Hi All,
A bit of a late Happy New Year! but there you go. :-)
I've been quiet again on the old blog front, the time keeps flying by which is a little worrying when you think about it. Over christmas I don't get much time to do many geeky projects as we're out busking with the kids Brass band that me and my wife volunteer for. Always good fun getting out there and playing the classic christmas tunes!
Well its a new year and I want to get cracking with a couple of Sega based projects and 1 arcade game project.
Currently the 2 Sega projects are on the go which I will no doubt make a post about when they are all done and finished. I'm just waiting on an ebay purchase to finish the larger of the two projects wiring then I will be onto the final touches for it. I'm really pleased with it so far, mysterious huh? :-P
I also have an arcade game project which I made a quick video intro for which is at the bottom of this post.
While I was working on one of the Sega projects I was watching some of the arcade and retro console repair videos that I subscribe to on YouTube and I started getting the urge to have another go at repairing an arcade game.
So off I trotted to one of the arcade forums I go on and snagged myself a board with some issues. Mainly this games problems are in the sound department. The game is WF SuperStars :-D I used to play this loads at Mr Man's video shop on Rosliston Road when I was a teen so its got a great nostalgic feeling for me.
Its going to be fun to tackle issues in the sound area of a Jamma board as I've not poked around those areas yet.
BUT, I need to get some of these other projects finished first before tackling WF. :-P
So catch you guys on the next post which will hopefully be a nice completed projects post.
Porl''
Showing posts with label Megadrive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Megadrive. Show all posts
Tuesday, 27 January 2015
Monday, 10 November 2014
SEGA MEGADRIVE SONIC THE HEDGEHOG USB DRIVE
Howdy Y’all,
I’ve not had much time this past 2 weeks to play with making my Neptune hook-up wires unfortunately and I’ve been getting myself down with doing ebay searches for Sega 32x’s on there and seeing how expensive they are now. The prices of them have really shot through the roof and they seem to be becoming more and more unattainable which sucks. I’m still searching though as I need to get a working one to finish the Neptune off.
Anyway, that’s not what this post is about. Its about a little mid-week recycling project that I’ve been thinking about. I like most megadrive owners / collectors have a couple of spare Sonic the Hedgehog 1’s knocking about that no-one wants and I’ve been feeling that its such a shame that such a great game is just gathering dust getting absolutely no love as there are so many of them about.
Well I had the idea that the cartridges are around the same kind of size as some usb portable HDD’s so I thought I could use the casing to house a HDD and make a geeky drive to carry around. Getting one of my spares out and looking over it I saw that they are a bit too small so I did some research on the internet to see if people have made retro game USB drives and saw that some people sacrifice some awesome looking Nintendo games to use the cases to house the drives. And when I saw this I actually thought its such a shame that the actual game, the physical chips and board are just getting binned so that the cases are empty enough to make room for the HDD’s to fit in. So I opened up my Sonic cartridge to see if there was anyway I could keep the game in there and hopefully make it playable still while also being a USB drive.
Once opened you can see that the actual game board doesn’t take up all the room inside the cartridge and the space available is just a bit bigger than a USB pen drive with some room to spare around the sides. This is a pretty good result as I have a spare USB pen drive knocking about that I don’t use as I always end up losing them seen’s they are so small. And it was also free as I got it in a promo goody bag gift.
I found some sticky back velco strips as I thought that I might get a larger capacity pen drive in the future and if I glue gun the pen drive in place it will be stuck there forever. A rare bit of forward thinking from me haha. I also quickly ordered up a usb extension wire from the interwebs to give me a wire that can connect the cart / usb to my computer. I don’t really like the look of just the USB connector sticking out of the sides so wanted to go the dangly wire way.
Here you can see how the insides of the cartridge will look with the USB pen drive in place and the extension cable hanging out the side. Looking pretty neat.
And here you see how it looks with the little security screws put back into place and the cartridge all closed up.
When I was brainstorming how to have the USB extension cable and have the game playable I thought that if I have the cable coming out of the top of the back alignment groove the cartridge should still fit into the Megadrive 1 and 2 and not crimp or squash the cable. And it was a bit of a relief when I tried it after screwing it back together and it still fit into the cart slot and switched it on! :D
WOOP! Now I have a retro styled backup USB drive which has given a dusty unused cartridge some new life AND the game is still in there and working. So if there is an emergency situation where I see a Megadrive and heaven forbid there isn’t a game available to play then POW! USB Retro pen drive saves the day!
Hopefully this little post will inspire some other people to give their spare cartridges a new lease of life without sacrificing the actual game itself as that seems a big shame to me too.
I’m going to be making some time to make the hook-up wires for the Neptune next so hopefully there will be a post on those soon.
Catch you later
Porl’’
Saturday, 9 August 2014
LITTLE BIT OF AN UPDATE
Hi Peeps,
I've just sat down at my desktop computer and realised I hadn't made any blog updates in a while. Man it's been a hectic past month and a bit and all I've been able to do geek-wise is plan things to do.
The Naomi is up and running and worked like a dream on my stag night were a group of us had a gaming night where I put out a load of my consoles with some tv's and my two arcade machines. Everything ran like a dream which was a real relief especially seen's its all old tech really. We got a real good game of Super Mario Bros going on the Mario Allstars cart on the SNES with about 4 of us taking turns trying to beat world 5. Damn Hammer Bros!!! haha. And I also got inspired to play more Sonic Spin Ball on the megadrive where my mate how's really good at it played through the first level while giving me tips. One tip was don't play it overclocked haha as it runs a lot faster and can make a tricky game even trickier! :-P
I've had a few emails about the Sega Neptune replica I've been working on for the past two years and it's progress. Well the progress of it is the outer casing is finished. But the project has stalled because of not having a working 32x to check that it will all work within the case. So I've been checking ebay every now and again but it seems the prices are going up all the time. I've not wanted to put the case out there as finished until I know that the whole kit and caboodle works.
I did a little work on it this morning, well it's not really work but I added in a brighter red LED to the motherboard so that it shines out of the new power light area how I'd like. I've been drawing plans and steps I want to do next to make it so I can get the megadrive 2 ready for a 32x to be put into it but it will still work as a megadrive while I wait on getting one. Make it kind of modular by basically repositioning the cartridge slot so that I won't be soldering to the 32x itself. I think it will work so I'll be doing some capacitor and resistor moving to make space.
Right, well none of this is going to happen until the end of next month now as we're ramping up to the wedding and honeymoon. So it's all hands to the pumps. I best get back to it.
Catch you all soon
Porl''
I've just sat down at my desktop computer and realised I hadn't made any blog updates in a while. Man it's been a hectic past month and a bit and all I've been able to do geek-wise is plan things to do.
The Naomi is up and running and worked like a dream on my stag night were a group of us had a gaming night where I put out a load of my consoles with some tv's and my two arcade machines. Everything ran like a dream which was a real relief especially seen's its all old tech really. We got a real good game of Super Mario Bros going on the Mario Allstars cart on the SNES with about 4 of us taking turns trying to beat world 5. Damn Hammer Bros!!! haha. And I also got inspired to play more Sonic Spin Ball on the megadrive where my mate how's really good at it played through the first level while giving me tips. One tip was don't play it overclocked haha as it runs a lot faster and can make a tricky game even trickier! :-P
I've had a few emails about the Sega Neptune replica I've been working on for the past two years and it's progress. Well the progress of it is the outer casing is finished. But the project has stalled because of not having a working 32x to check that it will all work within the case. So I've been checking ebay every now and again but it seems the prices are going up all the time. I've not wanted to put the case out there as finished until I know that the whole kit and caboodle works.
I did a little work on it this morning, well it's not really work but I added in a brighter red LED to the motherboard so that it shines out of the new power light area how I'd like. I've been drawing plans and steps I want to do next to make it so I can get the megadrive 2 ready for a 32x to be put into it but it will still work as a megadrive while I wait on getting one. Make it kind of modular by basically repositioning the cartridge slot so that I won't be soldering to the 32x itself. I think it will work so I'll be doing some capacitor and resistor moving to make space.
Right, well none of this is going to happen until the end of next month now as we're ramping up to the wedding and honeymoon. So it's all hands to the pumps. I best get back to it.
Catch you all soon
Porl''
Monday, 19 May 2014
ARCADE MACHINE REFURBISHMENT - RESURRECTION PART 6. FINISHED!
Hi all,
It's been a couple of weeks since my last update so I thought I would post up a quick update on the Jamma arcade machine resurrection.
ITS FINISHED!!! :-D
Yep indeedy. I've been over to the machine over the last weekend and finished up the last little touches I wanted to do to it so I can call it done. And its a pretty great feeling to know that I've taken a machine that was basically sitting and rotting broken and unusable and its now a tidied up and rejuvenated arcade machine that can be used to run both Jamma and MVS games.
The main finishing touch I wanted to do was re-fit the blackout card around the monitor so that you couldn't see into the machine while playing it and it just makes you focus on the game your playing. When I was removing the card to do the cleaning a part of it got torn so I had to tape it back together.
You can see the join if your looking but Im pretty sure if you didn't know it was torn and repaired you wouldn't spot it. It needed a little trimming and adjusting to get it to fit the new monitor shape nicely but in the end (with some stapling and then re-stapling) I got it to fit how I wanted and closed up the front of the machine and clamped the latches down so its all secure at the front.
On the left you can now only see me and the wall behind me reflecting in the glass rather than seeing straight into the cabinet.
Below you can see a kind of POV of how it looks when your playing. You really just see the game now.
The next step was to tidy up the dangling wires inside the coin door area so I got some of my cable tie bases stuck to the inside of the wood and cable tie'd the wires out of sight. Nice and easy.
I also wanted to mount the Test Switch within the coin mech area on the back of the coin door but the wires weren't long enough so I got a pair of off cuts from the jamma harness and extended them so that I could neatly route the wires along the inside of the cabinet and out to the coin mech nicely. So now when you open the coin door to get to the remote to set the TV to AV so that the picture is perfect the Test switch cabling is no longer pulling on the harness wiring and the door swings freely. :-)
And that's it! :-D I wanted to make a new marquess sign for the machine which I might still do at some point but It all still works and fits and is how the machine was last set up so I think its good for now.
The machine now needs some games played on it so it can be used again. At the minute I've gotten my Jammadrive 2 in permanent residence so that I can get blasting some of the amazing Megadrive arcade conversions I have. Golden Axe really plays nicely in the stand up cab set up even though its still the megadrive version.
Here is the arcade machine in its new location for a while. As you can see I had my trusty assistant with me helping me out. Unfortunately he's too short to reach the Player 2 controls. haha :-P
As I said numerous times Im really stoked out with this project and how I've managed to bring an actual arcade machine back to life from the dead! Its been a project where I've learnt a lot and gained a lot of confidence in this area of retro games electronics / wiring etc.
I have another arcade machine project on the go at the minute, yes I know! Another! But this project is very different to this machine so again its a neat learning experience.
So expect another post up here soon. Hopefully I get a major component for it back tomorrow (fingers crossed) so I can really get to work on it.
Porl''
It's been a couple of weeks since my last update so I thought I would post up a quick update on the Jamma arcade machine resurrection.
ITS FINISHED!!! :-D
Yep indeedy. I've been over to the machine over the last weekend and finished up the last little touches I wanted to do to it so I can call it done. And its a pretty great feeling to know that I've taken a machine that was basically sitting and rotting broken and unusable and its now a tidied up and rejuvenated arcade machine that can be used to run both Jamma and MVS games.
You can see the join if your looking but Im pretty sure if you didn't know it was torn and repaired you wouldn't spot it. It needed a little trimming and adjusting to get it to fit the new monitor shape nicely but in the end (with some stapling and then re-stapling) I got it to fit how I wanted and closed up the front of the machine and clamped the latches down so its all secure at the front.
On the left you can now only see me and the wall behind me reflecting in the glass rather than seeing straight into the cabinet.
Below you can see a kind of POV of how it looks when your playing. You really just see the game now.
The next step was to tidy up the dangling wires inside the coin door area so I got some of my cable tie bases stuck to the inside of the wood and cable tie'd the wires out of sight. Nice and easy.
I also wanted to mount the Test Switch within the coin mech area on the back of the coin door but the wires weren't long enough so I got a pair of off cuts from the jamma harness and extended them so that I could neatly route the wires along the inside of the cabinet and out to the coin mech nicely. So now when you open the coin door to get to the remote to set the TV to AV so that the picture is perfect the Test switch cabling is no longer pulling on the harness wiring and the door swings freely. :-)
And that's it! :-D I wanted to make a new marquess sign for the machine which I might still do at some point but It all still works and fits and is how the machine was last set up so I think its good for now.
The machine now needs some games played on it so it can be used again. At the minute I've gotten my Jammadrive 2 in permanent residence so that I can get blasting some of the amazing Megadrive arcade conversions I have. Golden Axe really plays nicely in the stand up cab set up even though its still the megadrive version.
Here is the arcade machine in its new location for a while. As you can see I had my trusty assistant with me helping me out. Unfortunately he's too short to reach the Player 2 controls. haha :-P
I have another arcade machine project on the go at the minute, yes I know! Another! But this project is very different to this machine so again its a neat learning experience.
So expect another post up here soon. Hopefully I get a major component for it back tomorrow (fingers crossed) so I can really get to work on it.
Porl''
Wednesday, 16 April 2014
ARCADE MACHINE REFURBISHMENT - RESURRECTION PART 5. MARQUEE AND JAMMADRIVE 2
Hi All,
Well, the weekend has passed and I managed to get a little bit of work done on the arcade machine while my fiance was planting trees with her mom in one of the fields. Shirking a little bit of manual labour I slinked off to my arcade machine to continue work.
My main aim for the weekends work was to try and figure out the marquee light and try to get that hooked up and working. I must admit though I hadn't got a clue how the thing hooked up to the power supply as it was just 2 wires and they weren't standard colourings to the wires. Hmm, surely one has to be ground and one live? There's a sticker on what looks like the ignitor? power block for the light that says 240v so I thought 'brilliant! I'll hook it up to a mains plug and see what happens'. Well, what happened was the bulb got really bright then a burning spot appeared at a part of the bulb and it switched off. Doh!! Burnt it out and my confidence with getting that thing working dropped through the floor.
I could try to get another bulb to fit but I might struggle and then it could just burn out like this one did because its not wired correctly, so I decided to head down to my local B&Q diy store and pick up some tree ties for Roz and her mom and picked up a small strip light while I was at it. While I was there I checked over all the lights and checked that the one I got was mains powered so I could just hook it up and I'd be away.
I had a good long piece of mains cabling and scrounged a plug and hooked up the light to check that it fired up and worked okay. And, bingo! It worked! Next step is to get it mounted to the marquee board and check again. Here you can see it mounted to the board before I routed the wiring down the back trunking of the machine and down to the power strip thats sitting in the base.
After I got it all cable tied to place and hidden in the trunking I go it switched on in its new home. :D
Check that glow! haha. Another tick on my list of things to do there. Marquee light, done!
Here's how the machine looks at the minute with the glass and marquee sign all back in place.
Looking pretty snazzy I think. I don't know what it is but when the light turned on it just clicked to me. This is finally an arcade machine, it just feels more right.
During the week I'd received some new Neo Geo MVS games so I thought I'd bring one of the cartridges with me to 'test' out in the cabinet. Metal Slug 2! :D
Its crazy how different the game looks compared to my little LCD TV I've got at home. Standing up close to the CRT monitor with the scan lines etc makes it feel a lot more proper.
I got a nice little stash of games and I'm really itching to complete them all but the one thing I'm making sure I don't do is credit my way through them. I.e. just pressing the credit button continuously to force my way through the games. One thing I've been doing with Metal Slug 2 is giving myself 3 credits and 3 credits only. Trying to recreate only having so much change in my pocket like when I was a kid. Man, is Metal Slug 2 a hard game though!! I can only get to the end of level 3 so far with my 3 credits. Its crazy tough even on level 4 difficulty settings. I'll get there though.
The Games I got (as I got side-tracked there) are : Metal Slug 2 (loose cart), Metal Slug 4 (full kit), King of Fighters 2001 (loose cart), Puzzle Bobble (loose cart) and Tecmo Soccer '96 (loose cart). I'll probably be selling on Tecmo Soccer as Im not that into football games but the others are definate keepers.
So that was Saturday's work and I thought I would be all done for the weekend but we headed back on the Sunday so Roz could help her mom out with some more tree's so I had an idea of what I could leave in the machine semi-perminantly as I don't want to be leaving my 'real' arcade boards in the machine when it's not at my house yet.
So I used the time in the morning at home to source out an old Megadrive / Mega CD base plate from my wardrobe to see if I could modify it into a PCB stand for my Sega Jammadrive 2 :-)
I found the base plate out but quickly found out that its not going to fit the Jammadrive 2 unless I take the rubber feet off the bottom of the casing (not gonna happen as I want it to look stock :P ) or modify the plate. So I got my metal saw out and started hacking away at the base. I got a little way but needed some proper equipment so I took it to the farm and used the saws there.
Here you can see the Jammadrive 2 next to where I was working so I could keep offering up the plate to it to see how it was fitting.
Right, a little disclaimer...I'm not going to show the finished off plate because its VERY embarrassing and looks like a torture device from Vlad the Impaler (and it actually did impale me at one point and cut my hand doh!) but it does fit nicely and work very well. I drilled out some holes and mounted PCB feet that I had spare so that I could then screw that into the internal wooden wall of the arcade machine.
And here is the Jammadrive 2 sitting in place on the wooden wall. The way I positioned it is so the weight of the console pushes downwards onto the mounts of the base plate so it will keep in place and it also has the Jamma edge at a nice easy to access position. I've also mounted it quite high on the board so that I can still fit other arcade games in there past it so I don't have to take it out all the time to put other game boards in.
Im really pleased with how it sits in the cabinet I must admit and really happy that the baseplate worked after all my hacking of it (and my hand).
And here you can see the machine running Streets of Rage from the Sega Mega Games 6 cartridge. A neat little fact about this cart is that it has the full version of Streets of Rage on it so much that if you flick it over to Japanese language you get the game Bare Knuckle instead of Streets of Rage :D A good cart to test your language switch mods on ;-)
I thought I could leave this cart in the machine and there are a few games to have a blast on when there aren't any arcade boards plugged in.
Also its inspired me to dig some of my megadrive arcade converstions out of my shelves such as golden axe and I know its not technically an arcade game but its pretty close to the original, Splatterhouse 2.
Oh, I also painted up the old coin door that I mentioned in one or two of the video progress reports. Well it turns out after I painted it up that it didn't fit and wasn't the correct door!! Double dang it!
But I scratted around and found the proper one which is chrome and only needed a quick brush down to look half decent again. I mounted it into place and quickly tie-wrapped my Test Button to it but I'm going to extend the wiring on that so that its neater when you open the door.
And that's the progress so far. I'll leave you until the next post.
Catch you later
Porl''
Well, the weekend has passed and I managed to get a little bit of work done on the arcade machine while my fiance was planting trees with her mom in one of the fields. Shirking a little bit of manual labour I slinked off to my arcade machine to continue work.
My main aim for the weekends work was to try and figure out the marquee light and try to get that hooked up and working. I must admit though I hadn't got a clue how the thing hooked up to the power supply as it was just 2 wires and they weren't standard colourings to the wires. Hmm, surely one has to be ground and one live? There's a sticker on what looks like the ignitor? power block for the light that says 240v so I thought 'brilliant! I'll hook it up to a mains plug and see what happens'. Well, what happened was the bulb got really bright then a burning spot appeared at a part of the bulb and it switched off. Doh!! Burnt it out and my confidence with getting that thing working dropped through the floor.
I could try to get another bulb to fit but I might struggle and then it could just burn out like this one did because its not wired correctly, so I decided to head down to my local B&Q diy store and pick up some tree ties for Roz and her mom and picked up a small strip light while I was at it. While I was there I checked over all the lights and checked that the one I got was mains powered so I could just hook it up and I'd be away.
I had a good long piece of mains cabling and scrounged a plug and hooked up the light to check that it fired up and worked okay. And, bingo! It worked! Next step is to get it mounted to the marquee board and check again. Here you can see it mounted to the board before I routed the wiring down the back trunking of the machine and down to the power strip thats sitting in the base.
After I got it all cable tied to place and hidden in the trunking I go it switched on in its new home. :D
Check that glow! haha. Another tick on my list of things to do there. Marquee light, done!
Here's how the machine looks at the minute with the glass and marquee sign all back in place.
During the week I'd received some new Neo Geo MVS games so I thought I'd bring one of the cartridges with me to 'test' out in the cabinet. Metal Slug 2! :D
Its crazy how different the game looks compared to my little LCD TV I've got at home. Standing up close to the CRT monitor with the scan lines etc makes it feel a lot more proper.
I got a nice little stash of games and I'm really itching to complete them all but the one thing I'm making sure I don't do is credit my way through them. I.e. just pressing the credit button continuously to force my way through the games. One thing I've been doing with Metal Slug 2 is giving myself 3 credits and 3 credits only. Trying to recreate only having so much change in my pocket like when I was a kid. Man, is Metal Slug 2 a hard game though!! I can only get to the end of level 3 so far with my 3 credits. Its crazy tough even on level 4 difficulty settings. I'll get there though.
The Games I got (as I got side-tracked there) are : Metal Slug 2 (loose cart), Metal Slug 4 (full kit), King of Fighters 2001 (loose cart), Puzzle Bobble (loose cart) and Tecmo Soccer '96 (loose cart). I'll probably be selling on Tecmo Soccer as Im not that into football games but the others are definate keepers.
So I used the time in the morning at home to source out an old Megadrive / Mega CD base plate from my wardrobe to see if I could modify it into a PCB stand for my Sega Jammadrive 2 :-)
I found the base plate out but quickly found out that its not going to fit the Jammadrive 2 unless I take the rubber feet off the bottom of the casing (not gonna happen as I want it to look stock :P ) or modify the plate. So I got my metal saw out and started hacking away at the base. I got a little way but needed some proper equipment so I took it to the farm and used the saws there.
Here you can see the Jammadrive 2 next to where I was working so I could keep offering up the plate to it to see how it was fitting.
Right, a little disclaimer...I'm not going to show the finished off plate because its VERY embarrassing and looks like a torture device from Vlad the Impaler (and it actually did impale me at one point and cut my hand doh!) but it does fit nicely and work very well. I drilled out some holes and mounted PCB feet that I had spare so that I could then screw that into the internal wooden wall of the arcade machine.
And here is the Jammadrive 2 sitting in place on the wooden wall. The way I positioned it is so the weight of the console pushes downwards onto the mounts of the base plate so it will keep in place and it also has the Jamma edge at a nice easy to access position. I've also mounted it quite high on the board so that I can still fit other arcade games in there past it so I don't have to take it out all the time to put other game boards in.
Im really pleased with how it sits in the cabinet I must admit and really happy that the baseplate worked after all my hacking of it (and my hand).
I thought I could leave this cart in the machine and there are a few games to have a blast on when there aren't any arcade boards plugged in.
Also its inspired me to dig some of my megadrive arcade converstions out of my shelves such as golden axe and I know its not technically an arcade game but its pretty close to the original, Splatterhouse 2.
Oh, I also painted up the old coin door that I mentioned in one or two of the video progress reports. Well it turns out after I painted it up that it didn't fit and wasn't the correct door!! Double dang it!
But I scratted around and found the proper one which is chrome and only needed a quick brush down to look half decent again. I mounted it into place and quickly tie-wrapped my Test Button to it but I'm going to extend the wiring on that so that its neater when you open the door.
And that's the progress so far. I'll leave you until the next post.
Catch you later
Porl''
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
JAMMA SEGA MEGADRIVE 2 : PART FOUR
Howdy y'all,
It's been a little while since I posted last about a geeky project. Basically I've been caught up over the last few months with house / garden improvements as well as doing an RGB mod to the PC Engine I purchased from ebay a while ago. I was having a really hard time for some reason with getting the mod to work and finally got it figured out. Basically the best tip I can give is draw down the wiring locations your going to use and you do use on a piece of paper as you go. I didn't and kept mixing my wiring up like a dope.
Anyway, I've been of on whats commonly called a "Stay-cation" this last week and chose to use some of my holiday at home to finish up some retro projects I had on the go as well as play some games etc. The main project I wanted to finish was the Jamma-drive 2, which is what I did.
With the controls being finished in Part Three all I needed to do was possibly overclock the processor to a switchable 10mhz and finish off the casing. Tidy it up and paint it, then using printable water-slip decal paper make a decal for the casing.
After having a good play on the Jamma-drive2 I decided I was going to have a go at overclocking the processor, shouldn't take too long seen's I've done it before. I set about making my crystal circuit and then started the process of heating pin 15 and with the pick tool, slowly pull the leg out from underneath the processor. The legs on the processors for the megadrive 2 are curled underneath it to slightly raise it from the pcb, I guess for giving it some cooling. Anyway, I dont think I had the soldering iron hot enough and pulled the solder pad up with the leg of the processor!!! The scariest possibility happened!! Man I was cross with myself. This is the reason that not main people overclock the model 2's, its way easier to just cut the leg of the model 1 and work on that rather than threading the needle of the model 2. So, with the solder pad now pulled from the board and stuck to the leg what do I do? I try to take clean the leg up and get the solder pad off it and the leg has taken too much wiggling and snapped off! PERFECT!! >:-( Screwed processor city!
I put everything away and took the pup out for a walk to try to get away from the ruin I'd just created, I'd spent all this time making a Jamma-drive and then balls-ed it up overclocking it! Gah!
After an hour we got home and I started trying to see if I could fix it. Out came the pick tool again and I scratched away some of the plastic around the broken leg to expose some of the broken leg and got a little wire soldered onto it. From a video that has been taken off youtube I remembered something about a guy soldering to a point on the board next to a printed 10. So with a "what the hell!" mentality I soldered the wire into the "10" location and went to see if it would work. And what do you know? I blumin' fixed it! :-D
So lesson learned, don't get cocky when trying to lift leg 15 when overclocking and if you do end up snapping the leg off or pulling the solder pad from the board, you can wire to location 10 that is just below the processor. This has fixed the megadrive and its clocked as standard 7mhz. I think I'll probably attempt to overclock it now I know its working but I think It's going to stay at 7mhz so I can play it for a while :-)
Here you can see location 10 that I wired too. I don't have a photo of the wire from the processor to it but you can see it in the video below. You wire from the processor leg into 10 to make the link work.
Now that the thing actually works again (Phew!!) I set about finishing the rest of the project.
I stripped the Jamma-drive 2 out of the case and started finishing up the new expansion port. Sanding it and trying to get it as flat and blended as I could.
Here you can see the milliput holding the expansion port to the case and hopefully see it smoothed into the original case so that once painted it should look pretty stock.
Next step is to masking tape the little spongey feet of the case so that they don't get caked in paint as well as the sticker telling you what serial number etc your megadrive is. Then it's off to the painting stage.
I gave the case a quick coating of grey primer over the new expansion port area and then painted the whole of it with Halfords Matt Black car paint. I've found that it gives a finish that is very close to the way the plastic looks on the original Megadrive's. So once its dried it will get a coating of a Matt Varnish so that it keeps its plasticy look rather than being all glossy. In the photos it looks glossy but that is because its still drying. You might also have spotted the Neptune case having another coating of paint. I did a bit more work on it on my holiday but that is for another post ;-)
So, The case has been painted and now is dry. So, what does it look like?!
Pretty good to me, I know it could be a little smoother but to be honest this project has been taking too long, so it gets a tick from me. And in certain lights, as you'll see in the video, you can't really see the join. :-) Overall Im really please with the look of the expansion port. Especially with how sturdy it is, It has no wobble or flimsy-ness to it.
And here is how the hot glue and milliput is covered inside the case. you can see the kind of "welding" I did with it to fix the new expansion port in place. And its solid, doesn't feel at all like it will crack or break.
Time to put it all back together again and get the switches set into place.
And here's how the case and new side expansion looks with everything all built back inside the casing.
Looks pretty sweet I think !!! :-D Im very happy with how it's fitted together, and when its sitting on the table you wouldn't even think there was anything going on underneath the case. A real Street-Sleeper :-D
So, for the finishing touch to this little project. I want it to look stock but I also want it to still show a little hint as to what it is. To achieve this I bought some water-slip decal paper from the internet so that I can make my own "Jamma-drive 2" logo to replace the megadrive 2 logo thats already on the case. To start I measured up the height of the existing logo and got onto illustrator, and with a Sega typeface I layed up my logo. Logo all made to size and its onto the printer to get the water-slip decal printed out. Once its printed you have to spray some Matt Varnish onto the decal to make it waterproof and then onto dunking it in warm water.
And with a little bit of wiggling here is what the finished decal looks like on the case with a megadrive 2 underneath for comparison. :-)
Im super happy with how the whole project turned out. I don't think the case could have come out any better, the waterslip decal really puts the cherry on the cake as it would make you look over the jamma-drive and think its standard but make you do a double take and go "what!?!"
And here are 2 videos I made of the Jamma-drive 2. The first video showing you the insides of the Jamma-drive2, including the overclock repair.
Here is the second part which show's the Jamma-drive 2 playing some games. :-D
Man I'm happy this project is finished now as it was meant to be a nice quick and easy one, but with the RGB problem and then having to figure out the controller pads it dragged on a bit. But the finished 'drive has come out great I think.
Catch you all later guys
Porl''
It's been a little while since I posted last about a geeky project. Basically I've been caught up over the last few months with house / garden improvements as well as doing an RGB mod to the PC Engine I purchased from ebay a while ago. I was having a really hard time for some reason with getting the mod to work and finally got it figured out. Basically the best tip I can give is draw down the wiring locations your going to use and you do use on a piece of paper as you go. I didn't and kept mixing my wiring up like a dope.
Anyway, I've been of on whats commonly called a "Stay-cation" this last week and chose to use some of my holiday at home to finish up some retro projects I had on the go as well as play some games etc. The main project I wanted to finish was the Jamma-drive 2, which is what I did.
With the controls being finished in Part Three all I needed to do was possibly overclock the processor to a switchable 10mhz and finish off the casing. Tidy it up and paint it, then using printable water-slip decal paper make a decal for the casing.
After having a good play on the Jamma-drive2 I decided I was going to have a go at overclocking the processor, shouldn't take too long seen's I've done it before. I set about making my crystal circuit and then started the process of heating pin 15 and with the pick tool, slowly pull the leg out from underneath the processor. The legs on the processors for the megadrive 2 are curled underneath it to slightly raise it from the pcb, I guess for giving it some cooling. Anyway, I dont think I had the soldering iron hot enough and pulled the solder pad up with the leg of the processor!!! The scariest possibility happened!! Man I was cross with myself. This is the reason that not main people overclock the model 2's, its way easier to just cut the leg of the model 1 and work on that rather than threading the needle of the model 2. So, with the solder pad now pulled from the board and stuck to the leg what do I do? I try to take clean the leg up and get the solder pad off it and the leg has taken too much wiggling and snapped off! PERFECT!! >:-( Screwed processor city!
I put everything away and took the pup out for a walk to try to get away from the ruin I'd just created, I'd spent all this time making a Jamma-drive and then balls-ed it up overclocking it! Gah!
After an hour we got home and I started trying to see if I could fix it. Out came the pick tool again and I scratched away some of the plastic around the broken leg to expose some of the broken leg and got a little wire soldered onto it. From a video that has been taken off youtube I remembered something about a guy soldering to a point on the board next to a printed 10. So with a "what the hell!" mentality I soldered the wire into the "10" location and went to see if it would work. And what do you know? I blumin' fixed it! :-D
Here you can see location 10 that I wired too. I don't have a photo of the wire from the processor to it but you can see it in the video below. You wire from the processor leg into 10 to make the link work.
Now that the thing actually works again (Phew!!) I set about finishing the rest of the project.
Here you can see the milliput holding the expansion port to the case and hopefully see it smoothed into the original case so that once painted it should look pretty stock.
Next step is to masking tape the little spongey feet of the case so that they don't get caked in paint as well as the sticker telling you what serial number etc your megadrive is. Then it's off to the painting stage.
I gave the case a quick coating of grey primer over the new expansion port area and then painted the whole of it with Halfords Matt Black car paint. I've found that it gives a finish that is very close to the way the plastic looks on the original Megadrive's. So once its dried it will get a coating of a Matt Varnish so that it keeps its plasticy look rather than being all glossy. In the photos it looks glossy but that is because its still drying. You might also have spotted the Neptune case having another coating of paint. I did a bit more work on it on my holiday but that is for another post ;-)
So, The case has been painted and now is dry. So, what does it look like?!
Pretty good to me, I know it could be a little smoother but to be honest this project has been taking too long, so it gets a tick from me. And in certain lights, as you'll see in the video, you can't really see the join. :-) Overall Im really please with the look of the expansion port. Especially with how sturdy it is, It has no wobble or flimsy-ness to it.
Time to put it all back together again and get the switches set into place.
And here's how the case and new side expansion looks with everything all built back inside the casing.
Looks pretty sweet I think !!! :-D Im very happy with how it's fitted together, and when its sitting on the table you wouldn't even think there was anything going on underneath the case. A real Street-Sleeper :-D
So, for the finishing touch to this little project. I want it to look stock but I also want it to still show a little hint as to what it is. To achieve this I bought some water-slip decal paper from the internet so that I can make my own "Jamma-drive 2" logo to replace the megadrive 2 logo thats already on the case. To start I measured up the height of the existing logo and got onto illustrator, and with a Sega typeface I layed up my logo. Logo all made to size and its onto the printer to get the water-slip decal printed out. Once its printed you have to spray some Matt Varnish onto the decal to make it waterproof and then onto dunking it in warm water.
And with a little bit of wiggling here is what the finished decal looks like on the case with a megadrive 2 underneath for comparison. :-)
Im super happy with how the whole project turned out. I don't think the case could have come out any better, the waterslip decal really puts the cherry on the cake as it would make you look over the jamma-drive and think its standard but make you do a double take and go "what!?!"
And here are 2 videos I made of the Jamma-drive 2. The first video showing you the insides of the Jamma-drive2, including the overclock repair.
Here is the second part which show's the Jamma-drive 2 playing some games. :-D
Man I'm happy this project is finished now as it was meant to be a nice quick and easy one, but with the RGB problem and then having to figure out the controller pads it dragged on a bit. But the finished 'drive has come out great I think.
Catch you all later guys
Porl''
Wednesday, 9 January 2013
JAMMA SEGA MEGADRIVE 2 : PART THREE
Hi everyone and Happy New Year! :D
I hope you've all had a great chistmas and new year holiday.
Rightio I've just about finished my Jamma-megadrive 2 and thought I'd post up the next part of my build. This post is about the trickiest part of the build, hacking up the pad and getting it all wired up to work with the Jamma fingerboard and through that, your arcade stick.
I found that when I tried doing google searches about the pad-hacks all I could find were guides / pin-outs for the Megadrive 1 joypad. I wanted to use some Megadrive 2 pads as I had a few of those and with them being newer pads they should last longer. Should be easy enough to match up the guides with the MD2 pads, they can't be that different right?....wrong!!! They seem to have changed the PCB layouts and possibly manufacturers through the years. With the wiring switched around and not very well marked out.
Undetered I opened up one of the spare MD2 pads and got desoldering the cable from it so that I was left with just the pcb. Then comparing up the pinouts hopefully got the solder points matched and started soldering wire after wire to the megadrive pad, the fingerboard and to the joypad solder points on the Megadrive 2 pcb.
Rush off to test and hey, the controls work in a fashion! ... up is left, left is down, start works and only B does anything. Bugger! That didn't work then.
I decided to dig out my MD1 pads and check out the pcb's inside them and see if they match up with the pin-outs from google. Well, only 1 of them did. I guess that during the MD1's life they changed the pads manufacturer and/or design.
With the pad that matched up I desoldered and re-wired the pad to the Megadrives joypad solder pads and to the fingerboard points marked out on my Supergun wiring guide.
I was really hoping that I would do the wiring a lot neater than it is in the photo. The wiring is like a rats nest because of me having problems with the original pad. As you can see I wrote wiring numbers
onto the pad so that I could easily match up the points to the solder pads on the joypad connector. You can see that I've wired from the non-ground side of the button area to the jamma edge connector. This sends the signal from your arcade joystick through the game pad which then gets transmitted to the Megadrive which then tells the games what the hecks going on :-P. To get the ground from the pad to the Jamma fingerboard you scrap away some of the green colouring to get the bare copper and solder a wire from there to a ground on the finger board. 9 wires from the fingerboard to the pad and 9 wires from the pad to the Megadrive 2.
Bingo! This pad worked straight away! Up, down, left, right all work! A,B,C, Start all work too! :-D
Onto the next pad...
I couldn't find another pad in my collection that matched the working MD1 pad so I checked my non-sega 6-button pads and found this one which had auto fire and slow-mo. I wouldn't be needed those as I wouldn't really be able to set them up easily enough on my arcade joystick. So I just soldered it as a normal sega 3-button pad. Thankfully the top left wiring points were numbered which made it easy to match up again.
And this time I routed the wiring a lot neater :-P I wish I'd done it this way with the first pad but as it works and its for me I will keep it as is for now. Again you can see the wires soldered to the input side of the button area rather than the common ground side. These are soldered to the fingerboard.
And here is the underside of the Megadrive 2 joypad socket area.
Again you can see that its routed a lot neater. Also, I found that if you soldered directly to the pins for the connector then the arcade stick completely took over the controls and you couldn't plug a standard MD pad in the port anymore and get it to work. So, to keep it so the Megadrive2 could still be used with pads you have to solder to the little solder points along the traces rather than the pins.
Bingo bango 2 working pads, and with a little wiggling the Megadrive 2 still sits in the case. Player 1's pad is underneath the main board sitting inbetween the mounting points and Player 2's pad sits on top of the Megadrive2.
Unfortunetly I didn't get a photo of the final joypad layout. I'll update the post when I get onto overclocking the Jamma-drive 2.
Which is the next step. Overclocking and finishing off the case mod. It needs a little bit more milliput to smooth the joins and then giving it a blast with some matt black spray paint.
Catch you later
Porl''
I hope you've all had a great chistmas and new year holiday.
Rightio I've just about finished my Jamma-megadrive 2 and thought I'd post up the next part of my build. This post is about the trickiest part of the build, hacking up the pad and getting it all wired up to work with the Jamma fingerboard and through that, your arcade stick.
I found that when I tried doing google searches about the pad-hacks all I could find were guides / pin-outs for the Megadrive 1 joypad. I wanted to use some Megadrive 2 pads as I had a few of those and with them being newer pads they should last longer. Should be easy enough to match up the guides with the MD2 pads, they can't be that different right?....wrong!!! They seem to have changed the PCB layouts and possibly manufacturers through the years. With the wiring switched around and not very well marked out.
Undetered I opened up one of the spare MD2 pads and got desoldering the cable from it so that I was left with just the pcb. Then comparing up the pinouts hopefully got the solder points matched and started soldering wire after wire to the megadrive pad, the fingerboard and to the joypad solder points on the Megadrive 2 pcb.
Rush off to test and hey, the controls work in a fashion! ... up is left, left is down, start works and only B does anything. Bugger! That didn't work then.
I decided to dig out my MD1 pads and check out the pcb's inside them and see if they match up with the pin-outs from google. Well, only 1 of them did. I guess that during the MD1's life they changed the pads manufacturer and/or design.
With the pad that matched up I desoldered and re-wired the pad to the Megadrives joypad solder pads and to the fingerboard points marked out on my Supergun wiring guide.
I was really hoping that I would do the wiring a lot neater than it is in the photo. The wiring is like a rats nest because of me having problems with the original pad. As you can see I wrote wiring numbers
onto the pad so that I could easily match up the points to the solder pads on the joypad connector. You can see that I've wired from the non-ground side of the button area to the jamma edge connector. This sends the signal from your arcade joystick through the game pad which then gets transmitted to the Megadrive which then tells the games what the hecks going on :-P. To get the ground from the pad to the Jamma fingerboard you scrap away some of the green colouring to get the bare copper and solder a wire from there to a ground on the finger board. 9 wires from the fingerboard to the pad and 9 wires from the pad to the Megadrive 2.
Bingo! This pad worked straight away! Up, down, left, right all work! A,B,C, Start all work too! :-D
Onto the next pad...
I couldn't find another pad in my collection that matched the working MD1 pad so I checked my non-sega 6-button pads and found this one which had auto fire and slow-mo. I wouldn't be needed those as I wouldn't really be able to set them up easily enough on my arcade joystick. So I just soldered it as a normal sega 3-button pad. Thankfully the top left wiring points were numbered which made it easy to match up again.
And this time I routed the wiring a lot neater :-P I wish I'd done it this way with the first pad but as it works and its for me I will keep it as is for now. Again you can see the wires soldered to the input side of the button area rather than the common ground side. These are soldered to the fingerboard.
And here is the underside of the Megadrive 2 joypad socket area.
Again you can see that its routed a lot neater. Also, I found that if you soldered directly to the pins for the connector then the arcade stick completely took over the controls and you couldn't plug a standard MD pad in the port anymore and get it to work. So, to keep it so the Megadrive2 could still be used with pads you have to solder to the little solder points along the traces rather than the pins.
Bingo bango 2 working pads, and with a little wiggling the Megadrive 2 still sits in the case. Player 1's pad is underneath the main board sitting inbetween the mounting points and Player 2's pad sits on top of the Megadrive2.
Unfortunetly I didn't get a photo of the final joypad layout. I'll update the post when I get onto overclocking the Jamma-drive 2.
Which is the next step. Overclocking and finishing off the case mod. It needs a little bit more milliput to smooth the joins and then giving it a blast with some matt black spray paint.
Catch you later
Porl''
Thursday, 20 December 2012
JAMMA SEGA MEGADRIVE 2 : PART TWO
Howdy pardnurs,
Well now that the Jamma fingerboard is securely attached to the Megadrive 2's PCB and it fits into the case with its new expansion port we'll move onto the wiring. Through the whole process I will keep dibbing away at finishing up the expansion port as I'm using milliput and it takes over night to cure really. So I add little bits here and there and allow them to cure without the chance of me poking them...cus I'll be asleep :-P
To start with I found a few guides on how to make Sega Megadrives into Jamma-drives and all had a similar starting process:
1) Tap the RGB, sync and ground from either the RGB encoder chip or the additional solder pads on the A/V connector under the PCB.
2) Tap the audio from the solder pad under the A/V connector.
3) Plug the Megadrive into the arcade machine / or Supergun's jamma harness with the normal Megadrive PSU and check that video and audio are working okay.
This allows you to problem solve any issues as you haven't made that many connections so far.
Seem's easy enough right. A few wires and your away. Well, thats kind of right.
I decided to solder directly to the RGB encoder chip as some people said that this may provide a stronger RGB signal. I googled the chip in my V01 megadrive 2 and found the pin-out and started trimming and tinning wires and soldering the sucker up.
Well what do you know?! I get picture!! But, the image seems to move, kind of clicks from one point to another and back again. Like its switching between either PAL / NTSC or aspect ratio. Also the biggest problem, there is horizontal bluring through the colours. Really distracting and causing weird colour clashes. Bugger!
The wiring is so simple where could the problem be?! I assumed that my soldering wasn't neat enough and i'd either bridged two of the suface mount points of the chip so I checked them out and they seemed fine. Hmmm. I unsoldered the wires and then looked up the A/V pinout for the port and wired to the solder pads underneath it. Maybe you can't wire to the chip?
I go upstairs and test and darn it! The same problem! This is frustrating!
I got a few more pinouts and did some google searches and couldn't find anything on the problem. Then it occured to me that its essentially the same as doing an RGB cable so maybe I need to add the 75ohm resistors and the 220uf capacitors?
I made up a little Vero board with the resistors and capacitors and wired it up to check. Same problem only this time its a little darker now as the resistors are lowering some of the signal strength. Stupid horizontal RGB blur!! Its a little harder to see in the Zombies photo but that mottling on the circles is caused by the blur and shouldn't be there.
Thinking that maybe the RGB encoder chip might be at fault I decided to make up an RGB Cable for the Megadrive 2. I'd been planning on doing one anyway and had the parts so I got soldering. Using the great guide from mmmonkey.co.uk.
Another test but with the Megadrive 2 hooked up as normal (no jamma) and the new RGB cable and BING, picture is perfect. Nice and sharp with bright colours. Awesome for the cable as that will be used on my other Megadrive 2 and Neptune but bugger because it shows that something is still up with the Jamma wiring.
Looking over the wiring guide for the RGB cable I noticed that its got Composite Video hooked up via the scart but no Sync. Comparing that with the Supergun wiring guide I noticed that the sync pin on the jamma board is hooked up via the Composite Video pin on the Superguns Scart port. Could it be that?!
I found the composite video solder pad on the A/V port area of the Megadrive 2 and moved my sync wire over to there. A quick test and WOOP! The video is perfect!! No horizontal blurring and everything looking like its using the RGB scart cable!
I know, it seems like such a simple and stupid problem to have with the A/V but when everyone says follow the Encoder pin-out and hook up the RGB Sync and Video ground as is rather than using Composite Video out for sync then your going to run into problems. This took me a week and a half of headscratching and fruitless searching to figure out haha. Yes Im that tentative with hooking wires up incase I blow something.
Now that the Video is sorted I hooked up the Mono Audio out from the A/V port area to the Jamma finger board and hooked the Audio ground up to the Jamma fingerboards ground. Thankfully this worked straight away and is super loud through my arcade speaker, so loud i might have to put a volume switch on haha.
Here you can see my testing setup with Zombies (ate my neighbours) running on the Jamma-drive 2 with the audio hooked up. Thank goodness that stage one is figured out!
The next step is to hook up two switches, one for the 50/60mhz PAL/NTSC mod and the other for the English / Japanese language mod. I followed the guide from mmmonkey.co.uk again as I've used this mod on my other Megadrive 2 and it worked a treat!
My aim for doing this project was to try and keep my wiring as neat as I could. This is a problem though when your trouble shooting and having to hack up wires for testing. Its still fairly neat and easy to follow though.
Here you can see the points I soldered the wires too for the language and PAL/NTSC mods.
Pretty neat wire routing for me I think :-) and with this mod the hot glue is definetly needed as the points your soldering too are very small and you don't get much solder on there and its very easy to pull and break traces if the wires get snagged or pulled.
And here is my wiring up for the A/V parts of this project. I used some ribbon cable from an old DVD player to try and keep them more neat but the problem solving caused me to seperate the wires out doh. Still, its not too un-tidy I don't think.
Here is the view of the top of the Jamma fingerboard with the Red, Blue, Video ground and Mono Audio wired up. Actually looking again it looks pretty neat still. Once I've completed it the wires will be hot glued into place on the PCB and hopefully routed away from the voltage regulators heatsink as I think that might start to melt the wire casings if used for a long time.
And here you can see the underside of the Jamma-drive 2 with the wiring going to the solder points of the A/V port. Still not too messy and once I'm properly happy they will be hot glued into place to make sure they don't come pulled or anything. :-)
The orange wires are the power lines to the underside of the voltage regulator which are supplying the Megadrive 2 with +5v from the Supergun's arcade power supply so I no longer need to hook it up using the Sega power supply. The Jamma-drive 2 is now A/V and PSU cable free! :-D
Next up is hooking up the first joypad so that I can use my arcade sticks via the Supergun rather than a pad out of the front of the Megadrive.
Catch you later
Porl''
Well now that the Jamma fingerboard is securely attached to the Megadrive 2's PCB and it fits into the case with its new expansion port we'll move onto the wiring. Through the whole process I will keep dibbing away at finishing up the expansion port as I'm using milliput and it takes over night to cure really. So I add little bits here and there and allow them to cure without the chance of me poking them...cus I'll be asleep :-P
To start with I found a few guides on how to make Sega Megadrives into Jamma-drives and all had a similar starting process:
1) Tap the RGB, sync and ground from either the RGB encoder chip or the additional solder pads on the A/V connector under the PCB.
2) Tap the audio from the solder pad under the A/V connector.
3) Plug the Megadrive into the arcade machine / or Supergun's jamma harness with the normal Megadrive PSU and check that video and audio are working okay.
This allows you to problem solve any issues as you haven't made that many connections so far.
Seem's easy enough right. A few wires and your away. Well, thats kind of right.
I decided to solder directly to the RGB encoder chip as some people said that this may provide a stronger RGB signal. I googled the chip in my V01 megadrive 2 and found the pin-out and started trimming and tinning wires and soldering the sucker up.
Well what do you know?! I get picture!! But, the image seems to move, kind of clicks from one point to another and back again. Like its switching between either PAL / NTSC or aspect ratio. Also the biggest problem, there is horizontal bluring through the colours. Really distracting and causing weird colour clashes. Bugger!
The wiring is so simple where could the problem be?! I assumed that my soldering wasn't neat enough and i'd either bridged two of the suface mount points of the chip so I checked them out and they seemed fine. Hmmm. I unsoldered the wires and then looked up the A/V pinout for the port and wired to the solder pads underneath it. Maybe you can't wire to the chip?
I go upstairs and test and darn it! The same problem! This is frustrating!
I got a few more pinouts and did some google searches and couldn't find anything on the problem. Then it occured to me that its essentially the same as doing an RGB cable so maybe I need to add the 75ohm resistors and the 220uf capacitors?
I made up a little Vero board with the resistors and capacitors and wired it up to check. Same problem only this time its a little darker now as the resistors are lowering some of the signal strength. Stupid horizontal RGB blur!! Its a little harder to see in the Zombies photo but that mottling on the circles is caused by the blur and shouldn't be there.
Thinking that maybe the RGB encoder chip might be at fault I decided to make up an RGB Cable for the Megadrive 2. I'd been planning on doing one anyway and had the parts so I got soldering. Using the great guide from mmmonkey.co.uk.
Another test but with the Megadrive 2 hooked up as normal (no jamma) and the new RGB cable and BING, picture is perfect. Nice and sharp with bright colours. Awesome for the cable as that will be used on my other Megadrive 2 and Neptune but bugger because it shows that something is still up with the Jamma wiring.
Looking over the wiring guide for the RGB cable I noticed that its got Composite Video hooked up via the scart but no Sync. Comparing that with the Supergun wiring guide I noticed that the sync pin on the jamma board is hooked up via the Composite Video pin on the Superguns Scart port. Could it be that?!
I found the composite video solder pad on the A/V port area of the Megadrive 2 and moved my sync wire over to there. A quick test and WOOP! The video is perfect!! No horizontal blurring and everything looking like its using the RGB scart cable!
I know, it seems like such a simple and stupid problem to have with the A/V but when everyone says follow the Encoder pin-out and hook up the RGB Sync and Video ground as is rather than using Composite Video out for sync then your going to run into problems. This took me a week and a half of headscratching and fruitless searching to figure out haha. Yes Im that tentative with hooking wires up incase I blow something.
Here you can see my testing setup with Zombies (ate my neighbours) running on the Jamma-drive 2 with the audio hooked up. Thank goodness that stage one is figured out!
The next step is to hook up two switches, one for the 50/60mhz PAL/NTSC mod and the other for the English / Japanese language mod. I followed the guide from mmmonkey.co.uk again as I've used this mod on my other Megadrive 2 and it worked a treat!
My aim for doing this project was to try and keep my wiring as neat as I could. This is a problem though when your trouble shooting and having to hack up wires for testing. Its still fairly neat and easy to follow though.
Here you can see the points I soldered the wires too for the language and PAL/NTSC mods.
Pretty neat wire routing for me I think :-) and with this mod the hot glue is definetly needed as the points your soldering too are very small and you don't get much solder on there and its very easy to pull and break traces if the wires get snagged or pulled.
And here is my wiring up for the A/V parts of this project. I used some ribbon cable from an old DVD player to try and keep them more neat but the problem solving caused me to seperate the wires out doh. Still, its not too un-tidy I don't think.
Here is the view of the top of the Jamma fingerboard with the Red, Blue, Video ground and Mono Audio wired up. Actually looking again it looks pretty neat still. Once I've completed it the wires will be hot glued into place on the PCB and hopefully routed away from the voltage regulators heatsink as I think that might start to melt the wire casings if used for a long time.
And here you can see the underside of the Jamma-drive 2 with the wiring going to the solder points of the A/V port. Still not too messy and once I'm properly happy they will be hot glued into place to make sure they don't come pulled or anything. :-)
The orange wires are the power lines to the underside of the voltage regulator which are supplying the Megadrive 2 with +5v from the Supergun's arcade power supply so I no longer need to hook it up using the Sega power supply. The Jamma-drive 2 is now A/V and PSU cable free! :-D
Next up is hooking up the first joypad so that I can use my arcade sticks via the Supergun rather than a pad out of the front of the Megadrive.
Catch you later
Porl''
Monday, 17 December 2012
JAMMA MEGADRIVE 2 - PART 1
Hi Everyone,
Yep that title is correct! A megadrive 2 that runs in an arcade via JAMMA connection! :-D
I've been eluding to it in the last few posts and seen's I've made a breakthrough with my A/V problem this morning I thought I'd post up the 1st part of my build of this unit.
Its nothing new really building a Jamma compatible megadrive, I'm certainly not the first to do it by any means but I've found a few little things out while building it that weren't really documented when I'd been doing research on them before I started soldering. Also I'm trying to do this Jamma drive a little differently to the others I've seen on the internet. The main difference being that it will be very nearly totally stealthy!! Most jammadrives I've seen have the Jamma fingerboard sticking out of the side of the casing which doesn't look too bad, but to me it won't look just right on the shelf with all the other consoles. So I've decided to make it hidden via a second expansion slot on the megadrives casing. Also I will be over-clocking it and doing the 50/60mhz and language mod's as well as having it power the Sega CD 2 all from the Supergun's power supply. So there won't be a big ol mess of cables everywhere.
Well thats the plan so lets start the progress photos and a bit of rambling. :-)
The first thing I did was scour the internet and read as many forum posts, watch youtube videos and read web-pages about creating the Jamma drive. Trying to get as much research in as possible so that it will run as smoothly as possible. There isn't that much info on doing the mod to a megadrive2 as there is for the megadrive 1, but it shouldn't be too hard to do. . . Also I re-printed the schematics I used for making my Supergun so I had the correct Jamma connections I used.
The next thing was ordering the Jamma fingerboard from ebay. I initially wanted to get the jamma-boards.com blue fingerboard a lot of the american's use but it was a bit hard to find so I opted for a very generic looking plain fingerboard from the UK. Nice and cheap and as long as you check against a schematic you should be fine.
While the fingerboard was on order I decided to start modifying my case so that I will get the stealthy look by hacking it up and trying to add in a new expansion port. As I have some spare megadrive2's around and I had a spare case from a megadrive2 I'd scoured for parts I decided that would be sacrificed for the cause.
I got my dremel out and amputated the right-hand sega-cd expansion port from it. Then I turned to the Jammadrive's case and dremelled out the space for the expansion port to go.
Here you can see the normal expansion port on the right and the new one that will be fitted on the left. I've had to cut the slot a fair bit wider for the Jamma connecter to fit inside the casing so it will reach the fingerboard. I will have to milliput some extra sides onto the port cover to make it all fit nicely together.
With a bit of electrical tape holding it together I tested out that the Jamma connector would fit into the case. With that double checked I set about milliputting and hot glueing the new port into the case.
Yep that title is correct! A megadrive 2 that runs in an arcade via JAMMA connection! :-D
I've been eluding to it in the last few posts and seen's I've made a breakthrough with my A/V problem this morning I thought I'd post up the 1st part of my build of this unit.
Its nothing new really building a Jamma compatible megadrive, I'm certainly not the first to do it by any means but I've found a few little things out while building it that weren't really documented when I'd been doing research on them before I started soldering. Also I'm trying to do this Jamma drive a little differently to the others I've seen on the internet. The main difference being that it will be very nearly totally stealthy!! Most jammadrives I've seen have the Jamma fingerboard sticking out of the side of the casing which doesn't look too bad, but to me it won't look just right on the shelf with all the other consoles. So I've decided to make it hidden via a second expansion slot on the megadrives casing. Also I will be over-clocking it and doing the 50/60mhz and language mod's as well as having it power the Sega CD 2 all from the Supergun's power supply. So there won't be a big ol mess of cables everywhere.
Well thats the plan so lets start the progress photos and a bit of rambling. :-)
The first thing I did was scour the internet and read as many forum posts, watch youtube videos and read web-pages about creating the Jamma drive. Trying to get as much research in as possible so that it will run as smoothly as possible. There isn't that much info on doing the mod to a megadrive2 as there is for the megadrive 1, but it shouldn't be too hard to do. . . Also I re-printed the schematics I used for making my Supergun so I had the correct Jamma connections I used.
The next thing was ordering the Jamma fingerboard from ebay. I initially wanted to get the jamma-boards.com blue fingerboard a lot of the american's use but it was a bit hard to find so I opted for a very generic looking plain fingerboard from the UK. Nice and cheap and as long as you check against a schematic you should be fine.
While the fingerboard was on order I decided to start modifying my case so that I will get the stealthy look by hacking it up and trying to add in a new expansion port. As I have some spare megadrive2's around and I had a spare case from a megadrive2 I'd scoured for parts I decided that would be sacrificed for the cause.
I got my dremel out and amputated the right-hand sega-cd expansion port from it. Then I turned to the Jammadrive's case and dremelled out the space for the expansion port to go.
Here you can see the normal expansion port on the right and the new one that will be fitted on the left. I've had to cut the slot a fair bit wider for the Jamma connecter to fit inside the casing so it will reach the fingerboard. I will have to milliput some extra sides onto the port cover to make it all fit nicely together.
With a bit of electrical tape holding it together I tested out that the Jamma connector would fit into the case. With that double checked I set about milliputting and hot glueing the new port into the case.
Here you can see the port now milliputted with some hot glue 'tacking' sitting in the jammadrive2 case. Its nice and rigid and should handle the pressure you have to exert on the case to open the darn thing. Next is to extend the cover to make it meet the edges of the case so it looks all OG. ( sitting in the case in the left image is a Neptune button being re-milliputted, yep it's still going on haha)
While I'd been working on the casing the fingerboard turned up from ebay so I set about lining it up with the new expansion port and hot gluing and milliputting it into place so that it should stand up to the connecter being put on it. You don't want it pulling away from the motherboard when your trying to connect up the Supergun to it!! haha.
Here you can see I tried to place it inward enough so that the motherboard will take some of the load of the connector but not interfer with areas I will need to solder too. Once the milliput cured it really was stuck on there like rock! Brilliant!
And here's how the Jammadrive sits in its case. Pretty nicely I think!! :-D The fingerboard fits nicely in the gap down the left-hand side and seems to balance the megadrive out a bit now. Also I've extended the sides of the port cover so there are no gaps down the side now. There is some finishing up to do to the case but as I'm an eager beaver I will jump onto the soldering to make sure it is starting to work.
Next part : " The woe's of using multiple guides and information from the interwebs to do simple wiring. " haha
Porl''
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
SOME NEW PROJECTS - SEGA, NINTENDO, NEC
Hi all,
While waiting on getting hold of a resonably priced 32x for the Neptune ( Im not after a collectors condition but thats all that seem to be around at the minute...doh) I've got started on a few consoles all at the same time.
I've have one spare Megadrive 2 left thats not been tinkered with. I have one put a-side for the Neptune so that is all safe. This spare that is gathering dust is now going to be modified up to a Jamma-drive! That's right, a megadrive that can be hooked up to an arcade cabinet so that you can play the great arcade conversions on the 'big screen'. Alas I don't own a cabinet, just a Supergun so its a little redundant for me but the making of one seems like a fun little project to me.
I'm planning on making the Jamma-drive 2 a bit more stealth looking than the normal Jamma-drives though. These generally have the Jamma fingerboard sticking out the side of the case or hang out of the CD-rom drive area and look good for putting inside an arcade cab'. But for me I want it to still look good on the shelf and look stock but have hidden uses. mwuhahaha. Also its going to have the 50/60mhz mod, the Language mod and the Overclock done to it.
Im also going to keep it so you can use the normal pads and PSU for playing it as a normal Megadrive on the TV but if you want to chuck it in the cabinet you open the new Jamma edge cover and hook the harness up to it. :D
So I've hacked the case up (as well as a spare case for its expansion cover) and I've started to join the new expansion cover to the left side of case. Thats right, this megadrive is going to have 2 expansion ports!!
I now have the expansion cover and clasp all milliputted into the case so it's getting there. I'll be doing a write up on it once the project is all finished. I have the Jamma fingerboards now so soldering is about to begin this week. Woop!
While I have the milliput out I have taken my old SNES off the shelf and decided to restore it back to its former grey glory. Rather than the nicotene yellow that is now become. I have looked up the retr0brite recipes but with the weather as it is there isn't really enough sunlight for me to get a nice clean to it I don't think and I don't want to have a UV bulb on for 2 days solid.
So i'm going to be mixing a paint to match the original case covers and paint it. While I do that Im fixing a crack along the side from the plastic getting old and also doing the lock-out and 50/60Hz mods.
Going to be ace to play my Japanese version of Turtle in Time!!!!
And the last project I've got is a console I've wanted for the longest time! A NEC PC Engine!!! Oh yes!! I did some scouring of ebay last week and found a Japanese white PC Engine going cheap as it was listed as faulty. So I snapped it up to see if I can repair it and finally have the little console that could.
Im hoping that its fully working and the only problem is that its outputting video in japanese RF so the person testing it couldn't get it to tune in. For a start Im going to be doing the RGB port mod to it so that it runs off scart and will look super nice and sharp. I have Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition on its way so that I can test it all as there isn't a power light or anything on the unit to see if its working.
It looks pretty big in that photo but the base size of it is the same as a CD case. Its tiny!!
I'm really excited about all 3 of my projects! Going to be great to get some of these consoles up and running.
Update again soon
Porl''
While waiting on getting hold of a resonably priced 32x for the Neptune ( Im not after a collectors condition but thats all that seem to be around at the minute...doh) I've got started on a few consoles all at the same time.
I've have one spare Megadrive 2 left thats not been tinkered with. I have one put a-side for the Neptune so that is all safe. This spare that is gathering dust is now going to be modified up to a Jamma-drive! That's right, a megadrive that can be hooked up to an arcade cabinet so that you can play the great arcade conversions on the 'big screen'. Alas I don't own a cabinet, just a Supergun so its a little redundant for me but the making of one seems like a fun little project to me.
I'm planning on making the Jamma-drive 2 a bit more stealth looking than the normal Jamma-drives though. These generally have the Jamma fingerboard sticking out the side of the case or hang out of the CD-rom drive area and look good for putting inside an arcade cab'. But for me I want it to still look good on the shelf and look stock but have hidden uses. mwuhahaha. Also its going to have the 50/60mhz mod, the Language mod and the Overclock done to it.
Im also going to keep it so you can use the normal pads and PSU for playing it as a normal Megadrive on the TV but if you want to chuck it in the cabinet you open the new Jamma edge cover and hook the harness up to it. :D
So I've hacked the case up (as well as a spare case for its expansion cover) and I've started to join the new expansion cover to the left side of case. Thats right, this megadrive is going to have 2 expansion ports!!
I now have the expansion cover and clasp all milliputted into the case so it's getting there. I'll be doing a write up on it once the project is all finished. I have the Jamma fingerboards now so soldering is about to begin this week. Woop!
While I have the milliput out I have taken my old SNES off the shelf and decided to restore it back to its former grey glory. Rather than the nicotene yellow that is now become. I have looked up the retr0brite recipes but with the weather as it is there isn't really enough sunlight for me to get a nice clean to it I don't think and I don't want to have a UV bulb on for 2 days solid.
So i'm going to be mixing a paint to match the original case covers and paint it. While I do that Im fixing a crack along the side from the plastic getting old and also doing the lock-out and 50/60Hz mods.
Going to be ace to play my Japanese version of Turtle in Time!!!!
And the last project I've got is a console I've wanted for the longest time! A NEC PC Engine!!! Oh yes!! I did some scouring of ebay last week and found a Japanese white PC Engine going cheap as it was listed as faulty. So I snapped it up to see if I can repair it and finally have the little console that could.
Im hoping that its fully working and the only problem is that its outputting video in japanese RF so the person testing it couldn't get it to tune in. For a start Im going to be doing the RGB port mod to it so that it runs off scart and will look super nice and sharp. I have Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition on its way so that I can test it all as there isn't a power light or anything on the unit to see if its working.
It looks pretty big in that photo but the base size of it is the same as a CD case. Its tiny!!
I'm really excited about all 3 of my projects! Going to be great to get some of these consoles up and running.
Update again soon
Porl''
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