PSA: Star Fox Cart Capacitor

[Ziggy]

It was recently discovered that the electrolytic capacitors found on the glob top version of the Star Fox cartridge are prone to leaking. If you own Star Fox, open it up and check which revision you have. If it's the glob top version, check the cap and make sure it isn't already leaking. And either way, replace the cap as soon as possible.

RetroRGB article: https://www.retrorgb.com/star-fox-cartr ... ncern.html

Picture of glob top versus standard chip version (source: RetroRGB article)



Picture of the back of the glob top PCB, where the cap is located (source: SNES Central)



For those that don't know, all electrolytic capacitors will eventually go bad. At best, they will dry up and no longer be in spec or fail all together. But at worst, they will leak a corrosive substance that will damage the PCB.

The Star Fox cart uses a surface mounted electrolytic capacitor, and you can find an exact replacement part for it. Alternatively, you can solder in a through hole cap instead. That's what I did to my Star Fox cart, since I had the through hole cap on hand. Luckily, mine had not been leaking.

[Nemoide]

Bleh, lousy news even though I don't have any SNES stuff.

I wonder if its worth doing preventative recaps of my carts. I guess I should at least plan on spending a day opening them up and checking for damage.

[Ziggy]

Generally speaking, the caps found in carts have been good up to this point. The glob top Star Fox cart was made specifically to cut cost, that's probably why it has a leaking capacitor (they used a cheap one) while other carts have not yet had this problem.

You can recap your carts as a preventive measure though, it certainly wont do any harm. Personally, I'm not going to bother outside of my Star Fox cart. If I'm changing a battery, I may consider also changing the cap since I usually have them on hand. But I'm not gonna go out of my way. At least not yet.

[Anapan]

Don't have one, but thanks! This could destroy!

[Electricview]

Recently stumbled upon a youtube video showing this very thing. Found out of my 2 starfox carts one has this board and is infact leaking. I want to do the replacement but i only have these caps on hand:
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/det ... gCIgC6AvkA

Its a surface mount 22uf 25V ceramic .. assuming I could get it to fit, can I use this? I think the original was 35v but would 25v be sufficient? The only other radials i have are like 10v and this feels like I could probably get it to fit nicely plus I have 15 of them on hand..

Thoughts?

[Anapan]

I don't substitute resistors or caps when I know the correct one. I've bought two "functional working" Game Gears that ended up killing themselves because they were recaped with random crap the sellers had onhand. One I managed to salvage after cleaning the bodge job but the board's rough from all the abuse, the other was trashed. Caps are cheap and easy to source.