POTF2 Millennium Falcon electronics fix -- how to?

[Phoenix]

(Posting this here since I can't seem to post in the POTF2 section, and I'm not sure how many people read that anyway because the POTF2 line is basically obsolete anyway...so I guess this'll attract more readers here, which is always welcome!)

A long, long time ago in a country far, far away...a young Phoenix bought a very expensive, incomplete Power of the Force Millennium Falcon, dated 1995 and made in Mexico, which was missing the cockpit, the top guns, the gunner's seat and the boarding ramp struts. To cut a long story short, despite being incomplete, the Falcon was lots of fun, but then life happened, the Falcon went kinda MIA for a long time and now that I've found it again, I'm more than interested in making it great again. It was very dusty, but I've resolved that issue by literally taking it apart and right now I'm in the process of putting it back together. (Hoping to post some pics of that here once I'm done with that project!)

Which kinda then brings me to the problem: the Millennium Falcon's electronics (SFX) aren't working. At all. Come to think of it, they never did even back in the day -- I guess the previous owner must've accidentally broken them somehow? I'm not sure, hence why I'm resorting to the collective wisdom of Rebelscum forums! :whistling: There are four buttons on the side of the Falcon, and pressing them should cause the front lights to light up and sound to be made (there are even videos of this on YouTube!), but this isn't true when it comes to my Falcon.

The one and obvious problem I immediately did notice upon taking the Falcon apart was that the batteries -- which had a "best before" date of March 2001 (!) had leaked a bit. Not surprising, for sure, and not a problem I wouldn't have had before. I've taken care of cleaning the contacts properly, but when equipped with a new pair of R14/C batteries...nothing happens. To make sure the problem's not the batteries, I tested them in a different, functional device, and yep, that thing certainly works with those batteries.

All the wires seem to be fully intact, the soldered parts aren't loose or anything so by all logic the tiny board should be receiving power from the batteries just fine, which suggests to me that the issue is there, but assuming my hypothesis is correct, I wouldn't even know how to resolve this problem.

Has anyone ever encountered this issue or similar problem with their Falcon? If so, how did you resolve this? I'm definitely no electronics guru, so any and all help in this department is more than welcome!

 

[Deathspawn9000]

If the batteries corroded in the socket, you need to clean out all of the white powdery residue (use a teaspoon of baking soda in plain water with a toothbrush, youtube "cleaning battery corrosion") and then sand or file the contacts (where the battery touches the metal to conduct electricity) until they're shiny. Fresh batteries after that should fix the problem.

 

[VideoViper]

How comfortable are you with electronics??

You will need to take apart the whole thing.
You should test the wiring & see if you can get the lights to light up independently from the circuit board. You will need the batteries taped to some spare wires to test current.

You could go crazy & replace the lights with LED but that's if the current electronics are truely dead.

 

[Phoenix]

If the batteries corroded in the socket, you need to clean out all of the white powdery residue (use a teaspoon of baking soda in plain water with a toothbrush, youtube "cleaning battery corrosion") and then sand or file the contacts (where the battery touches the metal to conduct electricity) until they're shiny. Fresh batteries after that should fix the problem.

I'll have to take a look at some of the video tutorials, thanks for the tip! That being said, I'm afraid this might be a case of dead mainboard, as after cleaning the battery contacts and whatnot but before fully reassembling the Falcon I tried out various unorthodox methods of connecting the batteries (hey, metal conducts electricity, so you can get a bit creative ) but didn't get any kind of a sound nor any lights anywhere. :\

How comfortable are you with electronics??

You will need to take apart the whole thing.
You should test the wiring & see if you can get the lights to light up independently from the circuit board. You will need the batteries taped to some spare wires to test current.

You could go crazy & replace the lights with LED but that's if the current electronics are truely dead.

Not very, I'm afraid; my knowledge of these things is very basic at best. Testing the wiring sounds like a solid idea, and hopefully shouldn't be beyond my skillset...now if I only could remember where I put the spare wires. Mind you, I'll be enjoying a fully polished, albeit yellowed and mute, Millennium Falcon for a bit longer before taking it apart again. (See, I'm good at taking stuff apart, it's the "put everything back and ensure all the parts are there" part that I sometimes struggle with! :whistling

LED sounds cool! I've seen some videos of it being done with various different gadgets and generally speaking the end result has been very impressive; I'll need to check out some tutorials on YouTube since I have a feeling that'd come in handy regardless. :weeabooface: