I’ve worked on my fair share of Marty’s at this point and almost all of them have the same issues and failure points. PSU’s always need to be recapped. C22 is always leaking (question is how much damage is done), the CDROM tray switch is always broken, etc.
This one was a slight anomaly only in that despite looking rough on the outside (yellowed and dirty) the interior was in surprisingly nice shape. The aforementioned tray switch was fully intact and operational and while C22 was leaking, no severe board/trace damage had occurred.
Immediately after unboxing I reached out to the customer to offer my complimentary retrobright service with the cleaning they had opted for but did state that my results on severely yellowed darker plastics such as this Marty can be hit or miss. Often times they will not restore perfectly even and in some cases that can be more noticeable than just dealing with a yellowed shell. If this was a super common and cheap console I would not really think much of it as I probably have replacement shells on hand (like for a PS1) but the Marty is rare and expensive so I had to confirm. They opted to leave the shell as is and just wanted it thoroughly cleaned and recapped so began the process!
Getting into the Marty is easy but there is a shocking number of screws of various sizes securing the PSU, FDD, upper frame and lower plate, etc. Definitely make good use of my Kytor screw trays for these consoles!
With all internals fully removed I proceeded to blow out all the hair/debris, then soaked and scrubbed and set aside all shell and plastic parts to dry overnight.
When it comes to the recapping process, I like to tackle (decap, clean board and then recap) each component one at a time starting with the PSU. There are two different PSUs found in the Marty either an Eastern or a Tamura. This one had a Tamura which in my experience is a little less prone to severely leaking but still absolutely needs a recap, luckily I stock both PSU cap kits at all times as I can never know which one will be present in a Marty until teardown.
Next up was the CDROM board which is pretty straightforward to remove the actual laser assembly, then carefully pop off a plastic shield covering 4 of the caps and have access to all of them. While working in the area of the CDROM was extra careful to not bump or disturb the tray switch with how fragile they are, but I did clean it with my air duster and a gentle brush.
After installing all new caps and re-securing the plastic cover I gently cleaned the rails and applied fresh lube to the optical drive, then soldered the motor and pcb connection points back to the board and set the finished CDROM aside.
Last step (and the most time consuming) was the mainboard. After reflowing all cap joints, I was able to make pretty quick progress with my desoldering gun, only needing some extra attention in the area of C22 as some of the corrosion prevented the joints from flowing well on nearby caps. I handle this by carefully scraping and cleaning the corrosion off the joints and reflowing again with extra flux. Once those components were removed, I completely soaked the entire affected area in 99% ISO and let sit for some time, then scrubbed, and rinsed and repeated several times including under nearby chips until the board was completely clean.
New cap install is a much faster process using a Console5 cap kit for the mainboard. After soldered in and leads snipped, deep cleaned the underside of the board with ISO and started wiping down the bottom and top metal frames/shielding for reassembly.
Carefully worked back in reverse order to ensure screws were installed back in proper location, stopping only prior to top shell assembly so the unit could be tested while i was open and easy to access. The Marty fired right up, played starfield intro with nice loud (not crackling) audio and also carefully held down switch with a disc in place, and it booted immediately.
With testing confirmed, signed off on sticker and closed the system up then found my burned copy of Splatterhouse and let it run for a while and gave it a playthrough along with a few other games. Sadly, I do not own any legit disc-based Marty games as they are difficult to find and very expensive, so I rely on burned copies for testing all Marty systems.
Either way, got it all boxed up for safe return shipping and another order closed!