Recent posts

#81

PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: TG-16 Manual Scans

Last post by farankoshan - 10/04/2024, 05:07 AM

Did you guys ever notice that New Adventure Island's manual has some strange typo and grammar issues?

Check out page 8-9, the heading reads "Be Sure You Know How These Items"

That's it. Hahaha! Was there a slip in quality control? This late into the conversion efforts, did TTi staff start getting sloppy? Hahaha! That heading ends so abruptly.

Huh, you're right, never knew about it! The correction would be something like, "Be Sure You Know About These Items" or maybe with more words, "Be Sure You Know How To Use These Items" ?

And then at the back cover, the word "Adventure" is spelled "Adventyure".
 

Hm, another one...

What do you think happened? You think it was showing how rushed these ports and releases were being churned out in the US towards the near end of the TG-16's life in the US?

#82

Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: PC-Engine Duo-RX CD-Rom Is...

Last post by Keith Courage - 10/03/2024, 10:42 PM

Don't bother with a Recap! DUO-R and RX systems never need it. The only Capacitors that are sometimes known to fail are the 2 1000UF capacitors right by the 7805 voltage regulators(big heat sinks).

It's the Black DUO systems that get faulty capacitors.

The issue with your DUO is probabaly a weak/bad lens. Lots of times you can just adjust the V102 potentiometer to get it reading again but sometimes replacement is needed.

Also, check to make sure all wires to the lens are good. Lots of times the Red or white wires can short out from movement overtime.

#83

Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: PC ENGINE DUO "PLEASE SET ...

Last post by Keith Courage - 10/03/2024, 10:39 PM

Something to try which might sound weird, but I come across maybe 1 duo a year with an issue where it has to be used for 3-4 minutes before a disc will start working sometimes on a cold start. I would assume this is caused by a bad trace or connection on the board but I haven't been able to figure out where.

Anyways, just for the sake of trying it, Just hit run to start up a CD over and over again for about 5 minutes and see if the DUO magically starts reading discs again.

#84

Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: PC-Engine Duo-RX CD-Rom Is...

Last post by SkyeWelse - 10/03/2024, 07:28 PM

Thanks NW! I appreciate that. A lot of great guides here, just mainly wanted to see if I'm on the right path with reading those pot voltages. I did take the board out of the case and at least I don't see any leaking caps. Just trying to figure out if it's worth recapping as a first step or if there's more diagnosis I can try before I go that route. I've certiainly recapped boards before, but I wouldn't say I'm great at it and SMDs give me some troubles.

-SkyeWelse

#85

Console Repair/Mod Center / Re: PC-Engine Duo-RX CD-Rom Is...

Last post by NightWolve - 10/03/2024, 04:16 PM

Hey Tom, thanks for stopping by!

I'll forward this to @Keith Courage when I get a chance.

#86

Console Repair/Mod Center / PC-Engine Duo-RX CD-Rom Issues...

Last post by SkyeWelse - 10/01/2024, 11:02 PM

Hi everyone!

Glad to see that this forum is still alive and kicking! It's been awhile and I finally had some time in the last few weeks to start really making some progress on hooking up some of my older consoles. I had been using a Duo RX for years without any issues and all of sudden I'm getting that "Set Disc Error", that from what I'm reading seems to be like a general hardware error for pretty much anything having to do with the CD-Rom.

I've seen some other posts here with similar issues and one member (Joe) said he was able to fix his after his PC-Engine had been recapped. From what I've been reading, a recap can sometimes result in needing to adjust the potentiometers a bit with VR102 usually being the main culprit in most cases.

That's kind of what I wanted to try to play around with first before I start taking things apart from the actual cd-rom/laser assembly. I'm a novice when it come to electronics and a bit worse when it comes to the mechanical stuff... ended up breaking the plastic gears in my famicom disk system for instance, so would prefer to stay in my beginner wheelhouse first.

So the symptoms I've been getting outside of the Set Disc error is that the laser will recalibrate and move to the left to attempt to read the inner data layer of the CD. It will spin the disc for a second, then stop and the laser will move up and down (not left or right) just a bit in an attempt to read the disc. When it gives up the process, it will spin the disc one more time for about a second and then stop.



What I thought I might try first was adjusting the pots, and saw a great guide on the forums here that I was attempting to follow:

https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=8926.0

Specifically, I was hoping to try reading the voltage (starting with VR102) of A to B and B to C and C to A, like this guide says:

vr101:AB=12.33 AC=10.65 BC=19.55
vr102:AB=7.89 AC=8.11 BC=11.28
vr103:AB=7.25 AC=7.14 BC=18.46
vr105:AB=0.38 AC=0.00 BC=0.38

But in my case, I'm not getting any where near a DC voltage reading of 7v to 11v, I'm getting like a 2.22v or maybe 2.03v when I adjust the pot a bit. If those values from that guide are showing that they should be much higher voltages, then that makes me think that somewhere along the lines, perhaps a capacitor or two are no longer working as they should and not outputting the proper voltage. The caps at a glance look fine... the PSU is an original one, rated for 9v, but is actually outputting around 13v when I tested it. After it runs through the voltage regulators on the board, I think it goes to around 4v?

I guess I'm just wondering if I'm reading that guide correctly and I in fact should be seeing higher voltages there. I was surprised a bit because it seems like with vr103, the B to C test should be something around 18v and that seemed a bit high considering the PSU being uses is around 9v to 13v.

I was wondering if you did a voltage test on your pots and if you saw something different than what I'm seeing currently. I'm trying to figure out if I should just get a cap kit from Console 5 and just work on replacing all the caps first and maybe that might solve the problem or get me closer?

If you or anyone else has any advice for me or confirmations on what my next steps should be, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks for reading!

-SkyeWelse

#87

PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Joined the Duo club.

Last post by Tak-MK - 10/01/2024, 06:17 AM

I'm glad I could help! I didn't know it was of that much importance when I saw it a first

[Re: Joined the Duo club.]

#88

PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Joined the Duo club.

Last post by NightWolve - 09/30/2024, 02:44 PM

Re: Joined the Duo club.
WELCOME!

https://www.foromtb.com/attachments/clubduo-jpg.1702681/
_{disco-insider,de/images/locations/ClubDuo.jpg}

Special Thanks to @Tak-MK for figuring out how to get activated in this random Spanish forum (foromtb.com) to save/recover this particular "Club Duo" image (the LAST one!) that served as a "PCE Turbro" meme, so to speak, when @turboswimbz shared it!

This happened a few months ago when I wandered into this thread as part of my PCEFX image-recovery task/project which I believe has now saved/preserved 20,000+ PCEFX images from its ~20-year history mostly with Wayback, and a custom caching system for Photobucket and 2 other hosts (I'm considering caching IMGUR also before it's too late but I need a .webp image conversion layer)!

So the story around "Club Duo" is it was a night club in Munich Germany, but as best as I can tell it was closed during COVID-19 lockdowns and subsequently went out of business, so its websites expired and most of any shared images were lost. Another casualty of lockdowns... The image was shared from a general club website, link below, that showcased billboards/photos of many clubs in general, but it too was expired and Wayback didn't save the particular image:

_{disco-insider,de/images/locations/ClubDuo.jpg}

Anyway, as you can discern, it doubles in usage as a "Club [Turbo] Duo" in this context/forum, and with the extra work/help put into obtaining the ONLY copy of this image left on the Internet, I logged the story. I have manually rescued dozens of images like this when my automatic Wayback plugin can't help, so I don't bother to log the work, but this is the one I wasted the most time with waiting around for another forum admin to approve my account, and finally getting help (from Tak-MK who is Spanish) to make progress.

I can't believe I finally wrote this post, I really didn't feel like it, it's just one image, but it became something of a little hobby of historical excavation to find lost PCEFX history/images like this! Most forum archives/rebuilds have lost their images/assets, so I wanted to do a better job if at all possible with my PCEFX clone.

#89

General Gaming / Re: VG Box Art Dejavus

Last post by NightWolve - 09/29/2024, 01:34 PM

Bloody Wolf was more "inspired" (AKA ripped-off) from Arnold's 1985 Commando. I honestly didn't make this exact connection all this time, I figured general 80's action muscle-bound movie star influence, sure, but that they literally stole the EXACT pose/copycat from a movie poster/promo I really didn't expect!



I made this one for fun, sized-up side by side after reviewing these threads some more and patching a few lost images. I'm not sure there was a fuller poster of Arnold where his arm isn't clipped off or I would've used that instead.

A more extensive collection happened in another thread by @Tatsujin:
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=8501.0

And HG101 has the most here:
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/tracing/tracing.htm

Before I forget, I asked a very talented Bloody Wolf fan to make this for me to illustrate the point because he made some similar animated Bloody Wolf covers in the past. This was supposed to be included in the original post, I waited until I could try/learn to do the animation better, but I guess I didn't find the time/motivation to try, so might as well share his original before it's lost/forgotten. I compressed it to the modern/superior .avif format which is a high-color GIF alternative to animate images (a GIF would be 1.7MB while this is only 62KB!):



Thanks again to castle_zotz.

When there was confusion about the source of Arnold's pose being either from Predator or Commando, he made this too (but it's Commando, so this mockup is inaccurate):



Henceforth let it be known as "Bloody Predator".

#90

Console Repair/Mod Center / PC ENGINE DUO "PLEASE SET DISC...

Last post by elartur77 - 09/27/2024, 01:09 PM

Hello everyone.

Hope someone can help..

I got this DUO some months ago no working, I replaced all the caps, cleaned the laser and then worked like new.. I could play anything I threw at it original and backups, I used it for around a couple of months working great, but then I just leave it for a month or so, and yesterday that I wanted to play a little more it just dont wanted to read anything!!.

I just got the mesage "PLEASE SET DISC!" with every disk I tried, orginals, backups, music CD etc..

It start to spin at normal speed, nothing seems wrong at all, no weird noises, but then after a few seconds trying to read it just stop and appears "PLEASE SET DISC!"

The HUCARD part works great! but the CD part dont..


I open the thing and tried all this:

-Clean the lens.

-Reseat the laser and the harnes cables.

-Try another harnes from other unit.

-Change the laser with a brand new one.

-Check continuity on the recently changed caps and reflow the solder.

-Messed with the pots but nothing helped.

-Checked VCO with a multimeter and gaves me 4.33 Mhz when starts to spin, but still stops and "PLEASE SET DISC!"

So I really dont know what else to do, Im lost here, the system didnt fell off or got wet , I put it in a well ventilated area..

The only thing I can think of is that the board is a little messy with the solder flux i used, maybe a via got cloged?

I dont know, please could someone can give me some advise?

Thanks