Had another Atari Jaguar sent in for a Zaxour 64BP video/audio bypass! Been seeing quite a bit of Jaguar action in 2026 which is rad, underappreciated system I say!
These days I have no idea if the customer bought the extra flex or not but my fingers are always crossed they do now that I’ve seen how much easier/quicker the job is… and this time its a newer 1-1 rev kit with the fixed/improved CVBS restoration layout!
This customer did elect for the cleaning service so as always, started by tearing down full and soaking the shell for a wash and overnight dry. Jag disassembly is super easy, the most annoying part is dealing with all the metal tabs to get into the mainboard cage but pliers make quick work of that!
While the shell was drying, got to work on the recap! Ive noticed that for some reason most of the Jags I see the capacitor TH are quite cloudy/dull and difficult to get flowing for cap removal so it always requires a full reflow with fresh solder to make removal easier and cleaner.
Got all the old caps off the board, deep cleaned the board top and bottomside with some ISO and laid out the cap map to install replacements from Console5, planning around the handful that stay removed because of the 64BP kit.
I’ve done enough of these Zaxour kits to have the process down nice and quick, most important thing is aligning the DIN the best you can with the metal cage and to a dry/test fit before soldering in place. I then wire up Y/C and CVBS to lay the wires in trench and use 2x 3M adhesive rubber strips to hold the bypass board above the DIN plate/trench.
Next I added fresh solder to all plated TH and pads I will be soldering flex to, and attached the 4 wires that are still manually done on this install for composite video, svideo and 9V.
Flex went on nice and easy, most important to align with the Jaguar motherboard points first then gently flex up and align with 64BP. Once soldered into place, ran the 2 audio wires and the install is complete! Quick test passed so added my service sticker and closed it up for final bench testing and captures!
On the bench I loaded up FirebrandX’s Jaguar profile (10x sharp) and using a Saturn Csync cable from new din, got some 4K Captures of various games to not only test but show off the results! (check socials for full post later with proper 4K res screenshots).
From my previous customers Jag work I have a batch of the RF hole plugs which cover the empty space and avoid the flex being visible so snapped one of those in, applied the UV protectant coat and got it packed up for return to the customer.
Another Jag in the books!
