It's time to re-shell some stuff...

The short of it: 

- Went back home to Maui for a celebration of life for my cousin.

- Came back and immediately did a cross-training stint that starts at 5a. (The flight landed at 1030p, got our baggage about 11 or so, had to take a shuttle to the car that took about another 30 minutes, drive back to my brother's house and talked for a bit until 12ish, then my drive going home and arriving at about 1230, try to sleep and wake up at 345, then drive to work around 4ish)

- PRGE was that following weekend. Didn't have to take care of a booth or LAN area, just had fun.

Here's a few things that I picked up this time around. Not shown is Street Fighter 2010 for NES. Kinda finished up my Ridge Racer collection. 

Also there is a replacement shell for a SNES. I was going back and forth about getting the replacement shell, but I figured this was a nice one to replace my old SNES.

...It really needed it. Now, this is my original SNES from 1992. I was gonna give it the Retrobrite treatment, but the shell is really brittle. Also, I tried doing an S-video mod, hence the holes in the original shell. 

I did break a piece off because of how brittle the plastic became. It was for the cartridge lock that's connected to the power button. I just took it out, seeing that it's really not important for the functionality of gameplay.

Swapping out the parts was simple. I was missing several case screws, so I just used some screws from the PC Engine that I failed to repair. They were a little longer than the original SNES ones, but I made them work. 

The next re-shell that I worked on was for a Gameboy.

One of the other things that I got at PRGE was a LCD replacement for my DMG Gameboy. Now, this wasn't really a re-shell per se. I thought that a DMG that I had wasn't working properly with batteries in it. It turns out that the rechargeable batteries I was using wasn't the greatest. So, I just swapped this one out, then I'll use the screen from this one and install it on a DMG that I had with a bad screen. 

I still need to modify the shell for the screen. The DMG that I'm putting the old screen that was on this one will need a new screen lens, which I'll probably buy later.

I bought this grinding pen to modify the shell to have a wider viewing area for the new LCD. I just had to remove 1mm from around the inner edge of the shell...

...not my best work, but cleared just enough to have a better viewing angle for the new LCD.

...Yeah, not really the best. But with the new glass lens I'm installing...

You really can't tell how ugly the cuts are.

So much brighter. I left the plastic protector on the lens just because. 

I have aspirations to reshell a Game Gear, but I think I'll just hold off on that for now.

The end of the Nintendo Vs. Cab...

I. Was. Done. 

Let me explain.

I've tried, to the best of my knowledge and whatever the internet would lead me to, to find any and all instructions to get that Vs. SMB board to work. I've got a Vs. to JAMMA board and tried using that along side a Supergun JAMMA board and my RetroTINK 5x. Nothing I tried didn't work. I stopped short of running the same set up that I had when I initially broke the machine down.

Nothing. Just blinking screen, or no screen at all.

I asked my friend to take the cabinet back. Luckily, he already had a buyer interested in it. I couldn't keep it in my garage anymore. So tonight, I transferred it to his place.

It's really par for course for me trying to do repairs. I'm upset that I couldn't figure it out, but I'm kinda glad it's out of my garage now. It took up way too much room.

Anyway, that's the end of the Nintendo Vs. cab saga. On to the next one.

Experiments in resin 3D printing... (no pics)

I finally got around to using that resin 3D printer I got last year. It was relatively easy to get up and running: level the print platform to the bottom of the vat, pour in some resin, then start the print.

The resin I had listed a best by date of April or May. I decided to try it out anyways, at least to break in this printer.

Tried my first print (some Sega Saturn power and reset buttons). It took about an hour and a half to print at the settings I had. When it was done, there was nothing on the build plate. I guess I didn't have the first few layers set properly. The print ended up being stuck on the bottom of the vat. With gloves on, I dug it out of the vat and tried again.

I changed some settings, letting the layers sit a little longer exposed to the light. This time the print stuck, but only one of the three things completed printing. After changing a few more settings, I managed to get two of three things printed. I figured that the supports that I had were too thin, so I made the supports thicker in the slicer. I haven't reprinted it yet, but I will soon in the future.

I next tried to print a mount for a Fenrir I still need to install. This time the print took about 13 and a half hours. I just let it print overnight. 

The next morning, after the print completed, there was only one flaw on it. It was at a noticeable part of the mount, but nothing really detrimental.

I next tried printing some gears for a PC Engine CD, which was the main reason for me to invest in the resin 3d printer. I did some slight changes the print settings, mainly how long each part was exposed to the light. This was the first print that I made that actually came out as they should! I still have to test fit them, but they look just as they should.

I tried a few more prints, but those prints didn't complete properly. At that point, I just poured the left over resin back in the bottle and cleaned up the mess.

My take on resin printing? It's really good at getting a nice, smooth print, getting .05mm layers. What I don't like is the post processing. Unlike FDM printing that I'm used to, resin printing has a lot of post processing. The left over resin needs to be rinsed off with some sort of solvent. I used a cleaner and let it sit in an ultrasonic cleaner. Then it needs to be UV cuired, which I just put in the UV bin that I made for retrobrighting old consoles. I also learned that after rinsing, the print needs to dry before curing, otherwise it'll get spotty and not cure properly.

There's still a lot for me to learn about 3d printing, both resin and FDM still. Hopefully, I'll get better at it.

It's been a minute, what's been done?...

Where do I start.

I've been in a slump lately. Really don't feel like working on anything mod-wise. I have a few Saturns that I need to finish (repair, Fenrir install, etc.), a PSX that need's to be finished (Xstation install), and other miscellaneous things. I've been reluctant do to it because of work exhaustion, family, and tendinitis working it's way back into my hands. 

The Arcade 1up is complete, fully operational. There's just a few things that need to be buttoned up on it before I can move on. Again, life is becoming slightly overwhelming, so I'll finish it when I finish it.

I've been improving my office a bit...

I mounted my LCD TV to the wall. The studs were not centered where I wanted it, so I used some scrap wood from some old Ikea shelving to screw some lag bolts into the studs. I put some countersunk bolts on the back and secured the mount itself with some nuts. I used regular nuts, but I'm thinking that I should have used some locking nuts instead, but it works the way I have it now.

I installed a sound bar mount and secured that to the brackets behind the TV, just so I have more room on my shelf for consoles to display. The mount itself is an articulated mount, so I can pull it out and tilt it left or right to watch TV or play games on it. It's nice to have it up on the wall now. Next is to get my consoles set up.

We also inherited a truck ('99 Nissan Frontier) from my wife's grandparents. We lovingly call it "Grandpa Truck". The truck was completely stock. The stereo was stock, the speakers were horrible sounding, meh power...but the main thing is that it runs. I've been able to do a lot of recycling runs and large item deliveries with it.

But it still had a really bad stereo system...and I need some good music while I'm driving.

First thing invested in it was a new head unit. 

I invested in an Atoto F7WE. I bought a refurbished unit from eBay. It has wireless Android Auto on it, which is a big deal for us. I also ordered a wiring harness at the same time to make the install easier. It was a pretty straight forward install. 

The stereo worked great since we can now stream from out phones, but the sound was still awful. I ordered some new MTX component speakers. They were relatively inexpensive, and it had some installation parts for free.

The reason why the stock speakers sounded bad? The 20+ year old speakers were falling apart. There was no speaker surrounds to speak of! As I removed the door panel to install the speaker, all of the surround material fell out from the bottom of the door.

After removing the old speakers from the door, I realized that none of the holes on the speaker didn't align with the speaker mounts. The kit that came free with the speakers were of no help as well. The stock tweeter location had a special mount that didn't fit with the tweeters that came with the speakers. I couldn't find a way to install the tweeters in without drilling a hole in the door panel, which I really wasn't in the mood to do.

So I just used some zip ties to secure them to the old mount locations. Yes, I did drill some holes, but it was just in the old speaker mount housing. These speakers sound amazing! There still a lot of tuning that I have to do to make it sound even better, but that's for another day. 

I still plan on installing some rear 6x9 speakers and possibly a powered subwoofer as well. But again, that's for another day.

Interesting little tidbit about the speaker wiring in the truck. Because it's a extended cab truck, there are no "rear" speakers to replace. The speakers in the door were wired that the tweeters are the "front" speakers and the lower door speakers are the "rear" speakers. When I install the 6x9 speakers, I'm gonna have to do some of my own wiring from the head unit to the speakers. 

I have hopes and aspirations to go back to fixing those console repairs and installs soon. Stay tuned!

The Arcade 1up is finally going somewhere...

As per my last post, I had a stripped down Street Fighter II Arcade 1up that I killed the monitor in. I still couldn't figure out the issue with the weak kick on the board; I made it as far as reflowing the pins on the IDE-ish connector on the main board before killing the monitor. 

Then we had the fiasco with getting the monitor out and stripped down. That where I stopped working on it. I went and started looking for a replacement monitor. I ended up using a monitor that I found a while ago.

I proceeded to strip it down from its casing and started to figure out how I'd get it mounted in the cabinet.

To get it as flush as I could to the monitor panel. To secure it to the panel, I used some T-Rex tape. I taped both the front and back of the monitor to the panel.

Along with taping the monitor to the back of the panel, I also used some scrap wood I had to securely mount the monitor to the cabinet. I used some angle brackets that I had for a different repair project to firmly get the monitor mounted in place.

I used my Raspberry Pi to test out the monitor, using a DVI to HDMI cable. I had an old Retro Pie image on it, so I figured it would just load up with no issue. 

Nope...

I was greeted with an error saying that the image couldn't be displayed. Also, because the monitor that I was using had a auto screen rotation option, it was stuck rotated 90 degrees. 

...

I thought I did something wrong with it when I stripped the casing off of the monitor. I did some online searching and learned that there are some options that I need to change in the configuration file to have Retro Pie to work with the cable I was using.

After changing the settings, I retried again. This time it loaded properly, even while the monitor's OSD was rotated still. I began testing some games, then this happened...

...I just realized that I was using a backup to the backup monitor to test the image. Anyway, the video setting was incorrect. It was very stretched out. I wasn't too inclined to figure out what to do to make it work, so back to searching for a prebuilt image that I could use with the Arcade 1up.

I managed to find a smaller image that was arcade games only. I burned the image to SD card and tested it with the monitor (that's already installed in the cab, not the backup monitor in the above pic.) I didn't get a pic of it, but it did run just fine. I used a USB controller to check that the image ran the game fine.

Moving on, I ordered 2 USB encoders for the controls. I didn't want to upgrade all the buttons and joysticks since it's really for my son to play with (since I already have the 3 arcade cabs in the garage), so the stock ones work just fine, albeit a bit loud and clicky. I also took the Raspberry Pi out of the Argon One case.

I wanted all PCBs mounted in the case using some sort of stand-off. I found a few good ones on Printables that worked perfectly. 

I had a few miscellaneous screws that worked with the print. I'm also planning on getting a fan possibly installed that would regulate the temperature in the cab, mainly blowing on the Pi. I have a possible way of mounting the fan, but I'm not sure where I have the Pi currently position is where I want it to stay.

 I printed the same stand-offs for the USB controller boards. Some of the wires from the stock buttons needed to be resoldered. After getting it all secured, I did some wiring management...because...

I didn't want it to look like this or know that I left it like this.

I was trying to design a button that would fit in the original power and volume switches originally were. I got a bit frustrated trying to get a decent design, so I decided to just drill out the holes to fit some extra arcade buttons that I had. 

I first used my hole drill bit that I got to drill out the holes for the Atomiswave cab. As you can see in the pic, it tore out. The Arcade 1up panels are made of MDF. Using the drill bit ripped at the layers of the MDF, just making it look ugly. If I could do it again, I would use a stepper drill bit to get the hole bored out.

I redid the SD card with a different image and did the initial set up. So far, it works just right. I called it a day after doing some button reconfigs and getting the right screen shader up and running properly. I still have to finish getting speakers installed and getting some sort of clean power management system in the back of the cab. I have several things in mind, but I still need to plan for it.

I hope to finish this up soon, but I still need my son to finish cleaning his room before we get that thing in there.

Bunch of fails right off the bat...

I'm also testing a new keyboard that I got. It's nice and clicky, but when in Bluetooth mode, there's a bunch of lag from typing. Might be my Bluetooth adapter, might be the keyboard, I don't know. Anyway...

Right off from the last post I did, I managed to kill the monitor of the Arcade 1up SFII. I've looked around for failed components, but I didn't see any on the mainboard. I thought it could be the monitor's mainboard.

The screws of the monitor's brackets were very tight, so I ended up stripping the screws. I tried using a screw extractor on the screws, but it ended up making it worse. I ended up using my Dremel to grind down the screws so I could just pop off the bracket from the monitor's frame. I couldn't see anything wrong with the board behind the monitor, so I just gave up on it. I ended up finding a perfect monitor that would fit in the Arcade 1up cab with a little bit of work. 

Prior to stripping the screws, I did order an LCD driver board that was compatible with the Arcade 1up's monitor, but that didn't work at all. I returned it and pretty much called the monitor dead.

The plan now is to first retrofit the "new" monitor into the cab, then order USB encoders for the joystick for my Raspberry Pi. I really didn't want to do it this way, but it is what it is. 

...I'm not sure about this keyboard. It's giving me phantom key combinations...or my ham hands are just way too massive for this thing. I'll have to play with it a little longer. 

2023! What's going on?

Yeah, not much really.

Well, here we are with another year gone by, and me not keeping record on what I've been doing repair or mod wise...There's a lot going on.

I've just become...lazy...there's no other way to say it. There's a lot going on and I'm not mentally ready to take on those tasks. 

After PRGE (this past October), I had one major job going: repair 2 Sega Saturns for someone. So far, I fixed one of them, the other is still needing to be looked at. I've already recapped the power supply since it was giving the same low power issue similar to the one I worked on before. But after the power supply recap, it still didn't show anything. I'm gonna try and recap just the video section of the mainboard, but the task is just, I don't know, daunting (?) for me. I just have to muster the energy to do it. Work has been zapping all my mental energy that I'm on zero when I get home.

The whole FZ-1 3DO repair thing is a major plus from last year. Getting something working I've been meaning to fix for 5 years is something, albeit it was just an ODE going in. But nothing like having 2 working 3DO's ready to do work. I have been playing Guardian War a bunch. Maybe I should finish that game first thing for 2023...

My friend also got me an Arcade 1up Street Fighter II for Christmas. The only issue with it is that LK on the second player side isn't registering. Everything else works just fine. I've already checked continuity from the button to the connector to the mainboard already. There weren't any issues there, so I'm gonna check the cable itself to the mainboard next. When that will be...? 

There's another Saturn that I'm working on personally that I'm installing another Fenrir ODE in it, along with an FRAM mod. That'll happen as soon as I can finish the other Saturn.

My wife got me a Wowstick for Christmas. It's a nice, rechargeable, mini electric screwdriver. That will help a lot with some of the work I'm doing. It's really slick, but the torque on it is a bit lacking.

I also treated myself to a few new flashcards: the Mega Everdrive Pro and a Neo Pocket GameDrive. Krikkz has been teasing a new Turbo Everdrive Pro as well, but Ced (of Fenrir fame) teased a similar project as well. I'll just have to watch both of them on Twitter (if it doesn't implode).

I didn't think I mentioned it, but I also got a PC Engine IFU case. it's complete (minus the adapter and system cards for the CD). The only thing that doesn't work is the CD-ROM², which I'm thinking the culprit is the infamous cracked gear (similar to the 3DO). I haven't cracked it open just yet, but I'm betting that even if that's not the main issue, it is damaged anyway and needs to be replaced...which brings me to the next thing...

I bought another 3D Printer. It's a resin one. I bought it back in October, but I haven't had time to try it out just yet. I have it set up in the garage and it's ready to go, but since it's winter time, it's not a good time to test it out just yet. I'm hoping to print the gear that I need to get the CD-ROM² fixed. I also have a washing station (a ultrasonic cleaner) and a curing station (my UV box for Retrobrighting) set up so it'll be all in one shot to get a print processed.

I also swapped out the joysticks in the Atomiswave cab. The sticks that I had in there kept double inputting directions, making it annoying to select games in a menu. These sticks were chosen by my son, and I think they're a good fit. I may look at getting longer joystick shafts, but for now, this works great.

I also swapped out the joystick gates as the "8 way" wasn't working as well as I wanted it to. I printed out a proper 8 way gate that fits and works perfectly. 

I'm not sure what I'll be working on in 2023, but just like any other year, I'm gonna make the most out of it. Maybe I'll start by trying more 3D modeling and part creating. I guess that could be one goal.

Well, Let's get stuff done in 2023!