Sega Mega Drive DONE!

I don't think I mentioned it, but I got a Japanese Mega Drive from a junk bin my friend had. It was kinda worked, missing screws, missing volume slider, and a broken power button (the nub of the slide switch broke off). I did test it, even with the broken power switch, and it worked just fine.

I did my usual thing with it (broke the case down, scrubbed it clean, dusted the main board off, cleaned the contacts, checked all the caps), then put it aside for about a month or so.

With all this lock down with COVID-19, I figured it's time to finish it up. I had to figure out what to do with the power switch.

I tried looking online for a switch that would work. There were a few, but the pitch wasn't correct, and there wasn't the correct grounding points on the switch to the board. I tried modifying a switch that I bought for a separate project, but it didn't work out well.

Here's the switches. The one on the left is the original switch that I desoldered from the main board. On the right is the exploded view switch that I had. The original switch is an SPDT switch, mine were DPDT. I trimmed the leads from the DPDT switch, but nothing I tried worked.

I took the original switch apart. There was a spring and ball in there that I took out. I also drilled a hole and used a M3 screw that I had from the left over parts from my 3D printer build. I cut it down a bit and also took the head off of it since it didn't fit properly into the power switch housing on the top cover.

I soldered the switch back in and did some initial testing. Turns out, the screw wasn't enough to move the switch to the on position. I did check to make sure the power LED was installed correctly, and without the case on, it works just fine.

It took some quick thinking (that is, I took a shortcut). So I ended up doing this.

I ended up putting an M3 nut on the screw that I originally cut. This also meant that I needed to modify the power switch housing as well.

 I bored out the housing so it'll fit the M3 nut to add some girth to the switch. It takes a little extra push to get the power to trigger. I figure that if I finally come around to finding a proper switch, or this hack finally give up the ghost, I can always 3D print another one.

Speaking of 3D printing, I printed the missing volume slider. This took some modifications after the print to get it to fit properly on the slider switch. There was a point where I thought I was gonna snap the slider, but with some filament digging, I got it to fit just right.

Here's a top-down look at the slider. I may look for a fine tip red paint pen to mark the volume line on the slider, but I don't think it's needed.

I also removed the cartridge lock, mainly so I can used my Mega Everdrive on it. I didn't have a modified cartridge that would work with it, so off it went.

That's another project (if you can call it that) done. I've always wanted to add a Mega Drive to my Sega console collection.

Oh, also one more thing.

We has a doggo. His name is Hershey. He's not too hyper, but he does command the belly rubs...a lot.

Atari 2600 A/V/S-Video mod DONE!

...Seeing that the US is at the point of being quarantined for COVID-19, I figured that I should take some time to do some mods.

I failed the last time trying to make a decent A/V mod for my 2600 as I mentioned in my last blog. Well, I broke down and got an A/V mod board from eBay that's based off of The Longhorn Engineer's Mod.

I figured that I could use an S-Video "upgrade" for my 2600, so I bought it and was able to get to installing it today.

 I started by popping off the TIA from the mainboard, bending out the pins that needed to be bent, and replacing it. Behind the mainboard, I got the rest of the connections ready with wires soldered in. I used double sided foam tape to hold the mod board in place, then soldered all the mainboard connections to it. I used larger gauge wire for the power and ground connections.

Before finalizing the install, I tested it by connecting to loose connectors and tried it out on my monitor. Glad to say that all of it worked! The S-Video looked clean!

The kit came with some Cat5e cable. I drilled a hole in the side of the metal case and threaded the cable through it. I didn't have a grommet I could place in the hole to protect the wire, so I left the Cat5e cable intact so it would protect the wires inside. I forgot to knot the cable for stress relief, so I just used a couple of zip ties that I had.

 When it came time to drilling the holes for the 4 DIN connector for S-Video and the RCA jacks for audio and composite video, I had a mini-fail. The kit comes with really cheap RCA jacks, so when I tried tightening them up, I accidentally snapped one at the threads...which is par for course since I accidentally drilled one of the holes too close...it's been a minute since I've had to drill holes for connectors.

I had some spare RCA jacks that worked...ok...again, the holes were still close, but with the the way the jacks were made, I just drilled out the holes a bit more to space them out *kinda* evenly...I'm usually good at it, but since it's been a while, I didn't fare out so well. I did a nice job centering the S-Video jack, though, even if I do say so myself.

The S-Video jack came with a little PCB that snaps on and solders on to the back of the connector, making it easier to connect the Luma, Chroma, and Ground. Anyway, this is all the connectors wired up and done.

From initial testing, there were power problems. Turns out the flimsy ribbon cable was really bad. The plastic lamination was separating, causing the ribbon connections to fail. I ended up using some headers that I had from a previous project and some jumper wires that I got for the Atomiswave monitor.

I didn't get pics of the image. I got too excited when it worked, then had to take care of some business right after. But yeah, it is a mod worth doing, and I may be doing it to my Jr and also my Coleco Gemini. 

Stay tuned. More things (possibly) coming up!

You can't progress without failure...

And man, have I failed on my last 2 mods.

First off, I worked on getting my Gameboy Pocket modified with a back light and also a bi-vert mod.

Let's get to the fails (sorry, no pics)

• Broke the ribbon cable on the LCD which later I was able to repair
• Broke a capacitor that the bi-vert mod board needed to connect to because...
• I kept bridging the connections trying to get the solder to flow through the points. 
• I had a hard time getting the polarized filter off of the LCD, which made it worse for tearing in the ribbon cable.
• Got super frustrated and broke the main board in half.

I ended up using another Gameboy Pocket that the case was worse for wear and got everything *sorta* working.

...See, I didn't want to mess with getting bridging solder points again, so I ended up just lifting the pins that I needed to connector to the bi-vert mod board to the Gameboy. Doing so somehow messed the LCD ribbon connector on the main board, so the ribbon cable will seat in there, but the clip for the connector won't fully lock the ribbon in place. I got it so it locks just right, but now that I think about it, it might be causing a slight screen issue, but I still need to test my theory.

Next fail, an Atari 2600 A/V mod.

Not really a super fail, but I decided that I was gonna make a simple A/V board with parts that I already had. I'm not sure if I built it wrong, but 2 of my test monitors were really static-y. One of the monitors gave a decent overall image, but when when there was sound involved, there was static on the screen. The other monitor would show an image for a brief moment, then blank out.

At this point, I'm gonna just get an A/V/S-Video mod board and go that route...because I'm out of parts and I'm now lazy to build one up.

Yeah, Just a few fails, but I won't get any better without failing a few.