Wednesday 21 March 2012

SEGA MEGADRIVE 1 OVERCLOCKED!

Hi Everyone,

I've been a little quiet over the last week with posts. Basically I've not had that much to post about until today really. I've been working away on the Neptune case, adding in more milliput where it still needed smoothing as well as apply layer after layer of primer. I've been working on the buttons which are getting their shapes now as well as the new centre clear light. Its starting to come to shape and again looks pretty kickass in white!

So my new post is about my spare Megadrive 1 and me overclocking the heck out of it :-P

I've been watching a few tutorials on Youtube and came across DamoMonsters video's. Very cool and easy to follow. Check him out : http://www.damomonster.com

I happened to have all the components and a bit of salvaged Vero board that was just big enough to make the overclock circuit so last night I decided to give it a go.

It was really fun and interesting to do as I've not done anything on Vero board or used a crystal. I got it all wired up roughly last night with a large Red/Green LED. This morning I fired the Megadrive up and checked that it loaded up with Sonic both overclocked as well as stock speed.

The trick with the mod I did is that its switchable. If you overclock the Megadrive from its standard speed the Mega CD and 32x won't work, so if you do the overclock mod without a switch you are stuck with the overclocked Megadrive and thats all you can do with it. With the switch you can have the cake AND eat it! Woop!

This morning after checking the Megadrive worked both standard and overclocked I drove over to the nearest Maplins and bought some more Vero board and a 3mm Red/Green LED that will fit in the Megadrive case.

This afternoon I wired up the new LED and got it mounted to the case. I checked the improvement of the overclock on 2 player Sonic 2. When you get hit with more than 40 coins with the standard speed you get some serious slow-down, when switched to 10MHz you get no slow-down what so ever. Pretty nifty!

When you have the 'Drive running in standard clock speed the power LED is Red which is the standard colour for the LED. When its switched over to 10MHz overclock the LED glow's Green.

Im really pleased with the mod as its the first 'Finished' Mod i've done as the Neptune technically isn't finished as it doesn't work yet :-P

So yeah, check the pics out below and catch you soon.

Porl''
The start of the Overclock circuit

The new 10MHz crystal
mounted to the Vera Board
The new 'Beast' taped up
The new 'Power Pack' mounted
on top of the CPU
The LED showing overclocked
speed (10MHz)
The Mod all wired into
the Megadrive
LED showing standard
clock speed (7MHz)

Wednesday 14 March 2012

GENTLEMAN BEANHEAD AND NEMISIS PAINTINGS SOLD

Hi Everyone,

I made a little .PS comment in my last long rambling post that both of my paintings that I put up in my shop have now sold. :)

Very happy about that!

I have some more paintings waiting in the wings that I'll be putting up in my shop pretty soon so keep your peepers pealed yo :P

Okay doke, catch you later


Porl''

Sunday 11 March 2012

SUNDAY SCAVENGING AND SANDING

Hi everyone,

Today has been our first free sunday in a long time and we put it to good use. A pretty full day involving putting our guinea pigs out in a new outdoor run to munch on some grass and doing the first load of gardening in our new house. It was great fun being out in the sun.

I've recently been given the chance to rummage around an old barn in a farm I know and have some stuff and low and behold there is an old arcade machine in the back against the wall. The guy said I could have what ever I wanted from in there because it would all be going to the bin. So where did I ferret first?! The arcade machine!

Turning the machine round I saw that the back board was off it and I could see into it. The description of an arcade machine being a wooden box with wires in really does it justice! They are a bit of a surprise thats for sure from what I imagined. There is the Arcade game PCB screwed to the back of a centre piece of wood with the harness leading off it that splits and goes to the power, monitor, speakers, control panel, marquee lighting and power switch. It really is just a bunch of wires!


Looking at the marquee at the top of the arcade cab' it says "World Cup '90" which was a Jamma game from Taito. Jamma is a good sign cus it means that it will run on a SuperGun. When I checked the board it has Toaplan Co Ltd. written on it which doesn't match the marquee. A mystery! I like it!

I got the machine fired up with a little hooking of wires up (and a mystery pcb that I found in the cash tray area) I got the game to fire up with sound but the monitor seems to be dead. And from what I've read on the 'net about them really needing to be discharged before they discharge all their stored voltage through you and getting really hurt. I'm not messing with that!

I did a quick google search on my phone and it said that Toaplan made side-scrolling shooting games. WOOP! I really got my hopes up that it might be Zero Wing which is a game I loved on the Megadrive.

I unscrewed the board and got it home and compared some photos of boards on the internet and it looks like its a game called Teki Paki. A tetris style puzzle game. A bit of a shame cus it's not Zero Wing but still pretty cool. And it was neat sticking my head around an actual arcade cabinet.

I was really tempted to take the harness out and cutting all the connections so I could turn it into a SuperGun but I don't think its worth the hassle, especially as the board has a Jamma converter on it to attach it to the game board.

When we got home I started sanding the Neptune case to see how smooth I could get it. It ended up looking a lot like a charcoal rubbing!! When I showed my girlfriend she said it didn't look like I'd made the case and shape, more like I was sanding a proper one down to paint it. I was well chuffed with that cus Its hard to see how a project is going sometimes because your too close to it.

Here is the 'charcoal rubbing' Neptune case on my work area with the Teki Paki (? ) arcade board next to it.


I'm going to see if I can finish soldering up the A/V out wires on the Neptune and fix my fixed trace on the bottom of the Megadrive 2 board to see if it will actually work. I'm not holding much hope but I'm going to be finishing it off and bolting it down so that I know that it will all fit in properly into my case. This is quite important to me incase I wanted to make some casts of it and offer it to other Neptune owners.

It's been a great day with adventuring around a barn of goodies, doing some gardening work, Neptune case work and getting some telescope time in. Looking at Venus, Jupiter and Mars along with the Beehive Cluster and The Orion Nebula and Running man Nebula.

Hope your's was a good one too!

Porl''


Saturday 10 March 2012

NEPTUNE CASE PROGRESS

Hi Everyone,

I've been a little slow on updating about the Neptune I know. I've been trying to get some more work done on the case but its mainly just been along the lines of : tickling it with sandpaper, noticing that more needs filling, waiting for that to dry over night then sanding again. But in little bits when I wander past the case on the side in the kitchen.

Well today I got my dremel set up and got some cutting done to the lower half of the case ready to start adding milliput to it and get it into a more curved shape. I also did some of the top cases ' holes ' with the small etching drill bit which need a bit of smoooothing out. We nipped out into the local town and I plopped down some cash for a can of Matt Black paint for when the case will be finished. When we got home I went outside and sprayed a couple of layers of white primer all over the case which showed up a lot more work to be done smoothing and sanding and shaping. Its a lot harder to see areas for correction when it is a mixed mess of white and green milliput and black original plastic.

After I sprayed it white and admired it for a while. It really does look nice in white!! If I make a few casts of the case one will definetly be finished in white!



Yes, so after it went white I couldn't resist giving it some coats of black paint to get an idea of how it will look in the end. It looks pretty tasty in black and sitting next to a Megadrive 2 it looks really different and very cool! You have to look past the work thats still needed and pop some imagination on there but I'm pleased with it so far.

Oh and the second shot of it in black on the picture is the Neptune case sitting on the MegaCD 2. This is one of the main reasons I decided to modify a Megadrive 2 case, so It would still be compatible with the MegaCD 2 as the Neptune mod still works with the CD's. :)

So there you go, the Neptune case is still rumbling along. I'll be continuing to sand the sucker to oblivion and try to get it as good as I can, I'll also carry on working on the buttons and try to get them in a presentable state.

Have a good weekend y'all

Porl''


P.S. Both of the paintings I posted about below have now sold. Very happy about that! :D

I'll be putting up some more paintings to my store in the coming weeks so stay tuned.

Tuesday 6 March 2012

NEW ITEMS IN MY STORE


Hi everyone,

I've been meaning to get some of my finished paintings and toys out of the boxes in my spare bedroom and up on to my BigCartel store now that we're more settled in our new home.

The first of the paintings I'm putting up are of my Victorian crime fighting detective duo, The Gentleman Beanhead and his ever faithful side-kick Melvis the monkey. They under took the most dangerous of investigatory missions in the lowest, darkest areas of victorian london. Unfortunetly for them that pesky duo of S. Holmes and Dr. Watson kept pipping them to the post on the largest cases. Those know it alls!

The second of the paintings depects their arch-nemisis's's's's the evil mad Professor Skeletos-mons and his despicable partner in crime, The Murdock Street Mangler.

Professor Skeletos-mons is a multiple doctor in the voodoo arts, ancient oriental martial arts and facepainting. Evil to the core he concocts the most devious deeds and sends brainteasing clues to his arch nemesis; The Gentleman Beanhead and his trusty sidekick, Melvis the monkey.

The Murdock Street Mangler is a everyday johnny, one of the neighbours that wouldn't hurt a fly. But in reality he is a sadistic, granny pushing, nose-picking, pick pocketing, murdering son of a gun. The more blood on his hands the crazier his brain gets!

Both paintings are Acrylic painted onto stretched canvas (5 x 7")

If you like the looks of the daper detective and his team-mate or the evil and down right dispicable duo then check out my BigCartel store here : PORLZILLA WEB-STORE

catch you later foamies

Porl''