NESRGB install DONE!

And what a trial it was.

Started off by desoldering the PPU out of the AV Famicom, then soldering in the machined socket in it's place. Then it was a matter of soldering in the machined pins to the the adapter board for this revision. Relatively easy process. There's also a capacitor that has to be either removed, modified to lay flat, and reinstalled or removed altogether. I opted to remove it, since it's for the original PPUs composite output. I was gonna use the composite video coming off of the NESRGB. 

Before moving on, I also soldered in place this board. It gives me a better spot to solder to rather than the solder points on the connector itself. Probably unnecessary, but again, ease for myself. 

Flipped it back over and installed the remaining pieces. First, the strip pin headers was placed in the adapter board, then placing the NESRGB in place. I tacked in the first and last pin on each row, took it off the adapter board, then soldered in the strip pin headers in place. Next was soldering the other machined socket in place on the NESRGB, followed by finishing up all the soldering for the rest of the connections. 

This pic was from the initial testing, hence the 3 wires to the board. I wanted to just test the new composite connection. I connected it to the purple board on the bottom and tested briefly to ensure the connections were fine. I connected the AV Famicom to my RetroTINK with my composite/S-video cables. After powering on...all I got was sound.

...

I overlooked my connections and tried again. Both through composite and S-video showed nothing, but I did get sound. I took out my multimeter and checked all the connections from the original PPU spot to the final resting place of the PPU on the NESRGB. From pins 21 through 40 connected fine. Pins 1 through 20 had some pins that wasn't properly connecting. Thinking that I might have shorted something with the pins, I tried to desolder the pins from the adapter board. I got to a certain point and then I promptly clogged my desoldering gun.

...

I stopped for a minute to look things over. I then realized that there was one thing I forgot to do on the NESRGB itself. There is a spot where you need to bridge to choose the type of palette for video you want to use. I forgot to connect that. I ended up bridging those pins together and did another test.

Glad to say that it worked! Both the composite connection and the S-video connection!

It was already late when I did finished the test, so I desoldered the wires from the NESRGB and the little adapter at the Multiout connector and saved the final work for the next day. 

The following night, I went back to work on the AV Famicom. I first modified the RF shielding on the bottom, clipping out a little section of the shield near the cartridge connector so the wired from the Multiout connector have a safe route to go to the NESRGB. There was also a little bit of plastic that needed to be clipped for more clearance.

I got all the wires soldered in to the proper points. I used heat shrink tubing to keep the wire bundles nice and tidy. I initially also hooked up a +5V and ground wire, but after looking at some installs, it looks like it wasn't really needed, so I removed them.

I got the wires trimmed to the proper length and soldered to the NESRGB. I made sure the wires coming from under the mainboard wasn't pinched and routed properly around the cartridge connector screw boss.

A little closer shot of the connections. 

And now, pics from the final test.

Composite video using the RetroTINK and an SNES cable. It's a little "fuzzy" around the logo there. Not quite sharp, but no jailbars. My modded Famicom and top loading NES have defined bars on them.

S-video using the RetroTINK and an SNES cable. A lot sharper definition on the logo. I like this a lot, but...

RGB using the OSSC and a SCART cable (sync on Luma). WAY sharper! Kinda like the VS. Super Mario Bros at the arcade. However, I did have one issue with the image on RGB.

I snapped this pic on the underworld level, you can see some blue/purple colored dot static in the background. The composite and S-video on the same level do not show this. Now, this is just an initial test. There may be an issue with the SCART cable I was using. Since the sync signal was coming from Luma, it may be introducing that interference. There might be more tuning that I have to do on the OSSC as well. I can look into it later, since I'm gonna get another SNES SCART cable that using c-sync instead. 

This was a fun install! I'm probably gonna modify at least my top loading NES with this as well. 

As it goes for the Dreamcast, still waiting on parts. I also have some 3D printed parts to get in the Saturn when I get the SD card extension soon. More projects coming soon!