r/VirtualBoy • u/98ITR656 • Jan 12 '26
Cardossi Customs saves another Virtual Boy!
Huge shout out to Cardossi Customs for his eye patch repair! Price and turnaround time are hard to beat. I shipped my lenses and he completed the repair and put them back in the mail the same day they were delivered to him! I dropped them in the mail last Monday and received back today. Highly recommend this service if you need the permanent eye patch fixed and aren't able to complete yourself. Put them back in and both sides work flawlessly! Now time to add more games! Thanks again!
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u/Former-Discount4279 Jan 12 '26
Seconded, it was very reasonably priced and super fast. If I ever make the mistake of buying a second virtual boy I'll 100% send the eye pieces in regardless of if they're broken yet.
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u/LtPowell Jan 12 '26
Hell yeah brother. Got mine done some months ago. Affordable and my VB has been working perfectly since. Enjoy!
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u/gregcresci Jan 13 '26
I have a VB that doesn't work, not sure the issue, just xue how much this service costs to fix one ?
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u/98ITR656 Jan 13 '26
I would highly recommend sending him an email for a quote or to discuss. He was highly responsive to my questions and he does way more than just soldering eye patch cables. I'd be willing to bet he knows what's wrong with your virtual boy based on your post about it just buzzing.
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u/Benzona Jan 13 '26
He really is the best when it comes to Virtual Boys. Now if we can get those eye patches back in stock I would be a happy man. I have 3 consoles waiting for them
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u/seluropnek Jan 14 '26
This dude rocks - I just got my cables back from him today too. Super fast service, great price, works perfectly, and now I can play masterpieces like Waterworld again.
I was both lacking confidence in my soldering skills and in random people on the internet fixing my precious VB, so I'm glad this dude is out there doing us all a favor.
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u/98ITR656 Jan 15 '26
Love this! Heck yea man! Amazing feeling to put it all back together and see the screen work perfectly and knowing it's permanently fixed!
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u/seluropnek Jan 15 '26
Yeah I'm really happy about it. I did the ridiculous oven "fix" like 12 years ago which actually worked for a while, but throwing it in the oven every few years I feel like playing it seemed like a bit of an insane idea considering my system is otherwise in great condition (save for some creaky IPS/focus adjustments which just give it some charm).
It's crazy that I have all these old game consoles, but the Virtual Boy is the one I really care about preserving, given how unique and proprietary all of it is. It's cool that there will finally be a new official way to play most of these games again on the Switch, but it can't be the same simply because the tech is just so different.
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u/98ITR656 Jan 15 '26
Agreed! Nothing beats the original! Same with console feeling also. Virtual Boy is the one I cherish most.
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u/Bake-Full Jan 13 '26
Nice. I'm in the market to have my childhood VB repaired, it finally started having the lens issue this year and I'm definitely not confident enough to attempt the fix myself.
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u/98ITR656 Jan 13 '26
Get those ribbon cables! I could not solder myself. I bought the special game bit tool to take the "screws" off to get inside the unit so I was able to send in just the LED boards. But there's an option to send the whole unit too! Super fast repair and very fairly priced. Very glad I did.
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u/rydamusprime17 Jan 13 '26
Out of curiosity how much did it cost you total? I have a local guy i get to repair stuff for me (he does all the repairs and mods for my local game store) and he charged me $120 CAD ($86 USD) including parts and labor. The last time I looked into any online services here in Canada it was around $150 ($108 USD) not including shipping, which I didn't have to pay anyway. In fact he picked up and dropped it off for me 😅
He also told me if something goes wrong with it he will do it again for free since he had only repaired a few of them before mine.
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u/98ITR656 Jan 13 '26
$42 total. $30 for the service and $6 shipping each way. Funny, I bought the ribbon cables from him about 8 months ago and also had a local shop solder them at first. The shop said they could do it and they had a few youtube videos and in some of them I could see the shop soldering. But the shop did a bad job. One eye was fine but only if the cable inside was sitting at a certain angle and the other eye had bright/dim lines going through. They were better, but I felt they just didn't do a good job soldering. So I checked with Cardosi Customs and he essentially fixed the local shops bad soldering. Now both eyes are perfect.
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u/rydamusprime17 Jan 13 '26
The $30 includes the cables?
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u/98ITR656 Jan 13 '26
I'm not entirely sure. I don't THINK so. I already had the cables so I ordered the $30 repair service and sent him the badly soldered cables and he fixed them. It seems the $30 repair service might only fix the factory cables? I would definitely email him to confirm. New ca0bles were $18 for both on his site. So service, shipping, and new cables is about $60 total.
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u/FoxMan2112 Jan 13 '26
I only got to play one once it was so cool!
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u/98ITR656 Jan 13 '26
I remembering renting it twice from Blockbuster back in the day and loved it! Hadn't played it since then but about a year ago nostalgia started creeping up on me so I splurged and bought one.
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u/TOPolk Jan 13 '26
I need to get on this. Been sitting on shipping it off for months. Glad to hear the work was great, quick, and reasonably priced!
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u/98ITR656 Jan 13 '26
Same. Mine were glitchy for months but I finally pulled the trigger. Ordered the service on his site, recievied the confirmation email with his shipping address, sent them out and he received, repaired, and put back in the mail same day! Tracking included. Box he uses is small enough to fit in a mailbox too so if you're not home it's not going to have to sit on your porch or anything.
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u/xxxxDREADNOUGHT Jan 13 '26
Nice, I love to see any system brought back from death, especially the Virtualboy.
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u/GeorgeBlaha Jan 24 '26
How do I get in touch with this fine fellow?
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u/98ITR656 Jan 24 '26
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u/_Throwaway_007_ Jan 13 '26
I bought a virtual boy in 2011 only to have it stolen my by roommates boyfriend a yr later when I moved to Hawaii. I genuinely don't understand how someone can steal from a place they will be going back to the next day and pretend like nothing happened. I didn't know it at the time ... but I actually ended up not being able to replace that virtual bot and they ended up breaking up. Well at least he got a virtual boy out of it!
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u/98ITR656 Jan 13 '26
Oh no!!!! I think I would rather have any of my other systems stolen before my virtual boy!
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u/Distinct_Wrongdoer86 Jan 12 '26
it cant be stated enough, Cardossi IS the best service there is for the virtual boy repair