Megadrive ebay moan

[Coolhand]

So I bought an 'asian' megadrive mk1 from ebay, the kind you can plug any region shaped cartridge in. "In perfect working order" before even switching it on I noticed the joypad seemed a bit 'iffy', crusty, missing screws, all expected, but it was bulging in the middle where it hadn't been assembled properly.  The Dpad basically didn't work either, so I removed all 3 remaining screws and found that on the silicone pad, all the contacts had been cut off and were barely adhered to a peice of what might once have been double-sided tape - apparently in a futile effort to stick the carbon pads to the dpad... Once I got the md to boot i found the start button is the only button that works reliably, the dpad is dead, A and B are totally dead and C works, sorta, when you mash it really, really hard - judging by scratches on the contacts, someone sanded the pcb so based on past experience its basically never gonna work properly again at this point.

On the unit itself the cart slot is totally unreliable, prob not a huge issue, i can maybe fix this up, it might be a case of dry joints on the motherboard, I think i can even get a replacement slot.  After about 10 tries i finally got a cartridge to load and it ran stably for hours until i switched it off.  

So, not the end of the world, with my old 6 button i could have a game of sonic on it, but how anyone can say this is perfect working order is beyond me, esp at this time of year - if someone had bought this as a gift for someone without a spare pad it would have been completely useless.

I guess you could say the cart slot was damaged in transit, but its more likely wear and tear (its a common problem) and so would have been obvious to whoever tested the device before selling. It was from a small ebay dealer who as of now still has a 100% rep rating, so i'm surprised that the pad in particular was so terrible, seriously, barring obtaining a new pcb and silicone parts it basically needs binning, definately not something i'd be happy with selling to someone for actual money on the basis that its "working perfectly".  superficially it looks fine, but its easily the worst condition, most broken retro item i've bought.

anyway, moan over:insane:  I'm going to contact the seller and see if they will send me the pad parts i need, in decent used condition and accept the probs with the base unit as a fixer-upper.

I realise this isn't the best place to ask, and i probably wont need one after i've given the machine some more attention (its also pretty filthy, prob dirty / loose contacts) but if anyone knows where I can get a replacement md cart slot in the uk please let me know:)

[Rob]

Is this the required spec?

http://www.rapidonline.com/Cables-Connectors/395-036-520-315-36-Way-Card-Edge-Connector-Pitch-0-100-Row-0-200-24-0867

[Coolhand]

I don't think thats the right number of contacts, also I don't want 100 of them;) but maybe you had something else in mind. so yeah, looking for a supplier a bit further down the foodchain i can grab just a couple of components from.

http://www.tototek.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=22&products_id=76 this US based store sells them, specfically they're 64 pin 2.54mm contact pitch card edge connectors.

[Astral]

Yeah, one of my direct, to the point, the wiggle room questions with mouses, joysticks and so on is to ask if there is ANY excess pressure needed to get a button to work, joystick to move direction, if the buttons stick and so on. It's quite annoying to buy a "working" item like this only to have it "not-working" - especially buying item after item to get a good one. If the answer to my direct no wiggle room questions is vague, I forget it.

[AmigaFreak]

Reminds me of a purchase of a Sinclair ZX 81 I made on Ebay awhile back. I got it and it turned out the keyboard ribbon cable was sliced right in half! Coulden't figure out why nothing was typing in ZX BASIC, so I opened it up, and sure enough.. I pulled off of Ebay since then and won't buy on there again.

[spirantho]

I sell zx81s all thee time on eBay, but I charge around £100 for each one.
I bet that's a lot more than you paid for yours. Why? Because mine are all tested, modified for modern TVs, checked and guaranteed.
I'm not just plugging ny store, though. My point is that eBay isn't at fault: if you buy the cheapest you'll get the worst quality, spend more and you'll get higher quality. EBay isn't like a shop, it's a market full of shops, and the best deal is usually not the lowest price.

[AmigaFreak]

I do agree with you there. I did not leave ebay because I thought it was their fault. I don't use it because for me it is hard to know who is good or bad. Instead of taking the risk of choosing between two sellers who might be good / bad, I'd rather buy local or contact someone directly to buy something.

[spirantho]

That I do understand. It may be difficult finding a ZX81 near you though!
Stick to the eBay shops who offer a guarantee, though, and these days you're usually fine. It's the auctions which are the dodgy ones, because the sellers are usually people who have no idea of what they're selling.

Incidentally, if you send me your ZX81 and pay return postage (they're cheap to post as they're so light) and cost of a new keyboard (about 11 GBP) I'll fix yours for you for free. I know how disappointing it can be to get something you can't use!  Just let me know if I can help.

[Coolhand]

I don't wish to sound too down on ebay in general, I've had some really good stuff off ebay, and plenty of crap, my success rate is quite poor though, only about 80-90% actually turns up in usable condition, or turns up at all.  I did nearly all my christmas shopping on it - only one item had a problem, someone had stolen an item from a gift set.  Biggest thing I ever bought off therem which was a POS,  was a server rack cabinet, basically a humungous metal box, it turned up with lots of dents, dings, door hanging off, hinges destroyed, and sorta twisted up like it had taken serious abuse.  In this case the seller arranged for a courier to pick it up, and refunded me, even though the item really should have been inspected on arrival and wasn't.

this was a bigger company that also traded outside of ebay though, so those seem to be the best ones to go for.

this is the seller I bought off, he had lots of items recently, worryingly he only has one item for sale now. http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/retroclem but even if he disappears, its still possible to get a partial refund from paypal.

[Rob]

I don't think thats the right number of contacts, also I don't want 100 of them;) but maybe you had something else in mind. so yeah, looking for a supplier a bit further down the foodchain i can grab just a couple of components from.

http://www.tototek.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=22&products_id=76 this US based store sells them, specfically they're 64 pin 2.54mm contact pitch card edge connectors.

Ah yes your right.  It is a just a 2x16.  They did have other connectors you could buy in single quantities but they don't have a a 2x32.

[A1260]

put up some pics so we can see the damage.

[scuzzb494]

I have acquired most of my collection from Ebay and never really had a problem. I bought just the other day one of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pippin and it came in like 3 days in its box all looking brand new.

PS This was the best MegaDrive that I added to the collection. One built into an Amstrad. You have to be careful though because they have the dreaded barrel battery

http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/amiga_scuzz405.htm

My first computer was a ZX81 which I bought from new and still have. Plus a bag full of tapes with all my programs on. Would take me like forever to see what was on them given that there is no real indexing system.

http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/amiga_scuzz117.htm

[Coolhand]

PS This was the best MegaDrive that I added to the collection. One built into an Amstrad. You have to be careful though because they have the dreaded barrel battery

http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/amiga_scuzz405.htm

I always thought they were neat, and its funny, i was just yesterday watching an old episode of 90'd tv show 'bad influence' where Violet Berlin mostly glossed over this exact type of machine. seems sega were pretty flexible with licensing out their hardware, dont recall any competing nintendo frankenmachines.

I finished off my christmas shopping and spent a long time tonight drinking sherry, port and guiness :pint:(only the last 2 may be consumed in the same glass at the same time, seriously, try it;)), while cleaning and soldering new parts onto the md, it was just full of dust and hair but looks great now.  I mistakenly - probably drunkenly - replaced the totally crusty DC input (it worked fine, it just looked nasty) with a 2.5mm socket instead of a 2.1, so I had to take the machine apart again and work on the power pcb again, but now its working great.  I cleaned the cart port with wd40, applied with a piece of kitchen tissue wrapped around a bit of greeting card then thunked in and out of the socket a few times.

I cleaned the oxidation off the 2 cartridges i received with the console with brasso and cleaned the brasso off with wd40, not sure if this is the best approach but I think its better than say, sandpaper.  the base unit is for the meantime totally reliable now.

I'll take some pics of the dpad modification tomorrow if i have time... I need to anyway, to back my complaint.

[Coolhand]

Been a real busy day getting everything ready, found a few mins to take some pics of what lurks inside this sega pad -god only knows what the idea behind this was, again the paper seems to be ancient double sided tape, but it was obviously broken and not working even without opening it up... One of the little round contacts (which should all be physically attached to the larger grey silicone above the crusty paper) rolled off somewhere, not much point trying to find it.

About the only useful thing i can think of for this pad is to use the pcb as an interface to put in to the arcade stick i want to build next year - I have an amiga CD32 compatible board too so I could possibly make a unit with a couple of different leads on it, that I could use for either machine.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I bought just the other day one of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pippin and it came in like 3 days in its box all looking brand new.

Well, that's kind of neat!  Never heard of this before, thanks for posting!