Revisiting the OG Family Computer...(Pt. 2)

It's about 10 days after part 1, The Lava RGB for the OG Famicom came in. I was planning on doing it all the following day on my day off, but I had some time tonight to get some basic things done before I get to wiring it all up.

Here's most of the project set out. The plan for tonight was to get the sockets soldered in and pins installed to streamline wiring for the next day.

 

The 40 pin machined socket has already been in soldered in this picture. I set up the machined pins into the socket to make it easier to solder it in the special board that offsets the Lava RGB board for installation.

 

Here are the machined pins soldered in place. Now, I do have a confession to make, I took this pic after I desoldered the PPU pins realizing that I did it incorrectly. This isn't the first time I've done this. One of the top loading NES consoles or AV Famicom consoles I've worked on I've made this mistake on.

 

This is what I initially done. I had both sets of pins installed before I realized that I needed to have those pins that should go into the "PPU" part of the offset board installed, instead, on the Lava RGB first before soldering it to the offset board. 

 

...

So, out comes the ZD-915 to desolder the pins off of the offset board. By doing this, I kinda ruined the pins to the point that I thought that I shouldn't use them. So, out came the extra machined pins that I ordered for the last NES Lava RGB mod I did.  

 

 

The kit came with another machined 40 pin socket. I used it to hold the replacement machined pins in place as I soldered them into the Lava RGB board.

 

The pins that go into the offset board need to line up with (from top of the Lava RGB) the first and third rows of holes. I had the shorter pins soldered into the board.

 

Next the 40 pin socket needed to be installed. I was planning on using a standard DIP socket, but I opted to use the machined one instead. Here it's put in place and soldered in.

 

Everything soldered in place.

 

 

Now, the next issue I had was that the machined pins that I used have a longer lead on the bottom. If I soldered them in place as is, the pins would just barely hit the ICs below it. 

 

Here are the pins soldered in place to the offset board. I took my flush cutters and trimmed off the excess.

 

Here is everything installed into the Famicom with the leads of the pins trimmed. 

 

Top shot of what I finished up tonight. Before setting the PPU in it's final resting place, I double checked to make sure that there are no bridges between pins on all connections that was soldered in. There are a few pins on the Famicom mainboard itself that I have to double check, but I'm at a good stopping point for tonight. 

 

...yeah, this isn't my best blog I've tried to type out...