Commodore SX-64 Faults & Fixes 

These kinds of step-by-step repair videos are some of my absolute favorites. And really, the "amateur" approach is exactly how I go about it things as well, so I enjoy on all counts! Still really want to find one of these someday, but the prices and often broken nature of them has so far scared me off.

Great video. I have just about every Commodore machine in my collection EXCEPT for the SX-64 and the PET. Also, I agree about Ghosts and Goblins. The game is too hard and so it is not fun. I wish I had the original source code, I would go in and change it up so that it would be about 50% easier, then it would be fun.

"Some things are too important to be left to professionals."

Back when the SX first came out, my local computer store had a demo version of the SX-64. It had a problem where it wouldn't accept any input. So I talked them into selling it to me for half price (I *think* they were asking $600). I figured if nothing else I could send it in under warranty. Got it home, tried getting an RS-232 ribbon cable to work in place of the keyboard cable... no luck. I opened up the keyboard... pushed the pins to the keyboard plug back into their sockets... hooked it up, plugged in the cable... and it worked fine. 5 minutes worth of work and I got a new SX-64 still under warranty for like $300.

If you want to improve your soldering quality and make desoldering easier as well, buy some "soldering flux". The best I have found for professional repair is actually manufactured in the UK, it's called "Future HF Rework Jelly" by Warton Metals Limited. It comes in a neat syringe. You can buy the smaller one for your needs. Always put it on before you touch stuff with the iron, it keeps oxide from the solder and helps it flow nicely, also helps keep your soldering iron tip more shiny. Another upgrade would be to get a soldering iron cleaning wire that looks like copper shavings in form of a kitchen scrubber packed in a metal tray. Trust me. Doing this will bring back the joy to the soldering for you. There won't be any black burned up gunk around anymore, and the solder will flow nicely forming shiny joints.

This was fun to watch. You put a lot of effort to get these machines working, great job.

remember don't lick everything while stood in a puddle

Late to the party but just wanted to say, even though I've worked in the electronics industry and soldered my fair share of PCBs, there's nothing wrong with your technique and your videos are inspiring. Most moaners wouldn't have the guts to attempt what you cheerfully try (and succeed at). I saw this when it originally came out but it's so good I just rewatched it for the pleasure of seeing you achieve something many 'experts' might balk at even attempting.

16:45 "So I cleaned up the existing grease with India pale ale."

Very nicely done. I wonder if SX prices have risen since this video as people have a stab at fixing their machines or buy partially broken ones. I know I feel inspired to have a stab at a few repairs myself.

How cool is it that we can take these old things apart and tinker with them! I wonder, will people be tinkering with old iPads 25 years from now?

Thanks, as always for championing amateurs who are prepared to have a go. In a world where no one is prepared to fix anything, probably because they are warned about it being too dangerous etc., it is refreshing to see such a practical fellow having a go. Keep it up!

Excellent video! You deserve a program on discovery channel, some kind of "wheeler dealers" but for this stuff

Lovely machines I must try and get one!

I bought my SX-64 new in high school and still have it. I’ve replaced the SID chip but was searching for fixes to the screen and keyboard problems. Thank you for posting this video! Top work!

This is a gem of a channel. It always helps me relax during lunch or after a long day of work.

Don't bash yourself! Double sided PCB's with plated-through holes are tough to desolder from without special equipment, like a desoldering gun. You did just fine, make sure to clean up the residue with some alcohol and you'll be all set :) Little tip for you - try to snip the leads closer to the chip, that way it'll be easier to grab the remaining piece with tweezers and wiggle it out.

Forget the SD and the cart solutions you're thinking of. Get yourself a 1541 Ultimate II+. You will NEVER need another C64 peripheral ever again!

As somebody who used to repair the Commodore line of computers back in the nineties, I am impressed with what you have accomplished in bringing those two back to functionality. Thanks for posting the video and the links to repair parts.

There's something satisfying about watching the process of someone taking something broken and then slowly fixing it bit by bit until it is back to its original working state.

Unplug the power✔ Some components can store electricity ✔✔ Do not lick everything whilst standing in a puddle ✖ WHAT HAVE I DONE!

Good memories of those demo screens at 20:21 from the days of downloading games off BBS's. I remember when COMB Liquidators in the USA were selling the SX-64 in Compute and Ahoy magazine in the mid-late 80's. I always wanted one but even their discounted prices were too high for a poor college student then. Thanks for another great video and get well!

Just re-watching some of your back catalog and I came across this jewel. You have done some very fine Sir. My compliments. I miss all of my old computers. Thanks again.

These are some of my favorite videos. I wish I was nearly as good as you are at fixing things. You inspire me to mess around with something when it breaks rather than just buying a new one. It's horribly frustrating though because I scarcely have success. Especially on this scale. It's cathartic to live vicariously through videos like this though.

"The keyboard cable, the worlds rarest cable." Nah, I think that award goes to the official Gamecube RGB cable.

Hey Techmoan, love your videos and keep up the good work. just a minor observation: there are a lot of people who don't have a clue about fixing electronics (including me) but don't realise that electronic components such as capacitors store electricity ( I do know that - now, after a near death experience with a capacitor). So warning them (us) about that is a good thing to do. Its essential not condescending. I'll stop being a jobsworth and hope you continue making these brilliant videos.

I admire your persistence when repairing these old units.

I absolutely love seeing you repair these old tech things with what seems to be simple mechanical solutions. It makes me believe that I can also fix these things when they go wonky.

Hi love your channel and have my own whereby I use CAD and make stuff. I'd be happy to design an authentic Commodore type plug housing in an L shape like the original one and 3D print this for you and post it to you if you ever do a revisited episode on this computer.

Desoldering a DIP with such a solder sucker is a nightmare indeed. You need solder wick / braid whatever that is actually called, or a desoldering gun AND some practice with those :P. If you'd clean away the flux with some IPA that wouldn't look so bad at all though.

I've been willing to get one of those for some time now, but never had the courage... until now. You inspired me. I've enjoyed every minute of your video. Great job. Thanks.

You're uploads are just fantastic, really enjoy listening to you and watching out for repair tips. You should be in teaching!

5:50 "Spot the dead wasp" Found It.

I love the puppits, particularly when the dad comes in and he gets a round of applause!

Love the look of this little classic computer, the 'steel' finish and blue trim still looks fantastic, kinda wanna see if I can imitate it in my own projects

great to see these old comps working again good job man :)

Wow great video! I love it when someone who is not an expert tries and succeeds to fix electronics! Awesome job!

Desoldering tips: 1. Use flux. When you 'add solder' all you are really doing is adding flux to wet the joint again. But you are boiling it away at the same time. Get no-clean solder flux. 2. When de-soldering a chip with a lot of pins, cut a piece of solder braid the length of the pins, tack it to both end pins, add some flux to the braid and then gob it with solder. This spreads the heat of the iron and de-solders all pins at the same time. (Alternatively, you can get special spatula tips for your iron if it has enough wattage.) No. 2 is if you do not want to cut the pins or damage the removed chip. This is especially important with rare chips like those in the C64, certainly if you are not sure this is your problem. If you want to do a hack-job, you can just cut the pins and solder your new chip to the old pins. I've even seen crazy 'pro-jobs' where they leave the bad chip in place, cut the power and ground pins and move them away from the chip. Then they solder the new chip on top of the bad one and solder the separated power pins to the new chip. Don't be surprised to open up a SX-64 or C64 and find something like that even from the factory! Overall: What you don't want it to apply too much heat for too long. This is what will damage traces and pads or even separate the plated through holes in multilayer boards. The second problem is temperature sensitive chips or chips that have moisture in them from improper storage. Applying too much heat for too long damages the bonding in those chips and in the case of water-logged parts, the water inside can rapidly boil and even pop the cap off the chip! Solution: Use heatsink tools and kapton tape to focus the heat where you need it and draw it away from where you do not.

This was a very satisfying video. I'm repairing a vintage CB radio at the moment and having the same "fun" with soldering.

Nice video. Very natural and relaxing commentary.

6:34 Techmoan is the kind of guy who buys top dollar insulated electrician screwdrivers to use twice a year on his old computers😝

3:10 "Or Storage." Hell yea, finally a PC with a space to store some candy!

Your videos are so addictive and amusing. Thank you

I had an SX64 gifted to me 20 years ago, because it wasn't working, and because I lived on a 64. This video has given me a lot more incentive to get it fixed. Thanks.

4:10 the world's rarest cable Have you checked the prices on component cables for the GameCube?

Hmm.. I could probably do those keyboard cables with ribbon cable and connectors, finished off with a 3d printed housing. I wonder if there would be a lot of people wanting to buy them.

Love it! Thanks SO much for this excellent video! We have two SX-64s in storage and don't even know if they're working or not, but now I know we can get them running if they have any problems.

Awesome that you made these two working again! Thanks for sharing!

do not lick everything whilst stood in a puddle Xd

Linus would be lost here ...;-p

Loved this vid! It's good to see others adventures in repairing old systems. If I can make a few suggestions.... Desoldering is a pain but with some (small) additions to the toolkit and of course, a bit practice, it goes much easier. If you haven't already, grab the following... Fibre glass pencil Liquid flux (marker pen style) Jelly flux (a small tub will last a few lifetimes :D ) Desoldering iron Desoldering braid I would say these are a must and can turn a headache of a job into a pleasure. :) The desoldering iron isn't really needed but if you aren't removing components often enough for it to feel like an easy job then it's a great thing to have in your kit. You no doubt noticed with then desoldering pump is released it causes a jolt and can be a pain to keep everything in place. A desoldering iron is the pump and iron in one. It still has that same spring jolt but with it just being the one device you can easily apply a touch of pressure on the component leg, holding the iron perpendicular to the pcb to get a clean extraction almost every time. If you get really into it, a vacuum pump desolder station is the way to go :p When putting a component in, clean the board and new chip with the isopropryl, then use the fibre glass pencil, that will take off that microscopic film that gathers on contacts over the years. Just a light brush with the pencil is enough. The pencil is great for prepping the legs of a chip too. Then use the liquid flux and draw a line over the contacts and brush the chip legs. The new solder will effortlessly jump onto the contacts and the legs, providing they are clean and have that thin layer of flux. Honestly, your repair of the RAM chip wasn't bad. You should see some of the repairs I've had in, where it looks like people tried to remove a chip with an arc welder lol. I've spent many afternoons relaying traces on boards after they've been melted off. A small cleanup is all that's needed on your board. That's where the jelly flux comes in handy. It's thicker, stays in place and takes longer to burn off than the liquid flux and what's in the solder. You'll find the solder will become dry, almost a grainy consistency and you'll start fighting with it. Place a small blob of jelly flux over the contacts, then retouch the contacts with your iron, the flux will allow the solder to stay in a liquid state while you are working on it. Running the iron tip from the base of the chip leg to the tip (inside the now liquified flux) will give you that perfect cone shape. If the solder becomes a ball on the contact, you have too much solder on there, take the braid, remove it and reapply new solder. Never let frustration get the better of you when something isn't playing ball. That leads to the dark side. :D Isopropryl is the nemesis of solder flux, cotton buds and some Iso will take the excess 'mess' off leaving you a nice shiny repair. :) The last thing I can think of is the iron itself. I now use a temperature controlled iron and hot air rework station but I always keep my normal irons on stand by. I've seen a lot of people using irons that are a bit too much for the job they are doing. For small jobs, like your RAM repair, I would use a 12w iron. The 12w to 15w range is more than enough for chips like this. The lower wattage give you more time to work too. It takes longer for the heat to transfer through the component/board. You would only run into issues when soldering to a ground or power plane. I would use a 25w to 30w for that (max of 50w for the bigger chunky stuff). So all in all, two irons. I only mention that because I had them in my kit when I was doing doing work like you are doing here and it made a huge difference having them. Headaches to pleasure. :) I hope some of that is useful. Thanks for the great vid and well done on getting those machines running! If you have any more adventures with old systems, make sure to post them! :)

I admire your perseverance. I know folks who CAN de-solder and would have placed this back on the shelf for another -day- decade.

Great Video,I cant get on with those De-solder pumps i use De-Soldering Braid you might want to try that ;) Don't think there is a right or a wrong way its just whatever method works for you ;)

OHHH MI GUD you didn't wear an antistatic strap, you probably blew up both the computers in a fiery explosive explosion! Anyway, nice job and good informative video. Even pros have a hard time desoldering things manually... hence some genius invented desoldering stations For anyone else who might care, Flux-Off (or any generic brand) will remove the brown junk left behind after these jobs Edit: As for the addendum to the description, I think some of us post advice forgetting that you have over 300,000 others here who probably also have shared it. You're not bad at it though, seeing as it worked

I love it when you do these kinds of videos! Thanks Techmoan

Quite fascinating to see these older systems in detail as well as some basic repairs.

as per computerphile, we should refer to 110v 60hz US power mains as "Freedom Voltage".

Pro tip. Clip the old chip legs flush to the chip body, not flush to the pcb, then tin the leg, and heat from the back while pulling the chip leg from the chip side of the board with tweezers. Once the leg is removed, use the solder sucker to remove any remaining solder,and solder wick to clean up. Work quickly, don't use too much heat or you will destroy the tracks. Then clean the board with isopropanol. Next.... fit a socket, then put the 2114 in the socket. Finally. Clean the board with isopropanon again. With practice you wont be able to tell that any work has been done.

Operation? Woah dude, get well soon! Thanks for sharing these two beauties with us. That's months on months of gaming goodness right there!

this was a fantastic video! Loved to see you troubleshoot those two machines and get them working again!

I'm so mad at myself - when I was in college, I found one of these at a local thrift store for about $50. I didn't buy it because $50 was like $49 more than I had. Now they're super expensive.

Clint at LGR will be jealous. Hehe :)

This is a great video as usual; we're all kind of amateurs today (no more commodore repair shops around these days), so we've become Commodore engineers on our own! I found it to be very comprehensive and well explained. I am taking your video and online documentation for the basis of further troubleshooting for these machines. **Finally after 30 years I managed to buy one (now it is on its way to me -- I cannot wait to see it), and fortunately it didn't cost an arm and a leg... Amazing video, thanks. ;)

I also like the cost per minute ratio of entertainment from this channel. Thanks for that :)

Hey, thanks to you i am bidding on a SX64 on ebay right now. It works, but has a non-resposnive keyboard. It comes with TWO cables, it's a NTSC Unit of course. What courses of action would you take for repairing the keyboard, assuming i get it, right now i am the highest bidder. If i win it, i'll send you the spare cable free of charge from the USA.

What about the wasp? Did you repair it as well?

These videos are getting addictive. Must get back to my little projects.

love your videos- glad you can bring this type of info to people - keep up a great job

hey clint could you do a console review of the colecovision?

I find desoldering easiest with some desoldering braid, always works better than a pump for me. For the keyboard cable, sounds like an ideal job for someone with a 3d printer to do the strangely shaped plugs, which a standard parallel port could fit into. Perhaps if you can publish the dimensions of the plugs someone would be able to put together a file and load it to Thingiverse or something. Nice review of these old machines, they remind me of the Compaq luggable PC I used to carry around for work sometime ago.

Two beautiful machines! I'd love to get my hands on one of those some day.

Love your videos! Excellent production, and always show everything i want to know!

Desolder braid instead of sucker?

The grandfather to the Amiga 500.

Great video. I'm happy you got both computers working correctly and I loved the bit at the end, funny stuff

Small tip for desoldering - make sure the tip of your iron is tinned first! I spent weeks trying to desolder some caps off a board before, taking 2 hours just to get one pin out, decided to buy a new iron since mine must have been faulty and the guide that came with it said to tin it first, did that (which is harder than it sounds, you need to heat the iron just a little bit for the solder to melt and stick to the tip, too hot and it'll just fall right off) and then managed to desolder the other 6 caps in less than an hour, SO much easier! I'm not really sure if yours was tinned in the video or not, but still gonna put this out there in case someone else sees it.

Should've called this one "Commodore SX-64 Faults & Fixes Feat. Vintage Dead Wasp"

20:30 Same situation as now (May 2020), just with a different cause.

Great video. The SX-64 was an obscure beast even 25 years ago when the C=64 was still being sold and still had games published for it. Good to see you've kept two of them going to be enjoyed and cherished. They were a proper weird machine. One of Commodore's many machines where they just made a whole bunch of things just for the hell of it with scant regard for any budget or if it was actually going to sell. One of my personal faves was the Commodore 128, that cost as much as the Amiga to make when at the time they made the machine they should've been giving the big push for 16 bit computing and leaving 8 bit alone.

My favorite audio/video retro channel is also doing retro computing! Nice to see! Best regards! DOKTOR64!

5:48 I think that machine still has a few bugs :P

Almost orgasmic to hear 'sol'der' for solder instead of 'sodder'.

Best channel on RU-vid. Keep up the wonderful adventures.

your site and approach to things-absolutelty fantastic. keep it up 😀

did anyone here had Amstad CPC6128?

Oi, less of the "if your parents were a bit well off", I bought my own BBC B, great little PC I learned to program in basic on it.

LOVED my SX-64! Had a buddy solder a modem inside the case, connected to the cart port.

Great video, you've inspired me to dig out my old C64 and getting it working. I loved playing Nebulous on it as a child. A great platformer, well worth trying out.

OK, I'll bite: what watch is that?

when a laptop was a big hunky chunky thing

My brother had one of these. It was STUNNINGLY ahead of its time.

Hope the op was a great success TM,you are some kind of star to us of a certain age.

Endings are funny, but you know you are just feeding the trolls right?

Glad it wasn't a full wasp infestation.

I started off with a VIC20, but the C64 was my favorite childhood computer. Great vid!

I'm deeply impressed. Mat is a real genius!

My masters degree candidate girlfriend would lug one of these home from the lab back in the late '80's.

Enjoyed this one but its all obsolete ... great video though... :) but too much effort.

Excellent disclaimer at the beginning. Made me laugh. I like your authentic humbleness. Carry on just as you are.

So glad to see you have Mayhem In Monsterland! A truly great game and the swan song of the C64. A friend had an SX-64 in about 1990 and I remember the pain of carting it between our houses.