I'm working on something a bit different today 😁. Thread coming soon

RT @RetroGamerArt: My beloved FM Towns Marty was a smoldering wreck !. Legendary console modder @topvint brought it back to life with his e….

So while I couldn't fix the FDD, the console now works and can play CD games. Maybe someday I will be asked to install an emulator (The Thing), and with some luck, a DocBrown with it. But for the moment, this FM Towns Marty has a new lease of life in it.

Cleaned up everything and tried to make it work, but it wouldn't. The disk just spins with no end. So I went in and cleaned the header, the motor, etc. I also cleaned the ribbon cable and the connector (which I read can go bad). No luck 😓

I then had a go at the FDD. Firstly, it had no belt, not even a disintegrated one. Clearly there was one at some point as there was residue in the spindle from the motor.

I put it back together and it worked! Had some fun drawing . although it was difficult with a pad rather than a mouse 😂 A reminder than a 1x CD drive is slow.

I wondered if the laser pick-up might be stuck due to lack of use. or maybe the motor was seized. So I disassembled it, cleaned the small belt and replaced the old grease with new one. I also sprayed some contact cleaner in the switch that detects the pickup movement.

I directed my attention to the CD drive, and also checked all the caps which were also replaced and seemed fine. The CD would spin for a few seconds but that's it. Activating the lid switch with no CD would move the lens up and down but nothing else

The console did boot fine after this and no more magic smoke. However neither the CD drive nor the Floppy Disk Drive were working.

Could this not be the only place were wrong caps had been installed? 🤔 So I went hunting down the motherboard for any other problems. In the meantime, I admired the wonderful world of bodges that this console is. I found one more cap with the wrong voltage, which I replaced too

I could have replaced just those two caps but I ordered a kit from Console 5 and replaced the whole PSU just in case any damaged could have happened to the other caps

The console did turn on, but I had to look at what that smoke was about (clearly). So I opened it up and it was immediately obvious that two caps in the PSU were blown. Looking at the values, they were meant to be 200V but the installed ones were 100V only 🫠

Customer had sent the console for recap a couple of years ago as the CD wasn't working, but when he got it back, the console had a burnt smell. He approached the recapping shop who declined to look at it again. So obviously the first thing I did was plug it & turn it on 😁

A Japan exclusive, the Marty is a sort-of consolised version of Fujitsu's FM Towns computers from the late 80s, featuring a 386SX CPU with 2MB of RAM and a modified version of MS-DOS called Town OS. It has a 1x CD-ROM and a FDD. Video output is composite and S-Video

I was asked to take a look at this Fujitsu FM Towns Marty which had been sent for a recap long ago & never worked again 🫢. It was quite an adventure, involving hunting, lubbing and magic smoke 😁 Want to see what happened? Check below 👇

That thermal paste tube was finishing too quick, so I upgraded 😁

RT @LukesGameStuff: Don't normally advertise on here but I do have a website setup with some pre-modded consoles. Shipping inside Australia….

The Free Modding Program allows me to get hold of consoles and mods I have not worked on before. You get your console modded for free, and I get some experience that I wouldn't otherwise get. I have now added the Nomad to my list of services 🎉