Messages

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: GT/TE RGB LCD Driverboard]

You can use it for that and they will only sell to people in Japan who speak Japanese.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Snipping old caps]

I always remove with hot air. Fresh solder to all the pads first. I never lift pads using this method.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Joystick Compatibility w/Supergrafx]

I was able to solve this for SavagePencil. It was the controller port on the SuperGrafx. Pins 1 and 2, the Run and I buttons were shorting inside the connector. This was causing the system to read as all non-directional buttons were being pressed on the second controller poll, since the first poll only reads directional buttons.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: strange problem...need Turbo Express / PC Engine GT service manual]

Tantalum are also made with a rare earth metal which will only get more expensive with time.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: UperGrafx PC Engine 720p DVI Widget]

S-video is one of those things that many people missed the boat on and didn't live really long. So I get removing it.

S-Video was around for awhile, it was introduced in 1979.  Machines like the Commodore 64 (You need the model with the 8 pin din which has separate luma and chroma outputs), Commodore 128 and Atari 8-bit computers had it.  The more common 4-pin mini din we associate with S-Video was introduced in 1987.

I'm not saying s-video as a standard wasn't around. The issue was availability. As you said the 4pin mini-DIN, which was introduced later is the more common one people are aware of. The problem was that it wasn't included on most consumer grade products until as CZroe said, component was becoming readily available. I used s-video for years and never touched component because my s-video looked great. But I wasn't your average consumer. I actually owned a SVHS player, which did use s-video.

To CZroe's question about where I saw the Upergrafx, I never saw any video from Jason. I saw some videos that the team that created it put out and read a few reviews on it. My understanding was that it does not do Arcade Card support and needed specific file structures for the ODE. Honestly their initial price was such a huge turnoff to me that I have ignored most new information.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: UperGrafx PC Engine 720p DVI Widget]

I'm not saying anything bad about console specific solutions. I'd prefer them in most cases. I just have not been impressed with this product. It had limited functionality when released and was extremely expensive. As far as I have heard the functionality is still not on par with the new TerraOnion product.

S-video is one of those things that many people missed the boat on and didn't live really long. So I get removing it. Personally I would rather do RGB and if I want component just get some HDRetrovision cables. Plus the issues with the OSSC are getting better. It's still an actively developed open source product. Revision 1.6 made it a viable contender to the framemeister. If they correct the snes issues specifically, it will probably start to see a bigger uptick.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: UperGrafx PC Engine 720p DVI Widget]

The Duo RX doesn't do S-Video natively... So not sure what you are talking about there.

Component has similar limitations as RGB in the US. RGB requires a PVM or modified CRT obviously, but 240p component still needs either a CRT or a tv that actually supports it. Of all the Tv's in my house of which there are 7 only my 2010 Sony LED and my PVM support 240p component. My brand new 2017 OLED doesn't even have component hookups.

In the modern age we are going to be reliant on some kind of converter to continue to use old consoles. Personally I think the Upergrafx is going to have a small market. Glad to see the price has come down finally though because the old price was insanely high.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Bought a PCE Duo Should I send it in for a cap replacement?]

I'm still actively taking on work. I keep caps for duo's in stock.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: strange problem...need Turbo Express / PC Engine GT service manual]

There is no service manual that has been unearthed as of yet.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Turbo Duo recap distorted audio and no left channel on headphone jack]

Don't assume that the only areas with electrolytic fluid are the areas where you saw leaks. Assume the entire board is coated in fluid. You need to clean the top and bottom. Scrub everything down. The fluid gets under everything. Op amps tend to have fluid hidden under them. You aren't describing anything that hasn't been seen before. The best thing you can do is pull all the caps. Clean everything, not just the spots where caps were leaking, and when every nook and cranny is cleaned, then put new caps on.

If you still have issues at that point, it's time to start tracing. Going cap by cap on a duo is just a waste of your time. I get the thought process, but you are going to need to replace all of the caps regardless, so just replace them all and then test.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Turbo Duo recap distorted audio and no left channel on headphone jack]

When recapping Duos it's better to just get all of the caps off and then clean the hell out of the entire board before putting the new caps on. Also make sure you get all the old solder off.

[General Gaming / Re: Everdrive Black Friday sale today!]

Just a famicom and GB x7 for me this year. The only other ones I don't have are the master and game gear. Not picking those up though since they are supposed to get 5v compatible revisions potentially next year.

[General Gaming / Re: Just got into the Wonderswan/Colour and wanna talk about it]

Psycho Arkhan is just pissed because nobody has mentioned his favorite system yet.

[General Gaming / Re: Just got into the Wonderswan/Colour and wanna talk about it]

Main 2 reasons Goldeneye would have sucked on Playstation, load times and no built in 4 player support. Reasons why FF7 would have sucked on N64, because it's an N64 and it would have had some ridiculous gimmicky camera and would have needed to be on an obscene number of carts, plus crap music.

Reasons why all of these games would suck on the wonderswan? Because it's a wonderswan.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen and A/V Out Boards]

I still have some of these, both styles, if anyone wants them. I won't be making any more of them when I run out.

[General Gaming / Re: Question: "Retro Gamers" VS "Retro" Collectors]

That's how I would take it as well. Personally I think it's a waste to be a pure collector, but those are the people that act as a museum and are able to show us what consoles or games looked like when they were new.

Now that being said, I don't hate collectors, it's just not for me. I prefer to do a mix of both. I personally have 50+ consoles, many are duplicates, I obviously don't play all of them. Some of my consoles are "show" pieces but I will still use them. Same with games. I own multiple copies of some games. Some copies I play, some I don't because I like the game so much I want to keep it in good shape.

I would much rather be a mix of the 2 than purely one way or the other.

[General Gaming / Re: Just got into the Wonderswan/Colour and wanna talk about it]

I got a Playstation on launch and loved every minute of it. I got the N64 on launch as well and only played Mario64. My Playstation still saw a ton more use than my n64 ever did. I don't hate n64. The 2 consoles are apples and oranges to me. If FF7 came out on N64 it would have been a completely garbage game guaranteed. Likewise Goldeneye on Playstation would have sucked too. Each one has it's own quirks and games that were good and bad. At the end of the day play the Wonderswan on real hardware and Mortal Kombat on portables sucks.

[General Gaming / Re: Just got into the Wonderswan/Colour and wanna talk about it]

I backed that retro fighters controller. Just hoping the analog stick isn't complete shit.

[General Gaming / Re: Just got into the Wonderswan/Colour and wanna talk about it]

Emulating handhelds is a goofy experience. If you aren't playing on the original console it's a totally different experience. You have to take into consideration that games were designed to work with the control setup for the handheld.

You have a 3ds, try playing a GBA game or even a nes game on it. It's goofy. It doesn't feel right because the controls are off. The NES d-pad and the 3ds d-pad are way different, plus the placement is wrong. Then you have those 4 buttons which are not laid out for playing older games not designed for them.

The biggest beef I have with emulation is that the control schemes are never right. You genuinely miss out on the experience and in some cases the games are practically unplayable.

You probably hate the n64 because it doesn't sound SNES enough but imagine trying to play a N64 game with a keyboard instead of the stupid trident controller. You can hate the trident all day but the games are designed around the quirks.

N64 games play better with alternate controllers. So many N64 games were also designed for PC or other consoles and N64 versions simply have a set of commands mapoed to the number of buttons.

I would have to disagree in most cases. As an example, playing Ocarina of Time is goony when you have to use the C buttons and you are trying to do so with a Gamecube C-Stick or the 3DS screen. That's not to say all the alternate pads were bad. The Mako Pad, which was an aftermarket normal shaped N64 controller was vastly superior to the trident.

[General Gaming / Re: Just got into the Wonderswan/Colour and wanna talk about it]

I think I want to go play Mortal Kombat on the original gameboy just so I can have the same experience as playing it on a Genesis...

[General Gaming / Re: Just got into the Wonderswan/Colour and wanna talk about it]

Emulating handhelds is a goofy experience. If you aren't playing on the original console it's a totally different experience. You have to take into consideration that games were designed to work with the control setup for the handheld.

You have a 3ds, try playing a GBA game or even a nes game on it. It's goofy. It doesn't feel right because the controls are off. The NES d-pad and the 3ds d-pad are way different, plus the placement is wrong. Then you have those 4 buttons which are not laid out for playing older games not designed for them.

The biggest beef I have with emulation is that the control schemes are never right. You genuinely miss out on the experience and in some cases the games are practically unplayable.

You probably hate the n64 because it doesn't sound SNES enough but imagine trying to play a N64 game with a keyboard instead of the stupid trident controller. You can hate the trident all day but the games are designed around the quirks.

[General Gaming / Re: Just got into the Wonderswan/Colour and wanna talk about it]

Whoa hold up. The intellivision had an amazing controller. Once you lost those inserts you had a bunch of buttons to choose from plus that sweet "d-pad". Using the controller was practically a game itself.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Favorite Namco PCE game?]

Arkhan! Please make the Cock Goblin game from CodeMonkeys. Must use Namco music. Preferably from MegaMan X!

[General Gaming / Re: Quality Genesis Model 2 Scart Cable]

I own an absurd number of cables from retro console accessories. A few things to point out. Both RCA and RGC were building cables quite some time ago that were cable of damaging the Framemeister, yes both. Those cables have not been in production for a long time and they both have stated that they would replace them for people. It also only affected the Boosted Sync cables, not to be confused with Buffered Sync cables.

Now that being said, I personally get them from RCA because she is US based, builds good quality cables, and they are shielded even for the cheap ones. She also offers the fully shielded cables, just like the RGC guys and she offers metal SCART heads if you want them.

My only personal issues with RGC are that he uses Epoxy or Glue or some shit to "seal" his connections inside the cable and he is UK based, so more expensive for shipping, plus whatever the conversion rate is at the time. I do like his circuit boards though.

My last little bit, RCA has a website. She has had it up for a few months. Stop buying the cables on ebay.

 http://www.retro-access.com

She sells more cables, with more options, and cheaper if you just go through the web page. Screw ebay and their nonsense.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Favorite Namco PCE game?]

Everyone knows that the best Namco soundtracks were Dig Dug and Pac-Man. Why even question it? The samples in those are so epic!

I will be honest and say I don't get hating or "disliking" a game because you don't like the music. Turn the sound off? I love to play Megaman, but if the sound bothered be I could just not listen to it.

Also comparing the sound of an NES to an SNES is kind of silly. You are basically comparing apples to oranges. Sure they are both round and a fruit. So they are the same equivalent right?? The audio and video capabilities from one console to another crossing generations isn't really a great way to make a case for an argument. Honestly a better argument would be why Sega did such a bang up job screwing up the drivers for the same sound chip within a single generation.

Also I like Tacos.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen and A/V Out Boards]

Sure thing. Within the 48 states they are $5 each shipped. Doesn't matter which version. Just let me know how many you want and which style and I can get them out to you. Feel free to pm me if you prefer.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen and A/V Out Boards]

It depends on your preference but I like the TRRS setup. It keeps the case clean. You can also replace the tuner jack with an 8pin mini-DIN or something similar. I have seen people just use a panel mount jack and screw it into the case, but personally that's not what I would do.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboDuo CD won't spin up to speed]

I also repair these and agree that it's likely in need of a recap. In the event it needs more, I have more parts.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen and A/V Out Boards]

For anyone else who wants them, I have more of these rebuilt now. After I run out of these I am not going to be ordering more of either of these circuits.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen and A/V Out Boards]

I should have more of these prebuilt in the next week or so. Just waiting on them to come in from fab and they already shipped to me.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen and A/V Out Boards]

Hey RxM,

For the soldered wires, just connect them directly to the pins and don't lift those ones. You are correct with pin 41, the red wire connected to pin 41 is pulling 5v and that pin is not lifted. You don't have to pull 5v from there. I just did it for simplicity sake. I hope that all makes sense.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Video Capture Issue with Framemeister and RGB Modded Core Grafx]

If you are using composite video as sync I have seen issues like that before. The best solution I have personally found for that is to either use csync, a sync stripper, or a gscartsw_lite with sync regen on.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: PC-E Duo SCART with 3.5mm?]

Duo's pass stereo audio through the DIN. You don't need to use the headphone jack to get audio. However if your cable was wired with one then you either need to rewire the DIN connector on the cable or you will be forced to use the headphone jack for audio.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen and A/V Out Boards]

No problem at all. Lifting the pins does mean to unseat them from their pads. Ideally you use hot air or an iron and apply heat while using a pick or similar device to separate the pin from the pad. Once it's separate from it's pad, you just connect the pin to ground. Some people do it similar to how I did it, others may connect each pin individually.

In my photo you will see a L shape along the chip connected to a blue wire. I bend each leg up and then solder each one to a component leg from a capacitor. Then I attach a wire to it and to ground.

The other wires you see are all the wires that must be attached for this circuit to work.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: PC-E Duo CD Drive maintenance advice]

On duo's I usually lube all the moving parts. On cdrom2 you aren't supposed to do the plastic gears.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: The CD drive on my PC Engine Duo is misbehaving...diagnosis?]

If it's a Duo, it's likely not gear related, could be but not as common as the cd-rom2 gears. Honestly it could be a lubrication problem or the laser might just be failing. If you have had a recap already then I would focus on laser adjustments and possibly a laser replacement.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen and A/V Out Boards]

Thanks for that Keith.

RxM, that is the circuit schematic these boards are built from. So basically just lift and ground all the pins listed at the top of the schematic. Then connect all the other pins listed to the appropriate points on the board. Then you are good to go.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen and A/V Out Boards]

Just a potential mounting point. You can put them pretty much anywhere you want because they are so small.

The pins that need lifting can be individually hooked to ground or you can hook them all together and then to ground. The latter is easier.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen and A/V Out Boards]

Below are images of the test install I did.


https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=341277262983811


https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=341277312983806

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen and A/V Out Boards]

Mobiusstriptech@gmail.com

Just make sure you put your address.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen and A/V Out Boards]

If you are in the US probably $10 shipped.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen and A/V Out Boards]

Yeah I can sell you prebuilt ones if you want. Do you want the ones with or without the AV out? The circuit is slightly different if you want AV out or just a screen mod. I can give you some instructions as well. All of this is based on the circuits and findings that theSteve posted on here. I just made a board to contain the circuit.

You will still need to lift the pins on the huc6260 and obviously make those connections. Just let me know which boards you want.


https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=341177199660484

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen and A/V Out Boards]

Just a note, I have now installed these and can confirm they work just fine. It definitely helps keep everything clean.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TE/PCE GT reproduction screen covers any intrest]

I have also started looking into this. I got a quote for glass lenses already, but I would need to place an order of 100 minimum to keep it cost effective. I thinking about getting vinyl decals made for the lenses. I was going to try this out with a local place using acrylic first.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Bought a PCE Duo Should I send it in for a cap replacement?]

Honestly even if it was recapped, open it. I have had to repair previous recap jobs because the person who did the recap either used garbage caps or didn't clean everything.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: TE/PCE GT reproduction screen covers any intrest]

You are pulling the glass from the backup monitors as well?

[Console Repair/Mod Center / TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen and A/V Out Boards]

Hey Guys,

I made a couple small PCB's and put them up on OSHPark for anyone who wants to order them. These are based on thesteve's circuit for modding your TurboExpress or PC-Engine GT for a new screen or A/V Out. While the circuit can obviously be built without these, I just think it's a bit cleaner than using perfboard or building a circuit on top of the 6260.

TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen Mod Only Board
https://oshpark.com/projects/fAyYocPK/

TurboExpress/PC-Engine GT Screen Mod and A/V Out Board
https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/SAfzq1dI/

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: CD-ROM2 Splt washer (or e-ring?) replacement]

My TG16 CD drive had one of those on it when I bought it. It sort of worked. It was staying in place, but wasn't real tight so if the drive moved around too much, I could see it coming off.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: Game-Tech region modded TG16 can't use everdrive]

Just a heads up, I ended up getting another TG16 that was encountering the same issue using a different region mod. I got a hold of another v2.5 everdrive and found that it did work. So there was definitely an issue with the specific everdrive. I have since had that everdrive replaced and no longer see an issue.

For anyone that encounters a similar issue, the everdrive that was having problems was a black solder mask v2.5. The replacements were green solder mask v2.5.

[Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: CD-ROM2 Splt washer (or e-ring?) replacement]

Console5.com sells replacement e-clips. Note these are e-clips not split washers so they are a bit tougher to install. They are super small as you would expect and very cheap. I have used them and can say they work great for me.