So originally this was on the docket for a more straightforward refurbishment/cleaning but there were a few surprises in store mostly in regards to some issues in the power circuit and the fact this Nomad was putting out no sound through the speakers. Customer indicated sound over headphone jack worked ok so that narrowed it down to either a dead speaker or possibly damaged connector/broken wires.
On the power front it would not run on power from the AC jack input only from an external battery pack so I knew something with the jack itself or a trace to the TR201 or nearby component was likely damaged. Unfortunately on these Nomads I see a lot of bad attempts at replacing worn power jacks and the results are often quite catastrophic, ripped pads or broken legs, in this case the entire inner sleeve of the 9V leg was gone and it wasnt making contact with the either end of the plated hole – hence the no powering on.
On to the repairs and refurbishment…
Since cleaning service was selected I disassembled the system fully down to the bare shell on both sides, took out all the buttons and membranes and set all the plastic shell components to the side for cleaning while I got started on the mainboard work.
First up I took a look over and assessed the power jack area. Could see the usual suspects had leaked both of the TH caps near the jack and TR201. Quite a bit of leaked electrolyte around and likely under the TR201 and since those are a common failure point I removed that not only to clean the board but also replace with a modern board/component kit I stock as I see this frequently. I also desoldered the 2 solid ground legs on the jack and observed the damage to the plated holes. In order to ensure that reinstalling the jack would be a success I scraped and exposed the traces bordering on the missing pads so I could flow in solder and securely bind the legs to the bottom side of the board. With the jack soldered back on it felt very secure and with my multimeter I was able to verify GND inside the jack to GND on the board and validate I was getting 9V in on the trace from the jack.
With that work done I then proceeded to fire up my Hakko tweezers and remove all the rest of the caps which are SMD from both boards, clean fully both sides and prep the pads for the new Console5 SMD cap kit. Once both boards were ready (most caps are on the main LCD board there are only 4 on the cartridge slot board) I installed them and then cleaned up any unspent flux on the board, recap done!
Now that the power jack / circuit has been repaired and system recapped, I wanted to fire it up and test for audio (just to ensure the no volume on speaker was not cap related but it was unlikely since headphones were working) and sure enough no sound at all. I checked and the wires were secure to both the speaker itself and the connector that interfaces with the main board. Luckily I have a spare Nomad here set aside for a future project and I quickly grabbed its speaker and swapped it in… we had sound! First time I’ve come across a bad speaker in a Nomad but either way, its working great and I can work to source a replacement in the future (that project is waiting until there is a good IPS screen replacement readily available)
With the system recapped, cleaned and power working from both battery and power jack, all that was left was to finish the cleaning. First I scrubbed and wiped down all membranes and buttons then the shell parts both inside and out and applied a light amount of Polywatch to the plastic lens and gently buffed out some of the heavy scratches. Once the shell was fully cleaned I reinstalled the buttons and membranes and began the process of reinstalling the screen and board, including removing any fingerprints, getting the speaker in its socket and clamped on and reattaching the start/mode button board.
Since it was tested and working I was also able to fill out the sticker and get that applied to the cart slot board RF shield and get this Nomad completely re-assembled. I set it up on the bench and validated both power methods, sound, cartridge reading and AV out to the PVM was all working as expected. Another Nomad in the books!