The other day I was repairing a Game Gear. Nothing out of the ordinary, I was just replacing the capacitors. This all went fine and dandy; the unit went from not turning on at all to having a full picture and full sound. The only issue was that there was some black lines going across the screen (this is another problem for another time though). After a bit of researching I found out this might have to do with the cable that goes into the screen not being seated probably. Anyway, I lifted up the main board out of the case to see the back where the screen is, and the bloody contrast wheel fell off!
The problem now is that the contrast is stuck on a ridiculous level, making the unit unusable. The weird thing was, was that it wasn't as easy as just placing the wheel back onto the small rod, it seems that the plastic has broken in the hole meaning that it won't seat probably. It's too high to use, it just spins around and around non-stop (while usually a small metal bit juts out to stop it).
First thing I tried to do was melt the plastic around the rod again, so it would spin more solidly without dislodging its self:
This didn't work at all, even though it wasn't unseating its self anymore, the contrast level still couldn't be changed. After a while it did unseat its self though, making it all the more frustrating.
Thinking that that wheel was done for, I've decided to replace the whole wheel. Luckily, I have a spare GG from a failed fix attempt a couple of years ago. Considering that the wheel is suppose to be attached to the whole chipset that controls the contrast, I want to rip the whole thing out and put it in my newer GG. I've tried desoldering it, but I'm having issues. As you can see in the photo below, I've easily desoldered the two bigger contact points on the left, that solder sucked up quite easily. The problem I'm having is with the 4 smaller ones on the right. No matter how much I try, I just can't seem to get enough solder out to the pull out the whole assembly.
Here is a photo of that area from the other side of the circuit board:
If anyone can help me out with this, it would be greatly appreciated.
