Galaga cab, DONE pretty much...

Long stretch between posts, but I've been actually playing games. I've been playing Ghost of Tsushima like mad since the last post, and I just finished it the other day. Such a fun game!

In between game sessions of Ghost, I was working on finally finishing up the Galaga cabinet and getting the monitor straight without a gap between the monitor and the glass. I laid some blue tape to line up the edge of the original monitor on the glass. I extended the tape line to the control panel and used a straight edge to line up the LCD monitor and fidgeted with the monitor until the monitor edges lined up with the blue tape line. It took some time, but got it done and all secured.

I did notice that the buttons don't work on the monitor anymore. That was a byproduct of removing the bezel to paint it. I'm not sure that I want to mess with it anymore, but part of it is that, on some games, the top of the game is cut off a bit, mainly the Pac-Man games. I'll have to revisit this if it really starts getting to me...which, knowing my OCD, I'll have to do real soon.

For the past 3 years, I've been working on getting cabs looking good. The Neo Geo was the first cab I got. The monitor has been recapped, control panel cleaned up and new buttons installed. Mainboard battery changed out and cleaned.

The Atomiswave was just a fun experiment to get it to where it is now. From parts all over the garage when I initially had it to store "temporarily" from a friend to where it is now. Cabinet reconstructed to it's original form, JAMMA harness wired up, monitor finally wired up and tested after getting the one really important part that was needed to get it finally glow up. Add a Raspberry Pi for multi console emulation and now it's a great multicade!

The Galaga cab was a doozy. Messy wiring cleaned up and connectors properly made. Monitor issues finally taken care of. New control panel for vertical game fun. Happy with it now that I have it better than it was when I first got it. 

There might be one more I'd want to get, but I'm not sure if I want to buy one or build one. Stay tuned, I guess...

Back at it with the Atomiswave cab...

I left the Atomiswave cab with the speakers disconnected. I was trying to figure out how to get stereo sound out of it. I finally got a wiring harness done so it does just that. Basically, I have the original negative sound connectionon the JAMMA harness going to the left positive speaker, the positive sound connection to the right positive speaker, and ground to both negative of the speakers. 

I flipped the switch on the RGB-Pi JAMMA adapter to stereo and powered on the cab. In the OS, I changed the sound from mono to stereo and loaded up a Neo Geo game. I made sure the sound was coming out in stereo (it did). I tried a CPS2 game and it worked as well...really, there shouldn't have been a doubt, but you never know. 

I tackled my next issue: custom button mapping for certain games. If you go back to how I initially had my buttons wired, you know how I wired it up for a natural feel for the Neo Geo button layout. I've been trying to have the OS to keep my button mapping for the standard "Street Fighter" style 6 button layout, but for some reason, the OS doesn't keep the right map. I've tried several things, but nothing kept those remaps that I wanted. 

I reached out to the creators of the RGB-Pi's OS and I was told that the arcade button maps are locked. If any changes are made to the mapping, it could throw other mappings off.

...

There was another way to keep the remaps, but I didn't want to go through all the trouble.

At this point, I thought that I was gonna have to rewire the buttons in the cab again. I really didn't want to go through all that since I like the way I have the buttons laid out for regular JAMMA games. So, I went into the OS options and remapped the buttons in the OS itself. Luckily, it worked perfect. The only problem I have is that the Neo Geo layout is now awkward (top 3 buttons are A, B, and C, first bottom button, AKA "Weak Kick" is now D). I guess that's a small sacrifice for a better arcade layout.

Speaking of being able to play regular JAMMA games, I have to work on a wire harness so I can easily swap from this current configuration to a standard, mono sound output. Should be fairly easy.

Taking time off...

I'm gonna vent my frustrations here. 

I'm taking time off from any and all electronics work for the rest of the month. I have failed a few mod projects in the past couple weeks. I also just had some loathing projects that I was "asked" to do. Add the frustrations from work along with getting my kids to do their online school work, I'm done. 

I tried to install an LCD conversion into my Game Gear. I've already butchered 2 of the 3 that I have for this dumb project, and for the life of me, I can't get the LCD backlight to turn on. There might be one step that I missed, but I'm too tired to even solder that one wire that's needed. 

The Arcade 1up is pretty much done, but that zapped the life out of me to figure out. I still need to work on my RPi cab myself. All that I need to do for my RPi cab is to wire up the speakers for stereo. There's still some work to do on the 1up cab, but I really am done looking at that damn thing.

The icing on the cake was a PS4 that I was trying to get to do an updated jailbreak done to it. I've spent hours trying to get it to work, only to get it to work one time. I've been trying again today to get it go, but it kept crashing...and crashing...and crashing...I had enough and smashed it. It was a spare one that I got for free, so I don't really care about it.

I honestly haven't been fully playing games for months now. I think it's time that I get back to it. I just got Ghost of Tsushima for PS4, so I'm gonna spend time playing that. I'm probably gonna pick up Jedi Fallen Order and get that at least loaded on to my PS4 before playing it.

I just need my metal break from...everything...So, I guess I'll hopefully start posting again in May.

Coleco Gemini A/V/S mod done!

I've had this Coleco Gemini for a while. I recall that my mom got it used from a friend with a ton of games and gave it to me for one of my birthdays. I've had it since, and it's been deep cleaned and put away since I moved to OR. For the longest time, I've always wanted to get this thing modded so I didn't have to use RF anymore. So, while modding the Atari 5200, the installation manual for the UAV had detailed instructions on how to install one into a Coleco Gemini.

...you can figure what needed to happen next.

I ordered 2 UAV's (one for the Jr, another for the Gemini). I've already posted what became of the Jr after modding it...no, I haven't found a solution just yet. I'm gonna have to revisit this on another day...might need to seek out another one to swap out parts with.

The Coleco Gemini. Coleco's variant of the Atari 2600. Other than the fading of the metallic labels, still working like a champ. There used to be a service sticker on the upper left of the front, but I removed it since it was already scratched up, and I'm sure the service number was no longer in service.

The mainobard. Per the instructions, I soldered to the TIA equivalent in this console to the proper points of the UAV. Audio was taken from a point above R23 (south solder point of R43, which is unoccupied). There is another variant of the Gemini that has Audio from a different point, and the installation instructions documents this very well.

 I told myself that I wouldn't use the Nintendo Multiout connector on this one, but before I snapped to, I already carved the case out to fit the printed Multiout part...Don't work late on mods, kids. I figured that there was no harm in doing that, but I also decided to add standard S-video jack as well as RCAs for composite and audio out. Audio is mono, so I just linked both left and right RCAs together. I was proud on how I was able to fit the S-video jack nicely into the case, but then I realized...

The hole that I made for the S-video jack was too close to the screw boss for one of the case screws. The other time I did this was for my Sega Master System S-video mod, but that was just barely missed the screw boss. This one hit it just right. I took my defeat and cut the screw boss out. The mainboard itself has screws holding it down, so I'm not to worried about board flex...but still, it's upsetting that I didn't think ahead.

The Muliout connector was epoxied into place to the top half of the case. I had to remove a component required for RF removed so that the connector could fit. It still bumps the board a bit, but I laid some kapton tape over the surrounding components. 

Other than the screw boss faux pax, everything works perfectly. Happy to have this thing finally modded to use with most of my stuff. It does look pretty decent through the RetroTINK that I have.

I'm in the middle of the Game Gear mod, but I'm still waiting for some components to come in. Finally finished the Dreamcast ODE mod. It took a long while for it to come in, but I finally got that installed. I'll post on that later.

Atari 2600 Jr. video mod done...?

...just take a little journey with me.

I ordered 2 UAV's for my Atari 2600 Jr. and my Coleco Gemini. Similar to the Atari 5200 I finished a while back, this board will supply S-video and composite video to these consoles. I loved how well it worked on the 5200, I thought it was time to show my 2600's some love.

Now, I already modified my original Sears branded 2600 with a different board. That works perfectly. But, I really want all my older consoles to have a video out better than the original RF signal.

I got my Jr. out from storage and started to take it apart. Like the 5200, I removed the 4050 IC to replace it with the UAV.

The UAV (the white board on there) sits where the 4050 once was.

A little closer shot of it. I soldered in the jumpers as per the UAV instructions. 

Instead of having connectors sticking out the side similar to how I had my TG16 before, I opted to put a Nintendo Multiout connector again...like how I "updated" the TG16. I used super glue to get it to stay in position for testing, then later epoxied it into place. I kinda wish I didn't do that, because the connector is really tight, so it takes some work to get it in the port, let alone getting it out from there.

It took some time to get the casing filed down for the 3d printed part to fit. I did manage to get it to look a lot more even after taking this pic.

All connected. Ready for testing.

Here's the better fitment of the connector. At this point, it's all epoxied into place.

Used Joust to test the installation. The background of the title screen should be black. Instead, I have this gray. It makes it hard to see the enemies when in game. I'm not sure if there's something wrong with the installation or the actual Jr was messed up and I don't recall issues when I tested it ages ago. 

I'm trying to ask around to see if anyone might know what's going on. So far, I got nothing. I may try to replace the TIA in it. But for now, success? I'm not gonna be defeated by this.

TL NES RGB mod done...

TL (Top Loading) NES or NES2..whatever people are calling it nowadays. Anyway, I finished installing the NESRGB in it.

It's been a while since I modded my TL NES. I did a simple A/V mod using a PNP transistor and some other components and tapping the video signal from the PPU. It worked, but not without it's own problem. Biggest one being jailbars on the video signal. So, NESRGB gets ordered and installed.

It's no different from the AV Fami installation. There's just one caveat: audio. What's not mentioned is that audio will need to be tapped directly from the CPU. It doesn't need to be tapped on the AV Fami since audio is already there on the connector.

Audio tapped on pin 1 and 2 on the CPU. Pin 1 needs to connect to the "A" pad on the NESRGB, pin 2 to the "B" pad. It does mention this part in the NESRGB pinout PDF, though...yeah, I missed that the first time, whatever. Audio can then be output to, in my case, the multiout connector from the "O" pad on the NESRGB.

Final installation. I ordered this piece from Laserbear.net. It was a complete kit (Adapter connector, multiout PCB, and the 3D printed back panel). I ordered it in this "Famicom Red" color; I really like the color offset. Plus it gives it some color from it's roots with the OG Famicom.

It's nice to knock out some of these mods that I've been meaning to do for a long time now. I did have an opportunity to get an Hi-Def NES kit (HDMI NES), but I skipped on it...I may regret that, but there's word that there's more being made with newer components. I have my old front loading NES that could benefit from that mod.

Next things I may be working on is my Coleco Gemini, Atari 2600 Jr., OG Famicom, or Game Gear. Stay tuned!

Sega Master System modding...

I've loved my Master System. It was my first 8 bit console. To this day, I still love playing it. 

I had already modded my Master System previously. I added composite, S-Video, and audio out jacks to it, making it amazing to play even now. But there was a few more things that I wanted to do to it before I say it's done. One is get a better RGB mod done to it, the other was modding it to output FM sound.

I finally got around to ordering the FM sound board from etim's FM sound board. There was some shipping issues, but we figured it out and it eventually got to me. 

The FM sound board is the board all the way to the right. I also ordered another NESRGB for my top loading NES. I don't think I need to document the install process for the TL NES since the install is exactly like the AV Fami. I'll post up pics of the final installation, though.

The board comes mostly assembled. I had to solder in the card edge connector to it. Per the instructions, I soldered the connector with a slight tilt. The instructions also said that the top shielding needed to be cut, but since I took the RF modulator out, I figured that I could just eliminate it altogether. That cable to the upper left of the board also comes preinstalled.

I stripped the cables to expose the 2 wires and the shielding. The wires needed to go in where a capacitor is removed. 

The capacitor C37 needs to be removed here. This is where the wires from the cable needs to go. I also had to scrape some of the solder mask to solder the cable's shielding wire to.

Here's all the wires and the shielding soldered in place. I put a small strip of kapton tape over some components near to where I soldered the shielding to, just to protect it from shorting out.

...Yeah, again, previous mod I did in my early days. I'm gonna go back in to clean it up. In the meantime, kapton taped to the bottom shielding. 

I tested the install, using my RetroTINK to my old monitor. Happy to say that it all works! I'll eventually get a video up with the comparison of both of them soon. 

The controller I used to test the Master System was a really old one. Button 2 felt really squishy. I figured since I had the soldering station on, I should try and fix this.

These are the membranes that was in the controller. That PCB is there just to show how worn out the membranes were. It's really bad.

I bought a package of 5mm buttons for another project. I had to flatten out the pins and trim some of the plastic from the bottom of the switch, just so it sits flush against the controller's PCB. I used my flush cutters to trim the plastic. The bottom of the switch in the pic is where it's been trimmed, the top is what was needed to be trimmed.

After figuring out what pin does what, I trimmed 2 legs off the switch and soldered it to the board. I tried to get them centered on the pad. However, even with it being flush against the PCB, the buttons were too tall to be in the controller.

The controller buttons needed to be trimmed. The button on the right was untrimmed. The left one has been trimmed with flush cutters. With that bit of plastic trimmed away, the new switches fit perfect under them. 

The new switches made the buttons nice and clicky. Much more responsive than before. I was thinking about also soldering those switches for the control pad part, but the pad is still functioning fine. That may be another project in the future.

For now, I'm happy with how my old Master System is now. Awesome sound, improved controller. Just gotta get the video even more improved and it's good to go!...then I can work on my Master System 2.