G1 Omega Supreme is an iconic 80’s toy. It really is a marvel of engineering. It is as if someone took a kinematics textbook and decided to make a toy that used as many concepts as possible from the book in one toy. However, cost pressures being what they are, the quality of the materials used in the construction of these toys is questionable at best. There are many more broken and/or incomplete Omega Supreme figures out there than there are complete working examples, which is a shame.
The most common root causes of a broken Omega Supreme are:
- Corrosion on the battery terminals
- Bad contact in the on/off switch
- Broken “hubs” in the walking mechanism
- Missing “shields” which hold the legs together
I’ve come up with solutions for all of these items, and my intent over a few posts is to share what I’ve learned. The first step to repairing your Omega Supreme is usually disassembling the tank and checking out the battery tabs. In this example, the corrosion was visible from the outside of the toy (looking into the open battery box).
To compete this repair, you will need a small Phillips head screw driver, a multi-meter, and a soldering iron (with supplies). Let’s start with disassembly.
First, you will need to remove these two screws from both sides, and set aside the yellow covers.
Then, remove the four screws in the bottom of the tank.
With those screws out, it should be easy to separate the top cover assembly of the tank from the remainder. This top cover assembly contains the battery box.
This view is from inside the top cover assembly, and the picture was taken after my repair. You can clearly see the rivets in these two battery contacts. In this case, the one on the right was corroded, and no contact was being made from the brass outer tabe to the copper inner tab.
To resolve this, I simply soldered a piece of wire between the brass piece and the copper piece. This was enough to regain contact for the batteries.
Once you are done soldering, recheck continuity with the multi-meter to ensure the repair is sound. You can also pop batteries into the holder and measure for voltage on the inside tabs to verify the repair. Re-assemble the tank, and the repair is complete.