Popping and Smoke coming from Famicom, and just other Famicom related questions

[Weisite]

Hello again! I work for a local game store that sells retro games and game consoles!

Today's conundrum is a recently (as the time of this post) traded in Famicom and Famicom disk system! When I plugged in the console, after a few seconds *POP* white smoke coming from the back! This is my first time ever working on a Famicom and I'm wondering what things I should keep an eye out for when cleaning, testing, fixing, etc.

Now as for the white smoke coming from the back we believe it could be a power capacitor problem but if that isn't the case I would gladly like to know! If any of you have questions about the console or the store I work for I'll gladly answer any questions!

 

[Ferik]

Most likely a blown capacitor. I've seen it happen with the AV Famicom model before. I'm not sure if the red and gold model is the same but on the AV there's a big blue capacitor right in the back that can go up in smoke.

 

[Leguminoso]

That is a blown capacitor, no doubt about it. You can probably find replacements on ebay or aliexpress if you look hard enough.

Here is a list of components the Famicon uses, find the capacitor there.

 

[ladyerrant]

Please do not buy replacement capacitors on ebay or aliexpress. Look for a reputable vendor in your region. Mouser is a good choice in the US.

 

[Egg (McMuffin) Man]

Mouser is a good choice anywhere. I always user Mouser.

 

[jaeofmordor]

if you’re in the states, i can think of no reason to go anywhere 1st but console5.

they have preassembled sets for each console capacitor, with free, detailed instructions of where to install on the motherboard.

 

[FrootyLoopsSamurai]

My question is did you plug it in with AC voltage or DC voltage? The NES doesn't care if it's AC or DC, but the Famicom needs DC and will get fried if you give it AC power.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

Please do not buy replacement capacitors on ebay or aliexpress. Look for a reputable vendor in your region. Mouser is a good choice in the US.

Bumping this. You don’t want to cheap out, because a poor capacitor can, at worst, be a fire risk, and at best, be a potential problem that can send you back to square one.

Get something that is reliable and lasts. It may cost you more in the short term, but it’ll save you and your store headaches in the long term.


(I have a retro store near me that I refuse to buy consoles from anymore, for example. Had a bunch of systems die on me because they’d get junk systems from EBay and stitch them back together with cheap fixes.)

 

[Weisite]

My question is did you plug it in with AC voltage or DC voltage? The NES doesn't care if it's AC or DC, but the Famicom needs DC and will get fried if you give it AC power.

Looking at it rn, the person who traded it in used an AC adapter, which could be the reason why it exploded! What is odd is that on the Famicom it says "AC" which either means the official AC Adapter used by the previous owner isn't AC, or the case may be different when it comes to AC and DC shenanigans.

 

[FrootyLoopsSamurai]

Technically an AC adapter just routes power from your wall (which is always 120V AC in the US) and steps down the voltage into something your console wants either AC or DC depending on the adapter. The Famicom wants 10V center negative DC power. The adapter itself should specify what it outputs. Look on there and see what kind of output it has. It's possible whoever traded it in might have traded in an NES AC adapter which outputs AC power only. There's also a possibility that it's the correct adapter and it's just broken. An original famicom AC adapter would be like 30 years old after all.

If the issue was the power supply, you're going to need to do some diagnostics with at least a multimeter and see what broke. With any luck none of the proprietary chips got zapped or you would have to source and replace them (not cheap) to get the console working again. You might need an oscilloscope to figure out which one of those might have broken. I actually just saw a video today where someone plugged in the wrong adapter to an AV Famicom. They had to replace a voltage regulator to get it working again. Your issue may or may not be the same.

Digikey or Mouser are some typical sites you can use to find replacement components other than the proprietary chips. Depending on your volume of products to repair, you might want to consider getting multiples of commonly used components. Components themselves are usually pretty cheap, but the relatively high shipping prices mean you will usually want to buy in bulk to make the purchase worth it.

 

[Weisite]

Bumping this. You don’t want to cheap out, because a poor capacitor can, at worst, be a fire risk, and at best, be a potential problem that can send you back to square one.

Get something that is reliable and lasts. It may cost you more in the short term, but it’ll save you and your store headaches in the long term.


(I have a retro store near me that I refuse to buy consoles from anymore, for example. Had a bunch of systems die on me because they’d get junk systems from EBay and stitch them back together with cheap fixes.)

And that is why we don't stitch together consoles! Or get them online! We very rarely get our consoles from ebay and mostly just take in stuff from trades locally. The main reason was because we (We as in I lol) had to clean out 27 roaches (A eggs too) from a Platinum Gamecube we got online, luckily I somehow did a really good cleaning job because apparently looked cleaner than some of the other ones we had.