an easy fox fix for today 🪛🦊 this switch was not charging, and replacing a missing resistor at the battery management IC fixed it right up. and to my delight it had pokemon sword on it, so I was able to inject the save that I extracted from my own broken switch and rescue my beloved sword dog 🗡️🐺

had a dream that sly cooper 5 was announced.. hoping this is a gift of prophecy moment

just had a buyer of one of my repaired switches who I believe to be in their 20's refer to it as a "nintendo"... some things are timeless

I think my most recent repair is the one I am most proud of; I took a dead board and fixed every issue it had, one by one. replacing the ram, the wifi ic, the fuel gauge, and eventually reflowing the apu to top it all off.. I really feel like I did everything right and gave this switch a second life

success! after reballing a donor wifi chip and replacing it, it finally booted into the OS. this was a parts board from a previous repair tech that I took from blue screen (bad ram) to black screen (bad fuel gauge) to orange screen (bad wifi), and finally into the OS. now that is a fox fix 🦊👍

this switch motherboard had a blue screen, which can be an issue with ram. I reballed a donor set, and with working ram could boot into hekate, which showed me the fuel gauge was bad.. I replaced that, and was then treated to an orange screen, which can be the wifi chip.. this is gonna be a long one

country foxes without the correct solder paste stencil make do

*who's that pokemon voice* IT'S VAPOREON

no repair today, but a considerable effort.. this board had separated layers due to hot air rework, which severed multiple vias including one that went straight to the CPU.. I used board scans to find a safe place to drill two layers and expose it to run a jumper. it didn't fix it, but I did my best

ok thank god haha

the switch motherboards I work on often have factory writing and markings on them, but this letter B looks like some kind of 3D street graffiti? it's strangely beautiful for something so inconsequential

a second repair for today: I started on the loose motherboards from that big repair lot, and this one had no backlight. upon inspection, the IC that boosts the voltage to drive the backlight was damaged. I replaced it with a reballed one from a donor board, and now things are looking bright 🦊👍

today's repair is a video! 🦊📽️

and the end result! I was able to repair 14 out of the 15 assembled consoles, with only one having no power due to water damage and being set aside for later. and as a bonus, 12 of them are unpatched/hackable! this was a very good fix fox lot 🦊👍 now to work on all the loose motherboards hehe

with all the docks and chargers that came with that recent repair lot, I realized I can stress test multiple switches at once... such decadence

today's repair: a "quick" PI3USB docked video output chip replacement.. takes me a couple tries to get them seated just right so all the pins flow properly, but it is working 🦊👍

well, after almost four years it finally happened.. I accidentally fumbled the pointer in steamvr and closed steam while I was in vrchat haha

it took a game cart/touchscreen connector pin replacement, a backlight cable trace repair, and rebuilding the firmware to remove an update nag that prevented playing cartridges, but the 1.0.0 switch is now completely refurbished and functional, ready to find a new home 🦊👍

nevermind??? even though it looked like both ends of the wire flowed properly, it turned out to be a cold joint when I checked it with my multimeter. always test your work!!

sometimes a repair is not a fix.. this switch's touchscreen and housing assembly was immaculate, except for a burnt trace on the backlight ribbon. I repaired the trace to avoid having to replace the LCD, but unfortunately the backlight seems to be dead. I am still happy with how it turned out 🦊👍

one late night fix to close out fix fox friday: this switch had a damaged pin on the card reader/touchscreen connector that was causing touch issues. I replaced it and reflowed the others for good measure, and now it is all good 🦊👍 this is the firmware 1.0.0 unit as well, the touch test is blue!

a relaxing fix fox friday, cleaning each of the consoles that passed initial power checks and then stress testing them to a crisp in the flat step dock

today's repair..? a switch that had no joy-con charging or fan spin; they use the same 5V rail, which was shorted to ground. I injected 5V to see if anything got warm, and the short just.. went away? and fan and charging work again? that bad component can sit there quietly exploded now I guess lol

I love how the previous tech who worked on these consoles left a lot of helpful notes like "tested working, unpatched" or "partial digitizer outage", and then there's this one that just says old

now there's something I didn't expect to see in my repairs: a switch on firmware 1.0.0. it's mostly a novelty since the common method to run homebrew is firmware independent, but it is still neat to see 🦊👍

eight of the assembled consoles received power, booted to the OS, and output docked video, three of the most critical functions.. that's a week's worth of repairs right out of the box 🦊👍

sometimes fix fox friday is actually a wednesday 🦊📦

wiggling cerberus fortnite to bless your timeline

are you allowed to say that???

the reason I was so focused on repairs recently is that I saw an auction from a former repair shop that was clearing out its entire switch inventory, and wanted to have enough extra funds to bid before the auction ended.. I worked as hard as I could and I actually did it

*pitch-shifted dankpods voice* AAAA

after a long few days of non-stop repair work and ebaying, I had a lovely time tonight dancing in vr and hanging out with my friends 🦊🐾 very refreshing and centering

I've been saying "Hey. $90" to myself for the past hour

cracking up cause this phone had a sticker on it that caused uneven wear on the rear glass, so unless it is perfectly clean there is a phantom flat step

I think I felt myself animorph into the 😬 emoji in real time

FIX FOX FRIDAY BABY

so four of them just.. work?? docked video output, usb-c power delivery in both orientations.. after jump starting their batteries, aside from minor issues to fix like bad touchscreen or joy-con rails these are completely functional. now that is a fix fox friday ✨🦊✨

it's fix fox friday again! another six switches for fixes 🪛🦊 two that turned right on, two that were unresponsive (can be low battery), and two that had clear issues (bsod and permanent low battery/charging icon). let's see how many I can fix 🦊👍

twas the night before fix fox friday......

today's repair: a phone that had its display adhesive fail 🦊📱 this 1mm tape is kind of fiddly to work with, but it seems to have done the trick 🦊👍

let it not be said I don't go the extra mile.. I asked the previous owner if they wanted any of the save data preserved and ended up rescuing their legit soft reset shiny palkia

today's repair: a switch that had 3.3v shorted to ground, but it wasn't the usual suspects of the charging or docked video chips.. after a fair bit of component removal whack-a-mole I finally found this bad capacitor on the 3.3v line. after replacing that it booted right up 🦊👍

a birthday surprise! I went to the thrift store and found a perfect little wild republic fox for $3! ✨🦊✨

🦊🎉🎂

a successful touch screen test 🦊

bananimal... just like me fr...

five nights at freddy's: into the pit is free on the epic games store! it's a great horror puzzle/adventure game with really tense atmosphere, gorgeous pixel art and animations, and 80's arcade vibes! it's absolutely worth playing, especially for free!

a chill morning of listening to the chemical brothers and cleaning/reassembling the switches I fixed, I am one happy animal 🦊✨

finally an easy one for today's switch repair.. all it needed was a charging chip replacement, and you can hardly tell I changed it at all hehe. and as a bonus, when it turned on I got a visit from the season I started playing fortnite 🙂

it's fixed switch saturday 🦊🎉 some of them were much more work than I was anticipating (as I had posted about before), but 5 out of 6 units repaired is not bad at all. I learned a lot and am one happy fix fox 🪛🦊