In the ‘Hall Of Fame’ for most annoying consoles to work on, we have a new winner to crown and frankly its not even close 😅
This fancy piece of kit was shipped to me all the way from Mexico and luckily made it here safely. Customer wanted it refurbished with priority on adding an ODE solution since the drive was physically inoperable. Everything else was a bonus, including fixing the tray and rails. After some discussion we settled on the Picoboot because unlike the FlippyDrive (which takes forever to ship) I stock Pico’s in the shop and if you are having someone like me install it, the only downside (wiring) is really irrelevant. It’s also an extremely cost-effective solution as the Pico is less than 5 dollars and I provide the extra parts at no cost.
Disassembly on this was extremely slow as I was documenting each step, marking all flexes and carefully sorting screws as I worked my way down through the Q. Once the system was completely disassembled and sorted, I figured it made the most sense to work in reverse order and one board/part at a time and assemble as we go. So first up was the GameCube and this was the quickest due to my familiarity with it. I removed and cleaned the heatsink, replaced all the electrolytic caps on the mainboard, connected the wires needed for Picoboot and then installed brand new thermal pads and reseated the heatsink.
Knowing this was ready to go back into the bottom shell piece I cleaned that and put the bottom brackets and shielding in place then reinstalled the GameCube board and carefully reinstalled the top shield. Once the top shield was back on, I then 3D printed a bracket to mount the Pico board on top near the fan and secured it using heat inserts and M2 screws. This great design is over on Printables if you need it – https://www.printables.com/model/522269-panasonic-q-picoboot-mount-heat-insert-screw-varia
With the Picoboot mounted I then terminated all the wires connecting to the mainboard including the VSYS 5V pin. This requires a diode in line so I carefully bent the lead so it could solder directly to the Pico and then wired to that.
The next step was to start replacing the boards and parts nearby so I decapped, cleaned and then recapped the secondary PSU board which sits behind the GameCube board at the very bottom.
Next, before adding more boards and getting clutter in the way, I decided to swap out the fan. When I first tested the Q the fan was OBNOXIOUSLY loud, so since I had spare Noiseblocker fans on hand (for GameCube jobs) I found it’s a direct 1:1 replacement for the stock fan, seemed like a no brainer. I made the assumption that just like the GameCube you simply cut/remove the white wire and join the red and black to stock connector and hook up… however later on I would find out that was NOT the case…
The next step before recapping and installing more of the boards in place was to replace the controller board battery which keeps date/time and connect that board back up to the Q chassis, as I had seen it recommended in that order before it becomes too difficult to reach and insert flex. I popped off the boards and metal shields to get to the battery and while I planned to use a CR2032 holder, the space on both sides of the board were simply too low/tight for any of the holders I had in stock so I decided to just install a new tabbed replacement. I removed the old battery, tested and confirmed it only had .2V instead of the 3V the new battery did and then soldered it in place and re-assembled the front panel before socketing the front panel flex back into the Q. I then laid the assembled front panel down carefully and was sure to support it when moving things around to prevent flex damage.
I then began the process of recapping and cleaning the boards one at a time and reinstalling in order. So next up was the primary PSU board and connector board, then worked my way to the large AV board on the side and finished with the top LCD board. After each board in the process was done, I would connect it to any boards installed before (if applicable) and make note of any remaining connections and what board they would go to so I could carefully route the wires and flexes and avoid any nasty surprises later (like forgetting to plug something in)
Once I got to the point where I would need to reinstall the DVD drive itself (back panel back on, AV board on the side and all lower components in place) I stopped the reassembly to focus on seeing what I could do with the drive. This was purely a bonus as they mentioned the previous owner had tried some 3D printed rails but the drive was seized and would not open. When I had peeked inside the drive earlier to inspect it I was immediately met with half a dozen or so chunks of plastic that would turn out to be rather large chips from the DVD tray underside/supports. I also noticed the existing 3D printed rail system was of low quality.
Before installing the new 3D printed parts I decided to replace the drive belt while I had open and easy access to it. Annoyingly on the Q, you have to remove the neighboring gears and 3 retaining rings which are super thin and flimsy and the risk of one popping off or getting lost is high. So, using 2 pairs of tweezers I carefully pried them off one by one and set aside, then took each gear out and deep cleaned it and set aside as well. The new belt went on easily once those were out of the way, then I greased up the shafts and installed the gears and retaining rings back in reverse order.
For the 3D printed parts, someone had pointed me to ‘ModdestlyYours’ on Etsy who does a great job offering quality prints of both so I ordered a combo tray and rail kit from them.
The new rails snapped in place perfectly and the holes provided a nice solid grab when screwing in place. Even though the seller had put grease on the underside of the tray i added some extra to a few points of the rails just to ensure the smoothest operation possible. With the rails and belt in place and fresh grease throughout I carefully snapped the OEM tray cover on the 3D printed tray and inserted it back into the drive ensuring that after it was fully pushed in and gear turned all the way, the laser assembly moved up and locked into place.
It was then time to recap and clean both of the DVD drive boards and finish the assembly of the drive which involved re-attaching the shielding and reconnecting the flexes. I then hooked the back of the drive into the rear plate, screwed in place and then proceeded to hook the rest of the flexes up for all connections but the top LCD panel. For that, it snapped right in place and since the side panels were still off, I was able to hook those 4 connections in. At this point since the main chassis and connections were all together and the unit was stable I figured it was a good time to test…
…And my heart sank as I powered it on, tried entering Game Mode and was met with a loud click and immediate power down. With so many possible things that could have gone wrong during reassembly I was assuming the worst.
Remember that comment on the Noiseblocker fan install? Well… Apparently they work fine but on the Q you have to bridge the pad for the white wire to 5V, easiest way to do this is simply bridge it with the neighboring red pad on the fan. I found this via the RetroSix wiki but confirmed it with someone who has worked on a lot of these, IFixRetro who generously was happy to help. Knowing those pads are on the outer side of the fan just under a sticker, I avoided a potentially massive time setback and was able to just pop the sticker off, bridge white to red and re-adhere the sticker.
And wouldn’t you know it… The Q fired right up, Picoboot loaded and it launched SWISS thanks to the test SD card in the SD2SP2 port that was all configured with the ipl dol file. The system was completely silent now compared to before you could barely tell it’s running. I configured SWISS, let it run for a while and launched/played a handful of games.
I then backed out of the menu to stock GUI, set date and time and messed with the tray a bit. What I found was, it totally works but does seem to hitch a bit when the tray is about halfway closed/open. I issued the open/close command about 2 dozen times and it started getting much better to the point where it would fully close and open without any assistance albeit maybe with a tiny but of slowdown in this same area. I’m going to keep working the drive in but I’m assuming this is clearly a case of an FDM printed object needing to wear itself in a bit in regard to fine details like the teeth on the tray.
All in all, between the new battery and all new caps, cleaning, working Picoboot and completely silent fan this Q is in great shape. I’ll keep messing with the tray and working it in a bit but compared to before it’s a world of a difference!
What a project this was, glad to have this wrapped up 👍