Doujin-Dance's Terrible Modwork -Teardown & Restoration

In an effort to better help the community in reversing terrible mod-work. I've created a video series of that will hopefully impart the knowledge necessary to remedy these often very expensive consoles.

The following video is the 1st installment in my Legend of the Douche series. There are so many of these PC-E systems that have been mutilated by the hands of Doujin-Dance. People on E-bay are paying up to $450 for precisely what you see in this video. It's important to see really where your hard earned money is going.

The Duo-R in this video is a classical Doujin-Dance case. It's chapter and verse of what not to do. The sloppy bread-boarding, the bubble-wrap insulation, the two-part epoxy.. It goes on and on.

I hope this video helps those of you affected. You can always PM me.

 

Great info on removing the epoxy

So apart from the poor RGB amp design, using epoxy and bad isolation methods, was there anything else wrong with it? It might just be the video, but his soldering didn't look any worse than yours to be honest. Did the region mod not work?

I absolutely agree that using epoxy is a dumb choice, especially since the wires aren't exposed during everyday use. I don't understand the problem with using breadboards though. Of course if the solderjoints were all bad I would get it, but that didn't look the case in your video.
That being said, considering the amount of consoles he has sold, I too would have designed a proper PCB to make this process faster and easier.

I'm not taking any sides here. He does some dumb stuff, and he should do better considering his experience with the systems, but I've seen WAY worse. To be honest all the name calling are making you come across as kind of an ass in your video.

 

Well, yes. The system was having functionality problems as a result of the things you listed. The video wasn't properly coupled and/or terminated, yielding a pretty crappy picture. The region-mod was intermittently working (as a result of poor soldering)

The problem with bread-boarding in volume is that it can be far more prone to failure and mistakes being made during the assembly process.

Wow, really? Have you seen this thread? https://assemblergames.com/threads/...-systems-from-e-bay-seller-doujindance.64866/ ALL of the name calling? I called him douch'n'dance. I have no moral quandary over that. It's upsetting that people are paying DoujinDance astronomical prices for these deplorable hack-jobs. And are ultimately in receipt of no support after the fact. Why do you think these systems come to me? Look, if it wasn't clear before; The intent of this video isn't to be disparaging against any person (I'm pretty sure I said that in the clip). The point is to show people how they can undo all of the damage to the system they paid $400+ that was poorly modified on the 1st go around.

 

Okay I take your word that his soldering was sub par. It was very hard to see in the video

Yes I have seen that thread. Have you seen that guy that smeared hot glue all over his customers consoles, you probably know who... That is much worse that what DoujinDance is doing to these PC-engines

I hope DoujinDance will try his best and improve. I believe he used transistor based amps earlier and since he has begun using THS7314 (I assume), it does seem that he is willing to do research and change up his methods. Let's hope he takes your advice into consideration if he is continuing to mod and sell systems.

I'm glad to hear that, but honestly both the title of this thread and that of the video says otherwise.
Did you contact DoujinDance before, to inform him about his errors? I would hate for someone to put up a video about something I had done without even being contacted first :/

I think you did a great job filming and explaining what you were doing. I can't fault any of the modwork you are doing in your video, you clearly know your stuff.
I have never dealt with epoxy, and I would probably have heated it too much. So thanks again for the advice

 

I guess I'm having trouble following your logic here. There's a difference between being viciously disparaging and being simply honest. This is terrible modwork, and it is a teardown/restoration video.

The fact that he's sold over 1,000 of these modded PC-E systems (in this or similar condition) on E-bay to otherwise uninformed people is plenty of warrant to be critical of the guy. Is it really my responsibility to go out of my way to contact him? Whenever money is being exchanged for services rendered, all bets are off, in my opinion. That's akin to being critical of someone who gives a crappy online review to a contractor who wrecked their house.

I don't see the point of injecting moral vanity into something that doesn't need it.

It is what it is; Terrible, overpriced mod-work.

 

My eyes! Nice video. Agree with Voultar. If u are charging $400 for a modded system, u can afford to develop a pcb specifically for that task. Strip board is good for trialing new designs but it is low tec. if u look at Voultar's pcbs, they are custom designed for a specific job, and using quality tantalum caps. They wouldn't have cost more than $15 to make.

If I were offering console mods at $400 (I would never charge that much) that's the level of mod I would be offering.

 

He made his ebay listing look very nice, though.

"Not used something sticky like glue" LMAO

 

That's how a pro mod should look. Still wouldn't charge $400 though.

 

So he has improved. Makes me wonder how old that PC-engine mod in voultar's video is?

Taijigamer2: You do realize that $400 includes the console, right? In this case it's actually $299 for the modded system.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEC-PC-Engi...495960?hash=item2f062428d8:g:e5IAAOSwOMdZS3hR

 

While I agree Voultar can sound a bit pedantic/harsh, you got to keep in mind Doujin isn't a random guy in a basement modding his own systems or those of his friends for cost price. He's selling it in relatively high volume, basically as a business.

While I don't think custom PCBs are required in such mods, his craftsmanship really is subpar considering he's selling his service. I mean, epoxy? Really? A drop of hot glue far away from the soldering to secure the wire would've been more than enough. And the dreadboards look more like deadbugs than breadboards. You can actually make clean breadboards!

 

Yes, but he obviously has improved a lot if you can trust his ebay pictures. If the console in Voultar's video is several years old then it's hardly fair to judge his current work on this.

 

Yeah, but you gotta consider what I said when judging Voultar's judging of Doujin.

 

Sorry Martin, but I respectfully disagree with you on this. 100% actually. I know for a fact Doujindance was selling consoles like this as recently as May. In fact, I emailed him right before Voultar started making that video and asked what his internal mods looked like...and Doujindance himself sent me a picture of the bubblewrap and epoxy. I'd even go as far to say that there's a good chance Voultar's tweets and video were the REASON Doujindance decided to improve his work.

If the new pictures are really what his new work looks like, it's a win for everyone, including Doujindance - It actually looks really good and pre-fabbed boards make installation much easier. The other work was disgraceful though...not only was it "ugly", but his old region mod caused issues with Everdrives, his video circuit wasn't correct and his epoxy has ruined some of those consoles. Duo's are quite rare compared to things like a NES or Genesis, so to see someone claim to have done that to 1000 of those is terrifying.

To be honest, I was shocked to see your opinion on this; You've done some really good mods. I'd have assumed that someone who takes the time to make their work as high quality as yours would have recoiled at the site of someone sticking bubble wrap over an amp chip.

 

I was aware the price included the console . $299 is more reasonable, given the average eBay price for an unmodded Duo-R. I would never charge more than $50 on top of the cost for the console. I know people do this for profit but there needs to be some comradery in the community.

If those are legit pics of his current mods then maybe he's taken some criticism on board and upped his game.

 

Buckets of hot glue. Now epoxy. What's next, concrete?

 

Come on, where did I ever say that bubble wrap was okay? In fact I have mentioned several times in this thread that he did stuff that wasn't okay.

The only reason I participated in this thread was because I felt that voultar was being too harsh against DoujinDance. voultar gives the impression that these are the worst mods ever, and they are not. Not even close.
Maybe it's just me, but if you have a problem with someones work, you contact them directly to make them aware of their errors, before you start making videos and threads about them. That's just the nice thing to do.

A friend of mine is moving to my town in about a month. He bought a Duo-R from DoujinDance in 2012. When I get the chance I'll pop that open to see for myself how bad it is

 

I never said this was the worst mod ever, as deplorable as it is. I think you've entirely missed the point.

 

Guys, you're are actually 99% in agreement. The whole argument reduces to "Bearking doesn't like voultar's tone". Which I think you must concede is a valid opinion voultar.

Please don't turn this into a flame war, it's actually a very informative video.

 

You're right. Sorry I won't derail this thread any further. And I agree, there was a lot of great info in his video

 

> actually a very informative video
I'd even say two, since I feel that maybe the "look at this shit!" segment (aka "how to remove epoxy") could've/should've been a separate video from the "how to properly mod a pce" part, for easier linking to relevant content.

Btw, is that "glop top chip" stuff similar to this kind of epoxy, i.e. would a heatgun be a good way to remove that too, should one ever need to?