PORLZILLA.COM | Designer Toys, Paintings, Retro Consoles, Illustrations and Design by Paul Burke

HEY RAMON! - NEW PAINTING AVAILABLE IN STORE

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:29:00 +0000

Hi Everyone,

As I did a few months ago I released some paintings into my store. Well I thought it was time to let another little painting out into the big wide world. :)

Its called "Hey Ramon!" and it depicts Ramon, a floating latino skull who is a hit with ALL the ladies. They can't resist the well maintained pencil moustache and model grade side-ways glances. What a stud!

He's painted onto a rough texture 24cm (9.5in) x 18cm (7in) canvas.

Check him out in my store by either going through the Store tab or by this here!

I hope you like him

More posts coming soon

Porl''

JAMMA SUPER GUN - PART 3

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:57:00 +0000

Hi again,

I'd left the last post with a working Supergun, well working with video and sound and I was waiting for my front panel components to arrive.

Here is Part 3 :

I'd ordered my front panel components (as well as my Scart port) from Rapid Online and they turned up pretty quickly.

The first thing for me to do with my front panel was to fill in the holes that were cut for use in the cases's previous life. I put electrical tape across the holes and then filled in on top of the tape so the Milliput wouldn't fall through.

The old front of the case filled in

After the Milliput had dried over night I hit the front of it with some heavy grit sandpaper to smooth it out. I layed masking tape out over the panel and then sketched the layout of all the components ready for me to dremel all the holes out.

The components all laid out ready to be cut

I spent a bit of time sitting outside in the garden with my dremel (and Guinea Pig girls for company) trying to get the holes as neatly as I could. Rough cutting and then sanding the holes and then offering up the components each time to see if they would fit smoothly.

After about an hour I had all the components snapping in and out smoothly. I then spent the rest of the evening giving it some grey primer so it can eventually become nicely Matt Black when done.

The next night I eagerly got home from work and started mounting in the front panel components.

After popping the momentary switches into the front panel and screwing the 15-pin sockets in I measured out the JAMMA harness wiring so I could make sure it would all reach okay with some slack for soldering and still be neatly track-able.

The momentary switches for the player 1 and 2's coins the JAMMA test, MVS test and Service were easy to figure out because they each only need 2 wires. A signal wire from the harness and then a ground wire. The good thing about Supergun's is that you don't need to have individual grounding wires to everything, you can daisy-chain them along to save on trying to solder multiple grounding wires to a single point. It would be a right mess I think if you did it that way.

I ended up giving all the momentary switches 1 grounding wire which was daisy-chained from one to the next. And then I routed a seperate grounding wire for the player 1 socket and daisy-chained that over to the player 2's grounding point. I believe the term for the daisy-chained grounding is "common ground" if you run into that phrase.

The trickiest bit of soldering for the front panel was the Neo-Geo wiring for the controller sockets. Mainly because of close proximity of the pins, and making sure your soldering the correct wire to the correct point.

The cool thing about using the Neo-geo pin-out for the socket is it will work with any Neo-geo arcade stick. And it also leaves 3 pins available for the 3 kick buttons needed for 6 button arcade sticks.

Here is the player 1 port wired up to the neo-geo pin-out standard

Once I got the player 1 port wired up and the switches sorted I thought it was probably the best thing to nip the Supergun up to the Hobby Room to check that I'd got the sucker sorted or not. A quick setup with my 1 game and Ding Ding Ding, 3 coins were registered! pressing Start on the arcade stick and the game started. Up, Down, Left, Right worked, as well as A and B. It worked!!!! :D I was well happy!

I unplugged the connections then nipped back down to the kitchen and wired up the 2nd player socket to finish it off.

The front panel completely wired up, switches, sockets and LED mounted

A quick solder, a quick test and boom! 2nd player works too!

I HAVE A SUPERGUN!!! Some self high-fives, massive grins and several games at trying to figure out how Teki-Paki worked later and I was done. :D

The completed Supergun's internal wiring. A little messy looking but easy to follow.

Teki-Paki playing with 2 player's and 7 credits

The JAMMA Test screen working

The finished Supergun as closed up showing how the JAMMA games connect to the harness

The finished Super gun showing how the games and controllers hook up

All that's needed now is the Matt Black paint on the front and rear panels and my friend said he would do a cool paint job on the outer casing for me. He does great stencil canvas's which we have 2 of and I think his style will look sweet on the Supergun.

A dream fulfilled! I own an arcade machine!! And one I can keep in my house because it doesn't take up the room a full cabinet does. :D

The next step is to make a Kick-harness adapter for hooking up the extra kick buttons for games like Street Fighter 2 etc. And wether to buy a pre-made CPS2 kick-harness or make one. ;)

Porl''

JAMMA SUPER GUN - PART 2

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:43:00 +0000

Hi all,

So I left the last post where I'd mounted the rear components ready for the JAMMA harness to be soldered to it all.

Here's Part 2 :

I'd been thinking a lot about what I wanted my Supergun to be like. For me it needed to have the colour channels adjustable, scart connection because I'm in the UK and don't have to mess about with using video encoders which I was extremely pleased about. I don't like the idea of using a video converter processing the signal to make it S-Video or something. Its not the same signal by the time it gets to the TV that the arcade originally produces, and what I wanted is the closest to the arcade experience that I could get.

I took my time scouring the net for a cheap harness but not too cheap and that it would be as fully loaded as I could get. I did contemplate making the whole harness myself with an edge connector but I couldn't be bothered to sort out what wire I would need and getting it all ordered.

I ended up getting my harness from Ultra Cabs. They have a harness that's wired to the Neo Geo MVS standard, which I didn't realise at the time and it comes with a neat edge connector cover.

When it arrived I took an evening seperating and organising the harness wiring so it would make it easier for me to get it all wired into the case. None of the wires come labelled and some of them are bunched in a way I didn't really want them grouped. So it was a matter of seperating all the tie-wraps that were around the bunches and then re-grouping them all and labelling them for easier recognition when I came to building it all up. The Edge connector is also all in chinese so you have to do some counting of pins and figuring out which side is the Component side / Solder side so you can start figuring out which wires go where.

The nervous system of the Supergun

I think the JAMMA harness looks like the nervous system of a human with the brain being at the top. Which in essence is what the harness is. The game board is the brain which connects to the top and it distributes signals to all the components around the Supergun.

Because the harness came wired for Neo Geo MVS it didn't have a line for the -5V voltage which I had to add in because I wanted it to be JAMMA compliant. It was also missing the JAMMA service and Test switch lines as well which I added to the harness.

I really wanted my Supergun to be as compatible as possible with the different types of 'standards' available in the arcade world. The main 2 being JAMMA and Neo Geo MVS for me as these are the systems that ran the games I loved the most as a kid. So adding in these extra lines to the harness were a must.

Once I got the harness sorted out I began feeding it into the case through the hole I made for it in the rear of the case, and started measuring up how much cable would be needed to reach all the components comfortably. I've seen a load of Supergun's on my research searches that look a complete mess, like the person has just jammed all the wires in there and slammed the lid shut. I really didn't want it to be like that if I could help it and wanted it to be easy to route the cables around and find any potential problems if I got any. The neater the job the better I think in a project like this.

Figuring out which wires are going to go where

It really is quite daunting when you have all the wires in your hands and thinking you have to keep track of them all so you get it wired right as first go as you can get.

After putting the harness into the case I put the PSU back in and wired it up to get a real sense of the space available then set about measuring, cutting and soldering to the components on the back panel.

Rear panel from the inside showing speaker, scart and colour adjustment

Its quite tight in there but thankfully the rear panel slides out and gives you a bit of room to get the soldering iron around without burning the insulation on the wires. The scart socket is a little bit of a tricky solder (and working out) because of all the grounds needed to be soldered to the pins which are very close together and the 2 resistors. Again I tried to make the wires as neat as possible in the space I had available.

The rear panel wired up and ready to test

I wired up the rear speaker with an attenuation circuit shown on one of the wiring diagrams. If you are planning on routing the audio out through your Scart connection you need to make an attenuation circuit to lower the amped audio otherwise you will blow the speakers on your tv. Because arcades aren't the most graceful of technology and with the arcade cabinets having biggish speakers with no volume control the game boards output really loud, generally non-adjustable audio. So you need to lower the volume so it will not kill your tv.

For me I didn't want to run the risk of blowing my tv speakers but didn't want to mount a speaker inside the case, I opted for an audio out socket to connect some external speakers. Because I was a little worried I would blow my external speakers I made the attenuation circuit to protect them a bit.

The Supergun all wired up with audio and sound I eagerly ran up to our Hobby room and plugged in the one JAMMA arcade game I had to see if my wiring had all worked.

I plugged everything in, tentatively switched the power on and the standard scart channel blue colour on the TV switched over to black. Woo! The tv was recognising a video signal! But where was the picture?!? Crap! First thing I thought was, I'd done it wrong. I was going to have to re-wire the scart socket. I turned it all off and quickly checked over the JAMMA connection on the board, scart cable correctly seated in both Supergun and TV and flicked the power back on. Again, black screen. Poo! I slumped down to a seating position on the floor and out of the corner of my eye I saw some very very faint writing on the tv screen. What an idiot!!!! I'd turned my RGB adjustment dials all the way down, a quick turn on them and the screen burst into life and the game was playing! :D

Scart connection wired up first go! I gave myself a congratulatory High-five. It was a reality!

The Supergun's first test with my only arcade game, Teki-Paki

There was no audio though. That shouldn't be too hard to fix. I headed back to the kichen, cut the attenuation circuit out and wired the audio wires straight to the speaker output. Went back up stairs and what do you know?! Audio now works too!

Also you might be able to see on the last photo that there is a little green light on the front of the Supergun. I wired a green LED to the +5V output on the PSU with a 220k ( if I remember right ) resistor so that I would have some indication that the power was on and working when the rear switch was flicked. Otherwise there is no knowing the power was on and from the get-go I would be wondering if it was powering up or fallen down at the first hurdle.

For me this test was a massive MASSIVE achievement. A few months ago I hadn't got the faintest clue how to solder and was too scared to even try it. After a very short time where I've only done some console mods in my kitchen I'd now built an arcade machine that works!

I decided to leave it on a high and put the soldering gear away and wait for my front components to turn up for the next step of the Supergun's creation.

To say I was itching for the stuff to turn up was an understatement!! :D

I'll get writing up the next part in a few days.

Porl''

JAMMA SUPER GUN - PART 1

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:57:00 +0000

Hi Everyone,

It's been a little while since I posted last. The last one being a Neptune case update. Well I haven't really made anymore head-way on the case but I've successfully completed a project that has ticked off one of my childhood dreams. A bit of a funny sentence but the best way I can describe it.

Basically when I was a geeky little lad at school back in the 90's I was heavily into computer / console and arcade games. And used to dream about playing a lot of the games I read reviews of in Mean Machines / Mean Machines Sega, Games master magazine (and watching the tv show) on consoles I could never afford. And also going with my pocket jangling with my pocket money to the local shops that had arcade machines in and popping coin after coin into them.

I shared a flat before I moved in with my girlfriend and my flatmate I had has a Supergun. I'd never heard of such a device and was absolutely blown away when he told me what it was and what it can do. Basically a Supergun is an arcade machine in a box that's a similar size to a console. You hook your TV cable up to it, a power cable, your controller (preferably an arcade stick) and plug in a proper arcade game which is a big circuit board. You flick the power switch and your playing a real arcade game on your TV at home! A freakin' arcade machine that takes up a smidge of the space of a fullsize cabinet. Man I coverted this device for a loooooong time!! How amazing is it to play the original games you used to love and not a lesser conversion as to be honest, almost all arcade conversions on games systems are.

Doing some internet searches back then showed that they are all handmade and demand a relatively high price i.e. £100-£200 for the Supergun and possibly an arcade stick. Then you have to get the games as well which can be fairly expensive depending on the game. Dang it! I wasn't ever going to be getting one at that price. :-(

Well things have changed since a couple of years ago. Mainly me being able to actually solder now and understanding how to wire up modifications to games consoles. Since I inherited the arcade game from the Farm I've thought again about getting a Supergun. But this time round, rather than essentially paying someone to make one and paying a high price, I'd attempt to make my own.

I think I will do my Supergun write up in a few parts to make sure the posts aren't absolutely massive. :)

So this is Part 1 :

I started getting excited about attempting to make my very own Supergun and started doing copious internet research searches and started gathering guides, wiring diagrams, parts lists and prices for parts. I already had a big project box which I re-used from an old soldering power supply unit I was given and didn't want to use and got a real switching Arcade power supply. A very good start!

Having a real arcade power supply is the ideal thing to have for a SuperGun as it gives you all the voltages you will need to power JAMMA arcade boards and you can adjust the +5V line if its a little low to run a certain board or a little too high. You can use an older PC ATX power supply as well (which I have one modified in-case I wanted to use it instead of the Arcade one) but it takes up more space in the case and I wanted the Supergun to be as much "arcade" as I could make it.

switching arcade PSU power lines hooked up

The first step for me before ordering my JAMMA harness and all my component parts to make the Supergun was to wire up the PSU to a plug socket and switch and make sure it works correctly. Here is my case with the PSU sitting on some raiser blocks I made from milliput and power socket all wired up and working. A great start!! :D That is a spare PSU next to the box which shows all the connection points on the unit. It also shows how much room I will have in the case to route the JAMMA harness wires to all the components on the front and back panels.

arcade power supply in case

A slightly interesting thing I noticed when I was initially testing the power supplies I have is that the little ON LED that is on them would be steady to begin with and then would pulse. You could adjust the speed of the pulse by turning the red dial but it wouldn't go back to being steady. I was a little worried that they were a bit Snafu'd having been stored in the back of a barn for 10+ years but decided to try one with the knowledge that I could use my PC psu if it didn't all work. The reason I have found now I've completed the build is the light pulses if one of the 5V connections isn't hooked up. I spotted this last night when my Neo Geo MVS was hooked up and the front panel power LED was pulsating which is because the MVS doesn't use the -5V line. The -5V is for JAMMA. It just seems to be something it does when its not 'completely connected up'. Interesting hey! :P

After I got the PSU connected up I started getting really excited about the possibility of making the SuperGun a reality. I started gathering together any components I already had available from checking my wiring diagrams I would be using.

The 2 wiring guides I mixed and matched from to make my Supergun

I already had the power socket as seen on the above photo. I wanted to add in a potentiometer for each of the three colour channels the Supergun will output (R, G, B). I also needed a speaker output socket as I wouldn't be putting a speaker inside the case as some do, I wanted to use a pair of old computer speakers instead. So for the back of my case I would only need the Scart socket as my attempt to desolder one from an old freeview box was unsuccessful which was a shame.

The back of the case needed a mounting panel for all the components. So while my scart socket, momentary push buttons and 15 pin controller sockets for the front panels were on order I set about making up a plate. I cut to shape 2 old direction signs I had been aloud to use from a scrap pile and hot glued and milliput'd it together. I then drew out the layout for my components on the plate and dremelled all the holes out.

Rear of case showing component layout

When my scart socket arrived I mounted all the rear components onto the rear panel so I could start soldering my JAMMA harness to when it arrived.

Components added to rear panel to see how it will all look before painting

Rightio, I'll leave this part here so it doesn't get too long for one post.

All my components that I purchased for my Supergun were purchased from : Rapid Online the prices are really good and they deliver very quickly. The only thing I will say is the postage does out-weigh the component prices so best idea is to order all your parts all at once to save on shipping several orders.

I will write up Part 2 in a couple of days time. :)

Porl''

QUICK NEPTUNE CASE UPDATE

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 21:10:00 +0000

Howdy Y'all,

I thought I'd post a little update on the Neptune case. I've been doing a little bit of work on it over the weekend. Getting the buttons mounted into the case as they have obviously been relocated further up the body compared to there original positions on the Megadrive 2. I still need to make the little extension parts to make the buttons meet the switches that are on the 'Drives PCB.

I also noticed that the groove around the cartridge slot wasn't quite right. I don't really know why I made it a smoother / curvier shape rather than the more angular one on the original prototype case. I milliputted in the old groove I made and carved a newer, more true groove around the cartridge slot area. I also carved and sanded a bit of a slope into the lower area of the groove. Again to match the prototype more.

I'm a lot happier with the look of the case now. The buttons still need work to make them fill the holes better which I will be sorting out next along with some sanding around the new groove area. I gave the whole case another blast of grey primer to see how its all looking in a more flat overall colour. Looking good I think :)

I'll be updating again soon, hopefully this week with another little project when I get a little components delivery I placed this morning. Woop!

See you soon

Porl''

DREAMCAST UP AND RUNNING

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 20:51:00 +0000

I had a bit of spare time this evening and decided to get the pliers out on the old Dreamcast and see if I could get my arcade stick working again on it.

I've been reading a few bits of info on why and how the controller ports can tweak out on them. There is a capacitor on the controller board and a fuse that looks very much like a capacitor as well. Its a common problem apparently that using non-Sega controllers can cause a spike in the current through the board which blows the little fuse. The thing I don't understand is that none of my controllers are 3rd party so I shouldn't have gotten the unwanted spike.

Oh well, it might just have been down to the Dreamcast being old.

Anyway, I got the pliers on the fuse and gave it a few twists and the Arcade stick is now being recognised by the Dreamcast. :-D Woop!

Built the Dreamcast back up and gave King of Fighters 2002 a blast. Damn that Rugel though!!!! I got all the way through using Kim but the difficulty just ramps up a bit much for me when you hit Rugel.

Catch you soon

Porl''

Arcade stick, dreamcast and KOF 2002

A BLAST FROM THE PAST

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:38:00 +0000

While I was at work and taking one of my "eyeball breaks" out of the window to give my eyes a little bit of a rest I looked down and noticed my photo of mine and my dad's first study at our old house. It bought back a massive rush of memories, nostalgia and a huge smile! :D

I cant exactly remember when this photo was taken, im pretty sure it was when I was a teenager in school which will easily be around 20 years ago. Flippin egg!! 20 years!! Man that makes me feel sooo old!

Anyway haha whats in the photo then? At front on the right is my dad's and my first IBM PC. It had no harddrive if I remember right, but it had 1 whole 3.5" disk drive. Oh and it was an 086, a real beast! It ran on that TV to the left of it which is in that position because its hooked up to my Commadore 64. When I look closely I think the game next to the tape drive is Turrican. An awesome game!

Up on the shelf are our 2 PC joysticks which were a must when we played Elite. Next to those on the shelf is a game called "Neverworld", our 2 PC manuals, 1 which is a GW Basic manual which I messed about with. Some games I cant make out, then Conquests of Camelot (which I finally completed while doing my English Literature revision haha), a game I cant make out then "Their Finest Hour" which was a brilliant WW2 aircraft game. :)

A real blast from the past for me that photo is. Its now next to my PC at home now rather than at work.

This evening I fancied a go on my good old dreamcast. Play a little Streetfighter Alpha 3, Metropolis Street Racer and Sonic Adventure. I set the machine up, power it on and get the Date and Time screen but I cant change the settings because the controller doesn't seem to be working. Wierd! I tried my arcade stick and still nothing.

A quick look on the internet and it seems to be a common problem with the dreamcast. 1 or 2 of the capacitors on the controller port PCB can go. The way to test which one is to get some needle nose pliers and twist the capacitor round until the legs touch and cause a circuit. Then when you test the console you can see if the controller is working again.

I twisted the main middle capacitor around and tested it and the controller worked! Woop! Rebuilt the case and tried to set the time and date and it didnt work again. So I opened the case again and gave the capacitor another twist, rebuilt and it worked again. But my arcade stick isnt being recognised. I'll have to change out the capacitor at the weekend so I can get it all working again. But I'm glad its still working after all this time. :)

Also Its the first time I've seen the multi-region mod I had done to it a few months after I bought it when they were first released. A very small brown taped parcel. Very neat.

Anyway. This was 'ment to be a really quick update but I've ended up typing loads again.

Catch you soon

Porl''

The Capacitor twisted round


The insides of my Dreamcast.


The offending capacitor pre-twist

Street fighter Alpha 3. Ryu is the dude!

The Dreamcast up and running.

MY WORKBENCH THIS WEEK

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 19:57:00 +0000

Hi all,

Throughout March I've had to take 9 1/2 days off to use up my statutory holidays and I've been hoping to get a load of work done on my geeky Megadrive projects. Well with the weather being so hot and sunny nearly everyday I've been off work I did a bit more work outside. Helping in the garden, sorting out the patio we're going to be making at home and helping a mate out digging and laying a new path at his house I didn't get as much done as I was hoping.

What you can see on my work area is the Neptune case in the centre with yet more filler on it awaiting a coating of grey primer. A "lost cause" Megadrive 2 awaiting some resurrection on the right. On the left is the starts of a Jamma SuperGun. This arrangement shows the comparison of the new Neptune case next to the original MD2 case which is where it started from. :-)

Last sunday I picked up 2 Megadrive's and 15 games. The night before I got a message from the guy saying that one of the 'drives had stopped working so I got the lot at a more reduced price. I thought I'd give it a go at fixing the 1 megadrive as a learning exercise.

I opened up the case and low and behold its a VA0 board which is the first edition of the Megadrive 2. The first thing I noticed after that was man it was grotty in there! and also that the LED looked like it had exploded! That appeared to be the main contributing factor that the thing wouldn't turn on. I also noticed that the solder around the power socket had come away and the main pin was partially exposed. I changed out the LED and resoldered the power socket and the thing fired up!! HOT DOG!

I went up to our hobby room and plugged it in and got no picture. A little wiggle of the A/V cable and the TMSS screen (trademark security screen) buzzed into view then went again. It also had a damaged A/V port. This thing was really used to death it seems and not very well looked after. I just so happened to have a spare port from my 32x so I desoldered the damaged port and replaced it. Went back upstairs and a stable TMSS screen but then Sonic 2 wouldn't boot. :-( Poo sticks!

I then set about cleaning the cartridge slot as this is a well known problem with them not booting up. There was a heck of a lot of fluff coming out of there. Gave it a sand and then a clean with some cleaning alcohol. Still no boot! Dang it! The next step was me tickling around the underside of the board checking continuaity of all the capacitors and found 2 that didn't show a circuit on my multi-meter. I desoldered the 2 offending cap's and resoldered them to the board. The multimeter showed a circuit for both of them. Woop! This could be it!

A quick check and still no boot but still showing the TMSS screen! I was ready to give up on the thing and call it quits.

This morning I remembered that I had a spare Megadrive 2 cartridge edge connector from the Neptune and set about desoldering the old slot from the "lost cause" and replacing it with the VA2 one. It being a newer version slot would have a better chance of working as It worked on the Neptune Megadrive before it was removed. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing of the desoldering and replacement it still didn't boot. Game Over!

I can pretty much conclude now that the thing must have been surged somehow which blew the LED and probably blew one of the more delicate components of the board. Oh well, my "restoration" of the "lost cause" didn't work. But, Man! I gave it a blumin good go. Check it out with its VA2 cartridge slot, 32x A/V port and Pimped yellow LED. I got it back from the dead so much that it would turn on and show TMSS but couldn't get it that little extra step to boot.

I gave it a real good college try but it wasn't to be. I was kinda hoping that I would get it up and running and have a machine to experiment with. Oh well. I still have the other MD2 as my next Neptune candidate though. :-)

As this is a long post I'll post up a progress report on my Neptune case which is in its final stages I think. :-)

Porl''

SEGA MEGADRIVE 1 OVERCLOCKED!

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 20:35:00 +0000

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)

GENTLEMAN BEANHEAD AND NEMISIS PAINTINGS SOLD

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 09:12:00 +0000

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 SCAVENGING AND SANDING

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 21:57:00 +0000

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''

NEPTUNE CASE PROGRESS

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 19:31:00 +0000

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.

NEW ITEMS IN MY STORE

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:37:00 +0000

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''

NEPTUNE DESOLDERED -AGAIN!

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:03:00 +0000

As I think I mentioned in my last post, I was super pumped to get de-soldering and re-wiring the Neptune with the Gigibit Ethernet wiring.

During last week I had a bit of a cold and managed to trap a nerve in my back and bottom of my neck by sneezing. Sneezing! It always happens doing something stupid hey! haha. Well come friday night my neck felt like it was pretty much back to normal and all was super good. On track for the Saturday Soldering.

Come 4am Saturday morning and I wake up in excruciating pain!! Somehow I must have moved or rolled in my sleep and completely tweaked out my back/neck. Its the region pretty much in-between my shoulder blades. I couldn't hardly get out of bed, move my head at all or pretty much move without it sending shooting pains all over the place. Not the nicest thing to happen at all to say the least.

So not being able to move my head left, right, up or down pretty much put play to me hunching over a soldering iron working on the Neptune cus it would have completely killed me off.

So I ended up spending the weekend pretty much chilling out with my girlfriend watching films and Big Bang Theory. One really cool thing about being forced to just chill out was my girlfriend who doesn't like consoles and games asked me if I wanted to carry on our Co-Op mission on Castle Crashers. Hell Yeah!!! :-D We haven't played it for about a year I think.

We started at 8:30pm and didn't turn it off till 2am saturday night. It was great fun!

Roll on Sunday and I'm still walking around like Robo-cop, stiff as a board! No soldering for me but I managed to get a little bit of filling done on the case and then got the first couple of layers of primer on so I can start sanding and filling properly.

Last night my neck eased off quite a lot so I hit my Neptune case with a load of large grit sand paper to start smoothing the sucker out. And also got to de-soldering the crappy IDE wires from the 32x - Megadrive.

I learned something that soldering Noobies like me really should know about. Always, ALWAYS look at where your soldering iron is and never reach for it without looking!! That's an important lesson to learn ;-) otherwise you will do what I did and just reach and attempt to pick it up by the heating element right after the handle!! Hot soldering irons buuuurnn!!! doh! You will get a tingly index finger fo-sho-yo!

Anyway. I've got the 32x to Megadrive all de-soldered but have to repair the megadrive as i managed to pull a trace on it like a noob! If I can get this thing working its going to be a real Frankenstein!! haha.

The photo above and below show my Neptune case in a very rough form with the de-soldered 32X and the new ethernet wires cut to length. It's a bit hard to see the case shape in the photo cus its a mix of white primer and white and green Milliput. But I'm well pleased with how the shape is coming. :-) Doesn't look much like the original Megadrive 2 case anymore.

I'm sure when I post up more photos of the progress of my replica case people will wonder why I haven't tried to make a case from scratch. I would ideally make a scratch built case as from what I can see the Neptune is slightly wider than the Megadrive 2, well it looks it in some photos anyway. BUT I didn't want to have to try and line up all the pegs and holes for the mounting of the Megadrive PCB to the case. I know I would have a nightmare trying to get them all lined up.

Also I get to use all the cool embossed and stamped text that's on the Megadrive case such as "Controller 1" "Controller 2" and "Catridge Input" which will make it look more "legit" to me. Also the rear of the console will look better as the A/V and power holes are already there too. I wanted the Neptune to still be compatible with the Sega CD2 as well, and the prototype photos I've seen have a CD expansion port on the side, and If I scratch built the case I'm sure I wouldn't be able to get it all to line up properly.

Enough of this rambling post now haha.

I will be hopefully preparing all the ethernet wires next and fixing the damaged trace on the Megadrive.

Catch you later

Porl''

THERE MAY BE HOPE

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:32:00 +0000

Last night I was doing my daily google search on Sega Neptune discussions and came across a really interesting thread on digitalpress which spoke about the Neptune mod I've been attempting.

The information in the thread caught my interest for 4 reasons :

• 1 : It had the guy who originally successfully made a Neptune and wrote the guide I've been following posting info in there. So the information had weight to it.

• 2 : A person in the thread was attempting the mod and on completetion got very very similar results to me. No games booting (megadrive or 32x) but the TV picking up a signal from the Neptune but only showing a black screen.

• 3 : The above person, the Longhorn Enginneer ( • 1) and another knowledgeable guy mentioned that standard HDD IDE ribbon cable is too thin to carry the 32x / Megadrive signals across them which could be resulting in the lack of boot and the black screen

and

• 4 : The guy who on completion of his Neptune got my problems made a 2nd Neptune using Ethernet wiring instead of IDE and got it to work perfectly.

Admittedly he used a different Megadrive 2 and 32x when making the Ethernet wiring version which cancels out the fact his 32x could be faulty. But it shows that the wiring used is better for the 32x to Megadrive 2 connection.

I've now gotten hold of some nice Gigabit speed ethernet cable and stripped the inner 8 wires out and I'm going to be de-soldering all 64 wires on my Neptune and re-soldering with the new thicker gauge wires.

I'm keeping very level headed about it that this still might not fix the Neptune but I'm excited to try it out.

I've also figured out why the power wiring has a joint soldered to a seemingly blank area of the Megadrive's main board. If anyone else is attempting to follow the walk-through and wondered why the power wiring is placed in such a way, as there is no explination. Its to move the wiring off to the side of the actual power supply input point. Otherwise the wires tend to get in the way of the port and you cant plug the power adapter in. Rather than doing the solder joint I will just hot glue gun the wire I think as this will be a bit easier to do than soldering to the board and stronger possibly.

Anyway, enough of my train of consciousness haha.

I'm going to start de-soldering this weekend and re-connection. Also I've been adding more milliput to my replica Neptune case. Its still a long way from completion but the shape is definetly there now :D

More updates soon

Porl''

SEGA NEPTUNE COMPLETED

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 22:06:00 +0000

But unfortunetly It doesn't work :-(

I completed the rest of the tutorial on Saturday. Soldering in all 64 wires from the 32x cartridge points to the de-soldered cartridge area of the Megadrive 2. Its a lot more fiddly than I was expecting it to be! Using the IDE cables made it easier to keep track of which wires went where etc but it still put you in awkward positions to solder. I'm very glad I didn't go the individual wires route, that's for sure!

With all the wires soldered to their new locations it looks pretty neat and tidy and it all fits into the Megadrive 2's lower case without the wires pulling away from their joints. That's a big improvement from the original wiring attempts haha.

When you plug the power and A/V cables in and switch the sucker on though, nothing. Its pumping out a signal of sorts. The screen flicks and goes black and there is a low buzz but that seems to be all. Actually that's not completely true, there is a funny barcode looking block on the bottom of the screen with an empty area next to it. Weird.

My earlier attempts at soldering the Megadrive 2 and 32x link wires in for initial testings pulled a trace away from the 32x which I've fixed with a bridging wire so it shouldn't be that I don't think. It's only on the linking area of the PCB so shouldn't be a critical point from my research on the internet.

I have the feeling that the 32x didn't really work when I got it as it came without cables and untested from ebay. I've done the usual 'repair' technique of removing and cleaning the white ribbon cables and re-seating them but, nadda!

So the next step has me back on the hunt for a 32x to get the Neptune to live! I'm not giving up on the project that's for sure! :-D

I'm going to post up on some forums my problems I'm having with the 32x in a hope that some guru's who've successfully completed Neptune's in the past will know how to fix it or wether the 32x is dead after all.

We will see, the Neptune will live!

Check below for some of my progress photos so far. Click the thumbnail images to see the fullsize versions.

Porl''

WEBSITE UPDATES

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:52:00 +0000

Hi everyone,

I've spent some of the evening tinning some of my trimmed IDE cables which will be used to attach the 32X to the now desoldered Cartridge slot on the Megadrive 2 mainboard. I was quite surprised how long it took to tin 75 wires. 64 for the cart link, 10 for the 32X to Megadrive link cabling and 1 to fix a pulled trace on the 32x board.

I'll be carrying on with soldering more on the Neptune during the week if I get chance. Next step is to use some cleaning alcohol to get the boards ready to solder them together.

You may have noticed above this post that there is a new Tab which links to a new page. I've spent some time poking around blogger to get new tabs going and activate a Mobile version of the site.

So now, if you think you might want to buy a painting, toy, print or custom console I've painted then you can quickly scoot on over and check the store out. :-)

Currently there is 1 Ozzel left in the store and my Monkey Loves Oranges Gocco prints.

Some more updates on my Neptune to follow.

Porl''

SEGA NEPTUNE DESOLDERED and REWIRED

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 23:08:00 +0000

Its been about a week since I did any more work on my Sega Neptune mod. I'd become a little dishearted with my progress. I couldn't get a proper connection test done with the 32x plugged into the Megadrive 2 with the power and A/V's wired up. It seems that the wires I bought from Maplins are too stiff. Everytime I placed the Megadrive 32x combo into the lower part of the megadrive case wires kept coming away from the solder joints. Rather annoying to say the least!

So I decided to completely re-wire all the work I'd done so far. I've seen a completed Neptune project on photobucket and he'd used IDE Ribbon wire instead of the type of wire I'd bought and it looked really nice.

Today I got on the desoldering work and have gotten a lot of practice now with my Solder Sucker. I'm getting pretty good with it now which is great as I couldn't really get it to work before. After desoldering 2 A/V outs and a Power Input I decided to tackle the desoldering of the cartridge slot on the megadrive 2. All 64 points! The board looks very clean without the cart slot on it.

I then re-wired the A/V out on the 32x with IDE cable and its a lot neater now and easier to solder up than individual wires.

After that its tinning the cartridge slot on the 32x so It can be wired to the Megadrive 2. Its a bit of a no return step when you get solder onto the cartridge points so I was a little apprehensive with attempting it but it went okay. Oh and I also noticed that the prototype name for the 32x is printed on the board, Mars. Pretty nifty in a geeky way.

So all in all I'm pretty pleased with how my soldering skills have progressed. Hopefully it will all work once its completed.

More updates to follow :)

Porl''

SEGA NEPTUNE MOD PROGRESS

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:32:00 +0000

Who would have thought that desoldering was so hard to get your head around? Certainly not me. But even though ive gotten the right tools now its still been a pig and i'd made no progress on the walkthrough until earlier today. I finally removed the heat sink off the md2 main board with the help of an extra pair of hands (my girlfriend) and now gotten cracking with the mod and feel like im making headway. :-)

Also my case mod has been making progress and starting to look more like the 2 prototype neptunes that can be seen on Google. Hopefully it will turn out relatively close in the end.

Photos to follow :-)

Porl"

SEGA MEGADRIVE 2 MOD

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:38:00 +0000

One thing I've always wanted to do is learn how to solder and have always been too scared to give it a go. Daft as it sounds. Last week a friend though my girlfriends parents who was an electrical engineer taught me how.

Having seen several pal/ntsc tutorials on the internet i got the courage to give it a go. With fresh soldering skills i tackled the pal/ntsc and language mod to a sega megadrive 2 and got it to work. :-)

I have a more ambitious sega mod to come now I've ticked that off the list.

Just need to win some stuff from ebay!!

See the pics below showing the mod as well as my Japanese Super Ghosts and Goblins used to test the pal/ntsc mod.

2012 AND NEW WEBSITE!!

noreply@blogger.com (Porlzilla) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:22:00 +0000

I've decided to make some changes to my website for 2012. My focuses have changed and mutated over the last few years. I'm still into designer toys and have a toy on the burner that I will hopefully get to release this year. I've bought my first house at the end of 2011 and this has clamped down on my hobby money so things are moving slowly for me now.

Now I have a more stable location to work from I'm aiming to start getting projects done in 2012! :) I have another Sega Megadrive half painted, I'm really digging painting retro consoles at the minute. They have such a different feel to doing a straight canvas. I love retro consoles and they spark memories of being a geeky kid playing Sonic for hours during summer holidays, going to my mates house to play bomberman or micro machines. Drooling over consoles magazines such as Mean Machines, Mean Machines Sega, Games Master etc reading about consoles I couldnt afford but dreamed about playing.

I have a Sega Megadrive 2 case mod im working on that I'm very excited about and I'm really hoping I can pull off.

I want to re-work the game I made a 1 level demo of mid-2011, as well as make a quirky platformer using Construct 2. It looks like a great improvement on Construct and I'm hoping to find time to get working things out of my game making system!

Hopefully this new blogger format will make maintaining my site a lot easier so I will post more.

I still have my little shop open and hope to add more items in there soon. For people who are still wanting to add to their OZZEL collections there is one "End of Summer" Ozzel left. Check here to give him a look : PORLZILLA WEBSHOP

All is looking fun for 2012!! yatta!