Planet Virtual Boy

Dear members of Planet VB

I'd like to tell you about a problem i got with TWO Virtual Boy system.
One is mine one is my friend's one.

I checked again and again everywhere but seems the only virtual boy problem is about bad glue. Mine as nothing to do with that.

Mine was working perfectly until one day i just can't open it.
No Sound, No light, just nothing.

I started to open it at the same time that we opened my friend's one (cause of glue problem).
As we can't see anything wrong on mine (like cable who will have magically went out) we decided to take out my mother card (you ll see on the pic) and replaced by his.

And it worked! Greatly as brand new!
So i surely know that it's main card problem.

But two days after my friend's virtual Boy got the same problem...

So i wonder what do you think could make this Happen?
He told me that he was making some transformation on the controller building a Hand Made AC adaptator and seems he once made a mistake between + and -. So the system could have get the power in wrong direction.

Do you think it can be the cause?

Well, it's obviously impossible to tell from a photo, but there have been reports of problems with the onboard voltage regulator. This is the most likely part to be damaged by reversed input polarity, input voltage too high, etc. which can all be caused by using improper power supplies or connecting things the wrong way.

Did it stop working while you were playing, or did it work fine one day and fail to work the next? If the former, it was probably being overstressed by an out-of-spec input voltage. If the latter, it was probably inrush current (less likely). It's also (remotely) possible that you damaged something with a static discharge due to improper handling, but the VB board seems to be pretty robust in this regard.

Searching the forum for "regulator" will locate a few threads with some good details about replacing the voltage regulator, but if you're not experienced with this sort of thing, you should either get someone else to do it, or sell your VB "as-is" (explaining the fault) and put the proceeds toward a replacement (or two, in this case).

I hope that helps.

"Did it stop working while you were playing, or did it work fine one day and fail to work the next?"

-Second. It was fine until i made this mistake and then no way to make it work again.


Thank you for your help Runnerpack.
I'll go to have a check on the thread.

I'm already happy to hear that i'm not the only one in this case.

Here it goes on the followed topics.
I think i ll find my way as i'm pretty sure it comes from a regulator problem.

http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb ... t_id=10983#forumpost10983

http://www.goliathindustries.com/vb/VBDiagrams.html

http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb ... t_id=10161#forumpost10161

http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb ... ost_id=8564#forumpost8564

Hope those could be an help for others who need.

These are very useful information,i am not an expert at electronics,but may be found handy.