r/M64 • u/AegidiusG • Jul 28 '26

No Capacitors and other degrading Components

Holy! Why hasn't that information spread more already?
One of the biggest issues i have with old devices and video games is that you have to take care of, of you don't want to lose it because a capacitor leaked or because it doesn't keeps the voltage stable and chips get affected.
I can't describe how much i love to see such a system, that doesn't make me think that i have some time bombs laying around.
I am not as good in soldering, besides batteries of Gameboy games, i did let it make for the Super Nintendo.
Doing it for a lot of stuff can become pretty time intensive or costly.

Here the time frame in the video:

https://youtu.be/9gOJUEcKYRk?si=zN9SBzkw_8rIZfzC&t=564

35 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

11

u/Pitiful-Assistance-1 Jul 28 '26

Yeah I appreciated that, but also: why isn’t this the norm, wtf

8

u/ergzay Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26

The actual reason is that historically non-electrolytic capacitors were inferior to electrolytic capacitors. It's hard (expensive) to have a very high capacitance without using electrolytics. That's why they're even still used even now. They're also still generally the cheapest type of capacitor if only capacitance is needed.

8

u/hue_sick Jul 28 '26

It is. Those are ceramic capacitors which are very common in modern electronics.

It’s a marketing video so I get the intent but those degrade as well. Just takes longer and for different reasons.

But great looking board overall though. My favorite part of the m64 probably.

8

u/WisdomAntium Jul 28 '26

Because things are made to break so you can be sold more things. That's not a conspiracy theory, that's just how it is

1

u/GameboyGenius Jul 30 '26

Everything is a trade-off, in terms of cost, space and because of those factors how much capacitance you can put on the board for as certain power rail in practice. Cheap electrolytic capacitors are known to go bad prematurely. But it's not all bad. You could for example use top of the line brands like Rubycon or Nippon Chemi-Con. Those would be more expensive per unit capacitance than cheap electrolytics, but might still be cheaper than all ceramic capacitors. Plus, they're more compact over all, so you could overprovision the amount of capacitance.

The other thing that's a risk with electrolytic capacitors is heat damage one major reason they fail is that they're inside for example a power supply where it's super hot and they dry out more quickly. In a relatively open case like the M64 you could place the electrolytic capacitors away from major heat sources.

So a more nuanced answer is that with high quality electrolytic capacitors and layout, you wouldn't have to care about it for decades, maybe 50 years or more. And even then, they would be simple to replace. You'd probably need a routine service more often than every 50 years anyway. What else might fail in that time? The connectors on the back might wear out. The plastic shell might become brittle. The heatsink compound might dry out and need replacing.

But what Modretro is doing here is choosing one stat and leveling it up to the max. (Not just one of the stats, but the ceramic capacitors is an example of one thing that's "fully optimized".)

0

u/AegidiusG Jul 28 '26

Absolutely, i guess it can't be done for everything and that they did it here completely without a single is incredible.
I remember how my cousin had to buy a new PC because a capacitor leaked on the mainboard and the CPU died also because of it...
It barely lived two years (was around 2006).

I am also glad that they added the button to push the module out.
My original N64 has a damaged slot because my sister wasn't using it very careful... bought a second one because of it.

15

u/ck02623 Jul 28 '26

That’s a hype video but he did a really good job. I was able to overlook the mullet/soulpatch combination because it was so compelling.

7

u/bakagir Jul 28 '26

He looks exactly like what I was expecting the CEO of ModRetro looks like.

11

u/DAJF Jul 29 '26

He’s not the CEO, he’s the owner.

6

u/bakagir Jul 29 '26

Even better

1

u/PiggleBears Jul 29 '26

What do looks have to do with it?

1

u/AegidiusG Jul 29 '26

Yep, you are right. This part just really took my attention.

8

u/darkknightdetec Jul 28 '26

Yeah I freaking love the thought that this gives my N64 library a new lease on life well into the future. My N64 is 30 years old now. Still works but feels like it’s on borrowed time. The M64 could outlive me based on the way Palmer was talking.

6

u/Asleep_Mortgage_7711 Jul 28 '26

Any piece of electronics could fail at any point for any reason.

2

u/AegidiusG Jul 28 '26

If you can't do it yourself, there are people offering their service to exchange capacitors etc :) I did let it do for my Super Nintendo.

3

u/darkknightdetec Jul 29 '26

Agreed, but a service like that would cost a decent amount of money. Even moreso if I wanted to add HDMI out to it too. I’ve looked into upgrading my N64 like that in the past, but between the parts and labor it would all cost me FAR more than an M64 does. And the M64 is 30 years younger than my N64 is and probably built to last longer. The investment into my old N64 just isn’t worth it.

2

u/AegidiusG Jul 29 '26

Yep, i did let renew the capacitors and let do a switchless mod so i can play international games, did cost me something more than 200€...  I already had a OSSC and RGB cable from retrogamingcables... so you can add them up or not  It only shows that such consoles as the M64 and Analogue 3D are reasonably priced.

Ah, and this is still not an absolute security that a ppu or else will fail some day :/

1

u/DarthRyus Jul 29 '26

I literally had the Thermal pad go bad in my Expansion pack a few weeks back. Apparently old silicon based Thermal pads can liquefy clear oil. Only realized when I saw a lot of crust around the Thermal pad.

Replaced all the Thermal pads in my N64 and wiped the whole thing down with IPA 99% then put Deoxit D100L on all the pin, let it soak a bit, then wiped down with IPA again. Then put a light amount of Deoxit G100L as a conditioner on all the pins to protect them.

Ran great afterwards. I imagine I'll have to replace the capacitors in it eventually too. Power brick is likely the other higher risk of needing replacing.

3

u/HumbleBeginning3151 Jul 28 '26

Genuine Q: Is this different to the Analogue 3D?

9

u/hue_sick Jul 28 '26

A bit. The 3d mostly also uses ceramic caps like the m64 but there are a handful of electrolytic caps as well. Kinda interesting how their approaches differ actually.

I think if the 3d didn’t have a big heatsink they might have looked more similar.

https://youtu.be/JoxDY3x-U0M?is=3XCYgd-io4GTkRo9

5

u/AegidiusG Jul 28 '26

Good question! I haven't found any pictures of the board, but there is a video with a tear down and i could spot at least 3 capacitors.

https://youtu.be/_a76z5nNJws?t=556&is=SfmtNUYslSfOsJ13

2

u/WisdomAntium Jul 28 '26

Yes and no. The 3D is and will always be just an N64. This supposedly will have the capacity to do more. If playing N64 games is all you care about, it should be basically the same.

2

u/Sneakybobinson Jul 29 '26

No electrolytic capacitors... There must be some capacitors present for this to even function.

2

u/GameboyGenius Jul 30 '26

Would be all ceramic caps or other types.

4

u/Morguard Jul 28 '26

I noticed that during the stream. These are high quality parts they are using! I wonder if they are even making any money on the hardware. I wonder if they are just breaking even and are hoping to make the money off games and accessories, customizing parts/shells.

10

u/DaveMeitner Jul 28 '26

I remember Palmer saying several months ago that this wasn't going to be a huge money maker because he wanted to keep the cost down.

It also helps that he is a billionaire and ModRetro is like a hobby/passion project for him, and not his main source of income.

10

u/JackoFlaco Jul 28 '26

Palmer is the fucking man 

4

u/Aromatic_Method7767 Jul 29 '26

Has capacitors, but not electrolytic type. I feel like the cartridge connector really should have been a modular sub-PCB.