I got a cheap Dreamcast from Mercari, which is best described as a halfway point between eBay and Craigslist. Anyway, I got the machine yesterday, and it had a few issues; things like random shutdowns and disc read errors. I heard these could be fixed with fairly simple repairs. Problem is, one of the "simple repairs" turned out to be a bigger problem than expected.
For DREs, it was suggested to turn the potentiometer to strengthen the disc laser. I had done that before with other game systems, particularly the Playstation 2 and GameCube, but Sega thought it would be cute to make their pot extremely tiny and add some red epoxy to keep the user from adjusting it. The pot wouldn't turn with a screwdriver, and I couldn't cut through the epoxy with the tip of an X-Acto knife. So I got the brilliant idea to force it to turn with a pair of needle nose pliers. It turned, all right... straight off the laser assembly! Ugh.
So now instead of a Dreamcast that plays discs sometimes, I have one that plays discs NONE of the time. I'm not sure what I could do to repair it... the solder points on the pot are stupidly small, and every solution available (a GD-EMU, a new laser assembly, et al) are more expensive than just buying a different Dreamcast. If you have any ideas I haven't considered, please let me know. Also, the next time I find myself in a situation like this, what is the best way to remove the glue on a component without damaging it?