Easy to replace a 72-pine connector in a Sharp NES TV?

[cheesystick]

Hello,

I have a line on a Sharp NES TV from a guy on craigslist. He says the 72-pin connector is really rough and needs replacement. He wants $200 for the unit, which I think is fair, but this is obviously pretty risky considering that I would be buying it in semi non-working condition. However, the TV seems to be in otherwise very good condition and $200 is not a bad price for one. I have a buddy in town who is very good at fixing systems, makes his own repros, soldering, etc. - a real techinical wizard! I have faith that he can help me check it out and replace the connector, but I have no idea how hard this might be for the Sharp TV. If it is much more difficult to get to this connector, it may not be worth it. Any thoughts?

I just have no history with the Sharp TV and its inter workings. It goes without saying that this would be a risky investment either way, even if it is easy to replace. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Chris

[APE992]

Fixing systems, installing mods and general soldering aren't remotely enough preparation to handle taking a TV apart. But hey it won't be my funeral.

I've never seen one taken apart but the whole point of owning one of these is for the NES functionality. Might as well fix it.

[Schiggidyd]

Wait a minute...
TV's have 72-pin connectors?..

EDIT: I apologize. I never heard of a Sharp NES TV.

[bigbacon]

probablhy two seperate things, I bet the lower NES part comes off the TV part fairly easily.

[raylydiard]

Yeah just be sure to discharge the CRT first and then some electrical tape on the ht lead to prevent any electric shock.

And i am unsure if these has 72 pin connector but you could take some snaps of the insides.

[Gameguy]

Clean the connector first before trying to replace it, the current owner might just think it's rough if he never bothered to clean it or any of his games. It's a possibility.

[bust3dstr8]

This seems to be a pretty niche console and with that there will be very little documentation on refurbishing
it. The only way the collecting community gets its info on these uncommon items is when someone decides
to take a gamble and go for it.....is it gonna be you?

[burn_654]

I've dug around inside my Sharp Game TV and the nes board is separate and 99% the same, it's merely tethered by a few wires to the top crt half. There is no point in discharging the crt in this case - the crt will still be completely encased in its portion albeit tethered to the lower half by the nes video/sound lines. As long as you have something solid to set the crt portion onto the nes half can be worked on.

I don't recall being able to completely disconnect it though. I set the crt on some books on its front and unscrewed the larger screws securing the nes enclosure to the crt enclosure, then gently lowered the nes portion at basically a right angle with the tube. Aside from being very careful with the short tether I had no issues and from there on out any repairs or mods are going to be very similar to standard nes work.

It's going to be important for people to know they can replace nes components to keep these things running well. Some solder work might be required to put a new nes board in. Tbh the tube might die before the nes will.

A mod I performed/am performing was to install a composite video input jack by splicing the video wire from the nes to a rear rca jack. I'm planning on adding a switch for this. The video quality for plugging anything else into the set is a nice bump up from rf, improving it imo as a retro games tv. (it's been my bedroom retro set for some time.) Very simple to do. Some might balk at it but it's an improvement, keeping the original functionality and justifying keeping it in use and hooking up additional consoles to it.

[raylydiard]

any chance of pictures if you can would be cool to see inside.

[APE992]

Would love to get ahold of one of these or at least the chance to do a recap and mod job on one. Unlikely anyone is going to have one within 300 miles of Chico, CA.

[77punk]

Awesome you're in Portland of all places with this Sharp NES TV (just moved here and always was looking for one of these units). Im interested in hearing if you tried to fix it or what not. Any update?

[Tanooki]

I own one, I've opened it up...once. There's definitely a process to it and it's a goddamned pain in the ass and you have to be careful.

Initially lay that thing on something soft screen down and remove the (6?) screws that hold the back in place off. Now here's the first shitty part, removing the back. Don't be all willy nilly and brutish or halfassed with it, YOU MUST REMOVE IT CAREFULLY AND STRAIGHT BACK UNTIL IT IS FREE. The fools designed it so the main board of the tv towards the bottom part of its compartment(NES part is stacked and its own piece) is snuggly slid into this slot, if you bend it too much, snap...game over. When you get the back off then everything else more or less is easily accessible. NintendoAge has a PDF of the service manual for the beast on a Sharp thread over there. On the back of the monitor it comes out in a cone shape and at the end is a square with a couple wheels you can adjust for the picture. The bottom right of the tv has another box(different looking) with a couple other tubular wheels (others are flat) that mess with it too. And just an FYI in the top flap on the set where you can screw with color, etc, there's a hole between the buttons and that you can get into with a small screwdriver and it too will mess with I think it was the vertical or horizontal stretch(view area) too.

Anyway if you can get it that far apart you'll notice there's this small PEZ dispenser sized rectangular hole with 2 wires going from the tv into it, that is the sole feed of all information as far as I can recall from the NES to the TV....you break that, you're screwed too. Carefully detach that from inside the tv and then you can work about going after a pile more screws to detach the tv from the NES. At that rate more or less your job should be about as painful or not as doing a general NES system clean up.

I've never gone that far but I eyeballed it out a year ago when I got my system but I was lucky to get one that was never child used, 2 adults in the military, used it little, then as a bedroom tv, then went to grow dust bunnies for a long time in a bedroom so I didn't have to bother. Mine is starting to get a bit whiny so I need to do a cleaning and I really hate to think I'd have to open it up again as it makes me nervous but that's what I'd do to open it up.


EDIT: I just spent the last 90min working on my TV. Tear down and reassembly takes some serious time of that amount. I was bored, not wanting to chit chat online or game so I decided to do a classic refurb I've done on the pins since the 90s on normal systems. From the above there were 6 screws on the back, 4 in the base to detach the NES from the TV. From that point I ran the wires from it to the tv, they're plugged in like in 3 spots around the board, but one I couldn't safely reach with my limited means here w/out a risk of shock so I did some contortionist maneuvers and spun the NES around so I could pop the roughly 8-9 screws from the NES itself to remove the top and then lean it up against the TV since it's stuck due to the 2 wire clusters. The NES itself is fairly well like the original, but it has more screws holding the RF shield plate down. Once that was off, smooth sailing.

What I do to fix the thing is I douse an original NES cleaning kit with 91% isopropyl alcohol and then give it a good run on the pins detached from the deck (cart part and where it latches to the motherboard. Then using a thin but sturdy sewing needle I slightly bend each individual lower row pins up about a 1/16th of an inch of that upward on every single one( just for the cart injector part.) Then I ran the cleaning kit again on it wet one last time, remove any fussies it may leave with the needle, and just slide it back together and so on screw after screw until it was whole once more. I went and grabbed my bubble bobble 2 cart which I know was super clean and it fired right up with no issue which it wouldn't (or any game) before as it would be scrambled or gray(maybe flashing.)

[cheesystick]

Tanooki,

Thank you for your very detailed response. I really do appreciate it, which makes me ashamed to say that I did not pick up the TV. I am not particularly tech-savy and I was just worried that if I purchased it, I would never get around to fixing it. I am a younger collector, so the prospect of buying something heavy that I'll have to lug around for the rest of my life also did not sound appealing. I am very fortunate to have a large collection, so I was excited to see something rare for sale that I don't have, but the reality was that I didn't actually need it - It was just something to be excited about, but I ultimately didn't buy it. I'm sure another lucky collector snapped it up.

Hopefully someone will find your helpful tips in the future, because there is nothing on the web about fixing one - way too niche. Thanks again for the reply.