Switching gears for a sec...

Since I'm considered an "essential worker" (read: my job is considered grocery store), I have to make sure that my car is in decent shape.

There were a few things that I needed to take care of.

• A check engine light with a P0420 code
• The "Brake" light (the one that turns on when your parking brake is on) flashes now and then when I'm driving.
• Rear defroster not turning on.

I started with the easier one: the brake light issue. That was just because my brake fluid reservoir was right at the minimum level. I added some fluid back in ($2.00 bottle) and now it doesn't turn on randomly. Easy fix.

The P0420 error was the harder one. The error pulled says that the Catalyst system efficiency below threshold. I've been rolling with it for several months now, but the check engine light was starting to rack on my nerves.This happened, I'm thinking, from an oil change that I had done several months ago.

The shop that I went to get my oil changed did a fuel system cleaning treatment even though I didn't request it. Apparently, you should have a full tank of gas for this treatment to work properly; I only had a half tank at the time. I didn't think about it until the check engine light came on, giving me the P0420 error when I had the code read at an auto parts store nearby. The 2 possible fixes were changing the O2 sensor or replace the catalytic converter. The O2 sensor was the cheaper option, so I went with that first.

Now, the thought process I had was that whatever was in the fuel treatment gunked up the O2 sensor.  My car has 2: a pre-catalytic one and a post-catalytic one. My though was that the fuel treatment stuff gunked up the pre-cat one. So, I tried changing that O2 sensor up. It wasn't an easy task...Let's just say that I had to contort my body in ways that I haven't done in, like, 30 or so years. Regardless, after removing the old, gunked up O2 sensor (pic pending), I put in the new one, not before I disconnected the battery from the car.

After getting it all installed and the battery connected back in, all looked good...for now. I simply undid the battery to, hopefully, reset the ECU and have the O2 sensor working and not have that check engine light pop on in a few weeks or a month from now...fingers crossed...

As for the rear defroster...I didn't get around to that. I'm hoping that it's something easy like replacing the fuse; I am hearing the rear defroster relay click on when I press the button, but nothing working on the window. That's another project for another day.

As much as I like working on cars, I'm really hesitant on working on my daily driver. I'm hoping that the fixes that I did work for a long time. I really don't want to revisit the P0420 again.

Gaming wise, I just bought a hot air rework station. That should help me with some of the other projects I'm trying to get completed. Stay tuned.

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.

Sega Genesis Model 1 modded...

I had a Model 1 Genesis that I've been meaning to finish an S-Video and A/V RCA jack mod on. It's a version VA7 Genesis, which it hailed as one of the more junky version of the Model 1s.

The quick back story on this: I found a this with a Model 1 Sega CD a while back for a steal at Goodwill. I already had a better Model 1 Genesis to go with it, so I just ditched this VA7 for a VA2.

I had the intention of adding RCA jacks and also S-Video and just selling it off...about 3 years ago.

...life happens, and the move didn't help any.

Since I'm kinda done with the arcade cabs, and I felt like modding something. I've had this project staring at me in my office for a long time...I think it was time to show it some love.

Here it is. I had this in a paper bag in one of my parts boxes. This is how I left it 3 years ago. I had the wires already connected to the proper points on the Sony CXA1145 (composite, luma, and chroma) and left and right audio channels. I also used some 3 pin connectors so I could disconnect them if I needed to work on the board for some reason.

This is the IC I had the audio come out from. It works much better than tapping audio from the headphone jack or the volume slider.

RCA and S-Video jacks that I already had installed. With these S-Video connectors, I learned to use a stepper bit not only on the holes on the case for the actual connector and the panel tabs, but bore out the panel mount holes on the connector itself so they end up square with the S-Video hole on the case.

Working on getting the proper components connector to luma and chroma. Heat shrink on all the components. As you can also tell in this pic, I removed the RF modulator from it. We're in a day and age where that's no longer needed. I used plastic filler to plug up the RF hole, sanded it, and painted it...3 years ago.

After a few minutes of soldering, breaking parts, and resoldering components, this is it. At the moment, it's just all shoved in and closed up. I will go back in and clean it up later. But here it is ready for testing.

Happy to say it's working! The S-Video looked great on this meh monitor that I have.

It has a nice, crisp image...for S-Video. RGB always looks better, but this works.

This was how it looked through composite. It looked really washed out. Turns out that I forgot to add some components to the composite line. I didn't take any pics of it, but I added them on after I figured out that I was missing them. Still need to test it.

I'm glad I was able to finish this thing up. It can stop staring at me in the corner.

Now I just need to get it sold.

More actuator nonsense...

I got around to changing out the 2nd player joystick switches as well as swapping out the actuator on it. I used the same size print that I used for the 1st player side.

It didn't work well. I was getting the same issue that I had for the 1st player side with the stock actuator; it wasn't hitting the corners, so no special moves.

ugh...

I ended up trying to print the actuators about 10% larger. It made the holes a little larger, but it made it work way better.

I tried printing a set about 5% larger, but it didn't work too well. I tried swapping out the 1st player side with the 10% larger one, but it wasn't as crisp control as I wanted.

Well, the main thing is that both joysticks work well. That's something. I may have to start working on the Vs cabinet now.

It's called an actuator...

It's that bit that sits at the bottom of the joystick that hits the buttons/switches when the joystick is moved. The one that I had on the Atomiswave wasn't good enough anymore.

Let me explain, but go back a bit as well.

When I finished up the JAMMA RGB-Pi build, I noticed that my controllers would stick, mainly left and right. This made configuring Retroarch hard, as it would mess up my setting when I tried to change them. Since the switches were old, I figured I'd swap them out for some new, crisp sounding ones.

Well, I was able to do it, and it did eliminate the sticking of the controls. All directions worked fine, but the diagonals. Since I mainly play fighting games, diagonals are important for blocking and special moves.

Kinda frustrating...

I was gonna break down and return the switches and get new joysticks for the cab, but before I did that, I figured that I would try changing out the actuator. I had to look for what that thing was called, so I did an image search and found the term for it on a blown up view of a typical Happ style joystick.

After Googling for a bit, I found an actuator that I could 3D print that could work.

After slicing 2 of them and 40 minutes of printing, I got these.

 These are slightly wider than the stock ones, so I hoped that they'd fit ok.

Here it is installed. Pardon the sideways pic. It's installed so the wider area of the actuator is hitting the switches.

I tested it for a while (just the left player side) and everything seemed to work better. I'll have to do further testing with it. I printed the actuators with 100% infill, so hopefully it'll last. If not, I can print more, maybe with a different filament. I'll have to change the right player on another day.

I could've tightened up the shot, I know. Anyway, the black actuator is the stock one, the white one is the printed one...you know, for comparison...The printed one is ~3mm wider than the stock one, which helped a ton with these new switches.