU just fine (the most likely time consuming/frustrating part of a NESRGB mod) but had trouble with the soldering.

Anyway - Check your tools and fundamentals, practice on some other items, and you'll get the hang of it.

[mvsfan]

um, out of curiousity, id also like to know how did you expect this to turn on when you didnt solder half the pins on the ppu?

btw i am also impressed that you got the ppu out fine. thats usually the hardest part of the job.

[ApolloBoy]

Edit: Wow, that second image looks really hideous. The old solder really looks terrible. I'll for sure be improving that when I get more.

That's a fucking understatement. Why did you even attempt this if you didn't have enough solder? You're supposed to solder every single joint on the NESRGB, don't skimp on anything.

[ELabit]

The din plug on the back might not have all the pins installed from factory. Look in the holes in the plug and see if they have the silver prongs in the din plug in 8 holes on the plug. If not you need to install a fully populated din plug.
Also you soldering is beyond bad. You need to practice on some beginner soldering kits from a hobby shop and some junk pc motherboards before attempting something like this.

[Voultar]

This can't be real.. These pictures certainly aren't. ..There's just no way..