RARE Vintage Casio Western Bar handheld game repair

[@AlexeyBorzykh]

This was THE game back in `85 that every person in our school wanted to play. The guy who used to own it was a pretty kind person as he allowed to take it home for a day or two, then you'll have to pass it to the next one waiting in line, which, sometimes was last for a month of even more. Since then it was my dream to own one. Thanks to ebay, i have three of them now, along with the other gems like Grandstand Scramble and Donkey Kong.

[@BuyitFixit]

Very nice 👍

[@CrazyMan_Engineer]

I never knew scifi and western themes could go together.

[@BuyitFixit]

😂😂Very true!

[@brainjellyTV]

I still have mine…works 100%…my Dad took me out of class in 3rd grade to picked one out for my birthday…this was in Santiago, Chile 1986

[@BuyitFixit]

Nice 👍I think these are quite rare 🙂

[@Mymatevince]

Enjoyable video. I had an old 1983 Grandstand Pocket Scramble game that had a dim display. A new polarizing filter angled just right made it clearer, I think I bought a pack of 3 iPad filters quite cheaply over on eBay 👍👍

[@BuyitFixit]

I did see @StezStix Fix? replace a polarizing filter in an LCD game a couple of weeks back. I still have the game but I was worried that I might damage the display while trying to replace it.

[@Handlebar-MustDash]

​@@BuyitFixitI replaced the polarising filter on my Fluke 83 and used a single edge razor at a very shallow angle and steadily slid it between the film and the glass. With patience the adhesive comes away too needing just a slight rub of an IP soaked piece of kitchen roll for tiny residue. I have inverted the display on some of my LCD Watches by replacing the polarising film, rotating the film until you see the inversion effect and then sticking it down.

[@horstszibulski19]

We came a long way since the haydays of these kind of games, no SD cards or Wifi connections, no 4way or analog joysticks...just one game hardwired in a case, but they were quite hot at their days... 🤪

[@BuyitFixit]

Yes, I had some similar games when I was a kid.

[@FrankJCarver]

I'm working on a vintage LCD handheld, at the moment and I've got it to work really well, but I just can't get any sound. I bought a couple of piezo buzzers, but they just don't do anything. Do you think you could tell me what might be wrong? All the other components have been tested and are working well.

[@BuyitFixit]

I'd trace the wires back from the piezo buzzer and see where they go. If they go to a transistor then I'd perhaps check that, If they go directly into the IC (and you get continuity from on the traces to the piezo) then that would be the problem.

[@FrankJCarver]

@@BuyitFixit Thank you.

[@Handlebar-MustDash]

I bought an LCD Game back in 2002 that was in very poor taste, it was a game with the Twin Towers being attacked by aircraft, it wasn't a Tomy which seemed to produce most of the handheld LCD Games at that time. I stupidly sold it at a Carboot Sale because it felt disrespectful playing it but really wish I had kept it now as I have yet to come scross another one so it would presumably be worth a lot at this point. I bought it retail in a shop, possibly Wilkinsons or the like so it had passed scrutiny for good taste rather unbelievably. I can't begin to imagine the outrage today on Twitter and the like if a game was made of that London Tower Block Grenfell which burnt down and quite rightly. How times have changed.

[@BuyitFixit]

Wow I've never heard of such a game. Agree it might be worth some now. I do have vague memories of some LCD game where people were jumping out of burning towers and you had a trampoline that you moved across the bottom of the screen though...

[@Handlebar-MustDash]

@@BuyitFixit The game may have featured the trampolines too, my memory is not too good about the gameplay itself these 22 years later and my advancing years beginning to take a toll. I didn't play it for too long before selling it on as I felt bad playing it. It was made to the same quality of the Tomy Games of the time, well presented in premium white plastics with similar oval 💊 pill shaped buttons with a mostly blue screen bezel surround and packed in the very similar sturdy blister pack types of the time for which you needed a machete to open 😂 but may have been branded 'Challenge' as the maker I vaguely seem to recall. Spent many weekends at Carboot Sales trying to find one again and searching eBay but to no avail and the internet in general. Had a Tomy Simpsons LCD Game back then that was my favourite non controversial system and Sonic too which was fairly good. For static screen games, many of them were very entertaining to me at least even though I had some excellent full game systems, GameCube, PS2, Dreamcast, etc at that time. Great to watch your repairs of all things, but retro in particular. I have quite a few Pong Consoles, a couple of which I need to fix, bought from eBay for no more than £10 for each machine including a couple with rifles for the skeet shooting games and one of the machines takes cartridges which was slightly innovative and premium for a cheap machine at the time. Would love to see a few repairs on these old, old machines. I was particularly surprised to see the Flir Multimeter repair video you did, fascinating to see how you stopped the boot looping, I would never have thought of that and would have given up at the point that the new but slightly different screen didn't immediately fix the issue. For years I have been going into cash converters and buying their 'broken' stock, TV's, Phones, Cameras, Games Machines. I bought a Nintendo 3DS Aqua Blue Crystal 1st Gen for £10. Stuck on the roll down Nintendo Logo, opened the back cover and the pushfit WiFi chip was dislodged, seated it back, worked perfectly, took it to CEX the same day and sold it for just over £50. Bought a 3D 42" TV from Cash Converters for £15, no sound, it was the headphone jack jammed open, simple repair and I still use the TV for my bedroom. So much stuff gets thrown away now because so many people don't know how to repair stuff or know anyone else that can, such a waste.

[@BuyitFixit]

Thank you for such a long and detailed reply! I'm also starting to get on in the years you see a glimpse of my grey hair occasionally lol. I had been thinking if picking up one of those old TV games, I remember having a Binatone one as a kid with grey colour cylindrical remotes with a black potentiometer at the top, and they plugged in with 3.5mm jack plugs. I also remember one with cartridges that had a stunt motorbike game where you had to jump over busses with a ramp either side. It had analogue 4 way joystick with 1 red button I think? It was some 40 years ago... best wishes Mick.

[@Handlebar-MustDash]

@@BuyitFixit Hi Mick, thank you. Great to hear that you too had a Pong machine. Weren't they so exciting when they popped up. I 1st encountered an arcade version of Pong on holiday at Pontins at Prestatyn and also those air hockey tables. The following Christmas, I got a Grandstand Pong machine and I don't know if you are old enough to remember that terrible real world game Crossfire with a hardboard hockey pitch where you shot ballbearings at a larger ballbearing insid a red plastic collared puck and tried to send it into the others goal. Pong was epic, my experience of Crossfire was that it wasn't too good at all. I don't know if you do this Mick but I ended up with the nostalgia bug and tracking down the things I wished I'd never got rid of back in the day starting with the Evel Knievel stunt bike then tracking down my 1st Music Centre HiFi, a Ferguson Studio 20D and slowly filling up my back bedroom with mostly retro gear, most are repaired and the items that aren't are in the queue behind the bedroom door awaiting there 1st jolt of voltage in decades 😂. So funny to think at a time when we were all happy with just one button on the games joystick everyone was wearing trousers with 8 button waistbands and 8 or 10 pockets and then wider and wider flared trousers. I can't quite remember which Pong Console I have with the 8 cartridges, it is stacked at the back of all of my other boxed up retro stuff but I remember that the machine is that off-white/cream colour, weren't they all mostly, and the detailing and lettering is a brown - maroon concoction. Seems to have a full collection of games, eight cartridges with 4 games a piece on each one and 4 onboard games. I didn't have this version back in the day but would have been over the moon to have got it for Christmas instead of that awful Crossfire. I think you would be able to find an original Binatone fairly easily on eBay and with bidding, maybe get one for a fiver or less. I was surprised at just how many of 'em popup on eBay and also that they don't go for much money at all. I have a couple of the Binatone machines, one with the cylinder controller you describe and yes, absolutely the rotary pots are on the top and with side fluted black knobs. The wire to the controllers is super thin and not very long before Mr 3•5mm Jack makes an appearance, about 3ft I would say, not even 26 AWG, one nibble from a dog, cat or hamster and it's gameover. The pots were a little scratchy making the bats jump about on most of the game controllers and of course dry button contacts but other than that, pretty remarkable compared to advanced controllers now on machines that last only a couple of years and on Nintendo Switch even less than a year. The motorbike game that you remember is definitely one of the games on the multicart machine I have here and a decent game too for its era. I turned the big 60 last year and the retro vibe just gets stronger for me but also the hunt for any repairable bargains to keep or sell on. Bought myself a really nice old 1995 or thereabouts working Sony Hi-Fi Separates system and Record Deck off eBay most recently to play my LP's and Singles that were stored in the loft for decades. My son can't believe how many buttons, switches and lights it has, his generation have got so used to everything having just one control button - on/off, now they just interact with virtual buttons capacitively on any number of screens in one day except for gaming. A few years back, I bid on eBay for a large box full of 'Not Working - No Returns' Extech multimeters, clamp meters AC + DC current, air quality meters, CO², wood moisture meters, a stud detector and quite few other bits of gear. After I won the bidding for all this almost brand new condition but allegedly not working equipment, I collected the box from the courier, opened each piece of equipment one by one, fitted batteries and meter after meter, each and every piece of equipment worked flawlessly. I worked out the retail price of all this equipment and it was a fair few quid. That remains my biggest score on eBay to this very day. I still use one of the Extech Clamp Meters mostly for the rougher readings in life - mains electricity and vehicles the current range max being 800 Amps AC or DC. That Flir Meter you won and repaired was just epic, brilliant diagnosis and fix. 1st seen that model of meter around 8 years back on Martin J Lortons channel I think it was. Wouldn't have been Dingo Dave Jones' channel as he was hardselling Fluke at the time with all the unsafe meters coming out of China with virtually zero protection circuitry 😯. Don't know if you get the same thing but I enjoy bringing something back to life more than going and buying something new. Being just a lifelong tinkerer with electronics myself I have been intending to try a BGA project soon as I have never tried reballing a chip in all these years of mucking about, worked my 1st job at a large TV rental company Vision hire on leaving college and the order of the day was mostly to swap out the faulty board. I bought a large set of solder mask stencils from China so just waiting to decide on the right project, maybe a Gen 2 XBox or a PS3, I have 2 or 3 of each in my Aladdin's Cave of the repaired, and the nowhere near repaired 😂. But thanks again for your reply Mick, very rare nowadays that I find a Channel new to me here on KZbin that I know is exactly up my street and I subscribe straight away. I used to watch Louis Rossmann all the time but since he Tesla'd up and moved to Florida, the channel lost its focus on electronics but thankfully, most of the Electronic/Electrical Channels are still producing great content as you do yourself. Thank you for all the past content that I can catch up on and the ongoing videos to come. So much to choose from so I'm concentrating on the retro games machine videos at present and of course, new videos that you post. Have a great weekend Mick, cheers. Markus

[@BuyitFixit]

Thanks Markus, very interesting. I'm slightly younger than you by only a handful of years. Yes I remember crossfire but never had one. Haven't done much BGA stuff myself although I do have an xbox 360 with RLOD that a neighbour gave me so might have a look at that at some point. I too have a collection of old stuff such as c64, dreamcast, Atari 800XL, etc oh and a box full of arcade PCBs somewhere. I did see someone do a reball where they just drag soldered the chip with plenty of flux and did the same on the PCB and then put both together and it seemed to work fine, so might try that at some point. Thanks for your detailed reply and hope you have a great weekend. Best wishes. Mick.

[@thetraindriver01]

Nice repair 👍😊

[@BuyitFixit]

Thanks 👍

[@MrEwool]

It could be the polarizing filter, that needs tending to, but great video and really love the accent

[@BuyitFixit]

Thanks. I wasn't sure if people would be put off by my geordie accent. Thanks for your comment!

[@abelars5841]

@@BuyitFixit never change who you are for people…very few of them are grateful or thankful…look what at their behaviour towards God. Your accent is very specific to your region, which guves it its charm. 👍🏻👍🏻

[@BuyitFixit]

@@abelars5841 Thank you Abe Lars!

[@RiswanCiwank]

great

[@BuyitFixit]

Thanks Riswan!

[@craiggamble4431]

I've got this game and my start button no longer works, I've tried cleaning the contacts but it still doesn't work.

[@BuyitFixit]

I'd perhaps try a piece of silver foil on the contact on the board to see if its the button itself or something on the PCB. Sometimes the carbon on the rubber part goes bad. You could possibly try and measure it with a meter and compare it to the other buttons to rule it out. If that measures OK then it could be one of the traces on the board which you should be able to repair with some conductive paint (you can get it for repairing remote controls).

[@calvinfoo]

I have a Western Bar. The lcd looks faded. Yours too. I need to get it replaced. Maybe you can do a tutorial replacing the western Bar polariser? I am zero in electronic engineering.

[@BuyitFixit]

Hey Calvin. You must be psychic? The video that is coming out later today I actually change the polariser, it's not on the western bar but on a Nintendo game and watch but I imagine its similar.

[@calvinfoo]

@@BuyitFixit I probably need Western Bar tutorial. As I has zero clues in electronic

[@BuyitFixit]

I had another look at mine today, I'd not recommend doing it! The LCD display is glued into the plastic. I nearly broke the LCD trying to remove it. The front plastic part seems to have some type of polarisation as putting another polariser on top of it and rotating it showed an odd blotchy pattern, however I could still see the characters when the LCD was removed from the plastic and there's no other visible polariser unless it's actually built into the glass of the LCD. Hope that info helps!

[@calvinfoo]

@@BuyitFixit oh no. So sad.

[@BuyitFixit]

@@calvinfoo I don't know if you could put another polariser in front of the original glass, but with it being glued not sure if I'd recommend that even.

[@DifficultyEasy]

What's your address? I need to send you a tool for that screw!