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I refurbished this PC-FX I recently got from japan, and it ended up working great 😁 I always buy "junk" items and many times they look bad but end up working just fine, although other times repairs I needed. Want to see what I did? Check it below! 👇

The PC-FX was the 32 bit entry to NEC's line of consoles, which peaked with the 8/16 bit PC-Engine . The PC-FX never left Japan, probably due to its commercial failure, and was the last console NEC released. The PC-FX can't really do 3D graphics in a generation where 3D was king, like PS1 or N64.

This unit was visibly dirty but I didn't know if the laser would work or not. Rather than testing it, I decided to recap the console first just in case. That of course meant to disassemble the console... this must be the most complex console to disassemble after the Panasonic Q 🫠

Slide side panels out, unclip the front panel, unclip and unplug the top laser assembly, unscrew and unclip back panel, unscrew and remove shield and main board and both earth cables, remove PSU, unscrew and remove shield and sub-board, remove 3 plastic extension brackets and bottom shield...

And the two boards also have a soldered extra shield, which took a fair amount of super-wick to remove 😥

The main board has through-hole caps and the sub-board mostly SMD caps, apart from two "hidden" through-hole caps installed as surface mounted, a la GameGear style. There is also a super capacitor. Thankfully Console5 had the right kit.