Lack of updates...

Yeah, about that...

October is usually a busy time around here,  with my birthday and my son's birthday/Halloween and all. Hopefully by this weekend, I'll have stuff to post up, including my lackluster GETs at PRGE this year and do far.

Stay tuned...

Wow, don't I feel silly...

The saga continues with the Neo CD power supply. I posted in a Want To Buy (WTB) for a Neo CD or something equivalent. A Neo Geo guru (I usually refer to him as Sifu) had one that, I thought, was a Neo CD power supply, but it ended up being a different one (an HP sdd018-n1000). It had the same connector that I needed for the Neo CD and the same voltage output as the other power supplies that I've tried using. The only difference was the amperage going to 12V and 5V. I didn't think they made much of a difference, but apparently, it does.

In the meantime waiting for the adapter, I managed to find another power supply with the same style connector that the Neo CD uses. I cut off the part I needed and got rid of the rest.

I tried splicing into the old hard drive power supply that I've been trying to get to work with the connector I pilfered. Alas, after much hacking and prodding, I couldn't get it to work. The power light would come on, but no image or sound on the screen.

A few days later, I got the adapter in the mail. I immediately tried it out when I got it.

...didn't work...

Kinda frustrated at this point, I PM'd Sifu to see if he knew what was going on. We figured that it was 2 connections that were different: 5V and ground. Both of those were switched. I wish I was able to break into the main part of the power supply itself, but it was sealed shut.

I ended up, per advice, cutting the cable and rewiring the 2 different connections. I just did a quick cut and splice to get things tested, using electrical tape to cover the wires. Took it to my game area to test it.

...it finally worked...

After ALL that, it finally worked. I don't know if I'm gonna try and get the other adapter to work, but for now, I'm done and happy that this finally got resolved.

Specs on the adapter
HP sdd018-n1000
12V 1.0A (top left of the connector, looking at it)(red wire when opened)
5V 1.2A (top right of the connector, looking at it)(white wire when opened)
Ground (bottom of the connector, looking at it)(bare wire when opened)

5V and Ground need to be switched (Ground to top right connector, 5V to bottom connector)

Yay 3D Printing!...

I've been wanting to repair my Virtual Boy for some time now. Not the console itself, but the stand for it. There's a little clip that keeps it in place while playing it. That clip, since I bought it off a friend many moons ago, has been broken.

Many attempts to fix it with super glue yields this same result...and I hate it. 

I lived with just having the VB pointing downwards so the front part of the stand that has the hook still in tact takes the grunt of the weight. So, not only do I strain my eyes playing the VB, I also strain my neck. 

Not fun.

Cue a Google search for stand replacements or fixes got me THIS LINK; a possible 3D printed version of of said crappy clip. That got me exited. The 3D file was there, but I didn't have a 3D printer.

I knew a friend of mine had a 3D printer, but after reaching out to him, his printer doesn't do the type of plastic I need for this particular application (his uses PLA, he recommended ABS for what I need). He then pointed me to 3D HUBS. This had a bunch of local 3D print shops in the area that could do the job for me. 

Overly excited, I sent my file in, chose a shop near me to have it printed. The shop owner used a non-high resolution print for the file I sent him. 

The pic he sent me when the job was done looked kinda janky, but I figure for $10, I'll make do with it. 

This was several days ago. I was only able to pick it up today on my day off. I'll have to say that it looked better up in person than in the pic. So I took it home and went to work replacing the part right away.

With a little hobby knife finesse and a bit of patience:

The print, like I mentioned, was pretty much quick and dirty, but if I had my way to redo it, I'd probably would've had it done in higher print resolution.

All in all, I'm happy with how this turned out. It's also exiting that there's a local shop that I can send 3D print files to with great communication.