bringing back to life dead genesis carts

[CRTGAMER]

so i bought a multimeter that measures capacitance. i thought it would be a good idea to test the capacitors before trying to replace all the caps in the sega cd only to find out it wasn't a cap problem.

and i am a complete idiot. i really don't know what the hell i am doing with it. to get familiar with it i and just to fiddle around with it i took a known working cart and i put the red tip on the positive terminal of the cap and the black tip on the negative terminal of the cap, just as the manual says to. to be honest i was expecting the thing to say, "cap is just awesome" or "cap is shit, buy a new one." unfortunately, that did not happen. numbers were spit out, which means nothing to me.

so how do you know if the cap is bad and need replaced? i am assuming since there are numbers being spit out that the caps are good, right? if nothing is spit out are the caps bad? should i just return the multimeter?

An honest Electrician. Yeah, what is with that, my meter does the same.

A Capacitor Capacitates, Condensatorates or Accumulates, okay sorry I'm being silly.
It is kinda like a holding area for electricity sort of a temporary surge battery.

See if this helps, Analog meter, easier to "See" result.
http://www.applianceaid.com/micro4.html

Sometimes hard to test mounted on the board, can't get true reading with interference of other electronics.

[Ziggy]

FFCD, I just saw this done on YouTube and I think it's definitely worth a shot. Try sanding the pins on the 'dead' cart with sand paper. The video didn't say what grit to use or anything, but it looks fairly rough. Probably around 100 or 120 grit, something like that. Sand the pins and then make sure you clean them REALLY good before testing the cart out.

I've got some carts in once where the pins were really messed up, I ended up having to basically file them down with a flat head screw drivers. Using sand paper is basically the same thing. Why not give it a try and see if it works? If you do, just make sure you sand them long enough to make a difference. But at the same time be careful not to ef up the PCB or anything.

[Troglodyte]

Try sanding the pins on the 'dead' cart with sand paper.

From personal experience, I can confirm that this method does work sometimes.

I had a whole paragraph typed out as a reply, but then I accidentally
hit the damn refresh key (F5), and lost everything I had typed

This forum really needs to be updated to use a real WYSIWYG editor
as well as cookies / session variables to save posts in progress.

Anyway, in the case of severe contact corrosion,
to the point that there is a cut contact 'circuit'; this will not work.
I have a number of 'dead' carts that are like this.

In this case, I thought about using a 'conductive circuit pen'
to try and 'bridge the gap' between the contacts and the rest of the circuit board.
Though, I have not been able to try this yet, as circuit pens seem expensive at $20.00
(not including shipping).

I am pretty sure I still own one, but I can't seem to find it.
The only reason I even own one, is the fact that I used to
use one to unlock the 'L1 Bridges' on AMD Athlon / Duron
processors.

The original 'L1 Bridges' were cut by AMD in order to prevent overclocking,
and since the circuit pen is conductive; it allows the circuit to be completed.

I mentioned this basically because I have faith that this method would work in cases like this.