NESRGB board available now

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pommel_jewel
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by pommel_jewel »

Thanks for the swift reply!

Ah, good to know I didn't do anything wrong.

However, I'll probably have to live with it as I only installed a three position switch: Natural, Improved and Garish. I don't think natural turns the composite back on but I'll try.
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Syntax
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Syntax »

Or you could cut the original composite trace and run the new NESRGB composite to your av output.
pommel_jewel
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by pommel_jewel »

Ah, good idea! Not a huge deal since I'll only be using the RGB. But I wanted to find out if the gray image meant I had done something wrong during the install. Since this wasn't the case, all is well and I can close this baby back up. :)

Thanks for the help!
gounghoul
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by gounghoul »

Makinx wrote:You first need to find out whether the problem is the NES or the tv. Have you tried hooking the NES up to another tv to see if the problem persists?
Ok I tried the console on another crt (should have try this before) and it seems fine, thanks for the tip. Same gamecube cable. So the problem is coming from the tv.

Should I remove the caps in the cable to fix the problem ?
Makinx
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Makinx »

It depends on the way you did your mod. The capacitors that are in your Gamecube cable are already on the NESRGB board (unless you removed them). If you have closed J8 on the board and left the caps on it, then you need a cable with no parts in it.
gounghoul
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by gounghoul »

Makinx wrote:It depends on the way you did your mod. The capacitors that are in your Gamecube cable are already on the NESRGB board (unless you removed them). If you have closed J8 on the board and left the caps on it, then you need a cable with no parts in it.
I removed the caps for R,G and B inside the cable > the color issue is still there
Messed with the sync line, basicaly bypassing the chip to solder it directly to scart > image is fuzzy and color issue still there

maybe the cable is not the problem afterall, unfortunately I am missing the knowledge to investigate inside the console.

Also I should mention there is something weird with the switch because middle position, which should be no palette, doesn't work and give me a blank screen.
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Syntax
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Syntax »

Off position turns the entire NESRGB board off, you need to use the original composite if you put it to off.

Check your grounds, dark pictures are usually caused by poor grounds.
Sammickk
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Sammickk »

Ok i just bought Tim's RGB kit and the Scart cable Adapter. I'm a total newbie at this stuff but, everyone's gotta start somewhere. So please have mercy on what may seem like dumb questions

Per the instructions on his guide here http://etim.net.au/cable-adapter/scart- ... -guide.htm Step 6 says to make sure the board is soldered aat a slight angle... ummm why? the guide never explains.

second this may sound dumb but per step 10 where he basically just says, OK solder everything together, I DO solder all 20 pins to the top and bottom of the board correct? because per the SCART pinout guide R,G, and B all come from the bottom row So i think this should be common sense but I don't want to break or ruin anything so I'm just making absolute sure. There is quite the gap when i slide his board in between the pins..
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Kez
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Kez »

Sammickk wrote:Ok i just bought Tim's RGB kit and the Scart cable Adapter. I'm a total newbie at this stuff but, everyone's gotta start somewhere. So please have mercy on what may seem like dumb questions

Per the instructions on his guide here http://etim.net.au/cable-adapter/scart- ... -guide.htm Step 6 says to make sure the board is soldered aat a slight angle... ummm why? the guide never explains.

second this may sound dumb but per step 10 where he basically just says, OK solder everything together, I DO solder all 20 pins to the top and bottom of the board correct? because per the SCART pinout guide R,G, and B all come from the bottom row So i think this should be common sense but I don't want to break or ruin anything so I'm just making absolute sure. There is quite the gap when i slide his board in between the pins..
Having the board at an angle looks like it allows both the top and bottom pins to make easier contact. Also it probably makes it fit more neatly through the gap cut in the plastic.

If you are saying you bought the NES RGB kit, be aware that this mod is not really easy for beginners. In particular, removing the PPU is very difficult and many people have caused damage to their systems attempting it.
Sammickk
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Sammickk »

I know its one of the more tough ones to do, but I think I may be able to handle it with help my this forum.

I bought a desoldering station, and have watched Voutar's video, doing the AV Famicom going to follow his PPU removal instructions.

I completed the scart cable adapter last night and i didn't have but maybe a 1 degree slant but everything fit really well.
Tonight I'm gonna try to remove the PPU.

Also included in my kit was this soft rubber pad that is not listed in the guide or any guide I've seen. Not sure what its for. Does anyone know?
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Danexmurder
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Danexmurder »

Sammickk wrote:I know its one of the more tough ones to do, but I think I may be able to handle it with help my this forum.

I bought a desoldering station, and have watched Voutar's video, doing the AV Famicom going to follow his PPU removal instructions.

I completed the scart cable adapter last night and i didn't have but maybe a 1 degree slant but everything fit really well.
Tonight I'm gonna try to remove the PPU.

Also included in my kit was this soft rubber pad that is not listed in the guide or any guide I've seen. Not sure what its for. Does anyone know?
I'm pretty new to the hobby as well and have recently started in on doing this project. Maybe we can help each other along. One thing I noticed when I was desoldering the ppu is that there are a handful of pins that are particularly tricky to get all of the solder out of. I found that flushing them with new solder first and then desoldering was helpful but I did end up having to hit both sides of the board with my desoldering vacuum.

The bigger issue I ran into was when I was installing the 40 pin socket adapter. It was hard to get the solder all the way through to the other side of the board for all of the pins. I thought I'd be able to just finish soldering from the other side but I ended up melting some parts of the socket adapter. I bought a pack of replacements from amazon and am going to try another go at it.

I also ordered a couple working NES motherboards from ebay in case I really mess something up.
Sammickk
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Sammickk »

Danexmurder wrote: I'm pretty new to the hobby as well and have recently started in on doing this project. Maybe we can help each other along. One thing I noticed when I was desoldering the ppu is that there are a handful of pins that are particularly tricky to get all of the solder out of. I found that flushing them with new solder first and then desoldering was helpful but I did end up having to hit both sides of the board with my desoldering vacuum.

The bigger issue I ran into was when I was installing the 40 pin socket adapter. It was hard to get the solder all the way through to the other side of the board for all of the pins. I thought I'd be able to just finish soldering from the other side but I ended up melting some parts of the socket adapter. I bought a pack of replacements from amazon and am going to try another go at it.

I also ordered a couple working NES motherboards from ebay in case I really mess something up.
I'll keep all that in mind. If i get time tonight i'm going to try my hand at extracting the PPU. did you get the little soft black tube looking piece in your pack? I'm still trying to figure out what it is. Its about an inch wide and as long as the NESRGB board.
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Danexmurder
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Danexmurder »

Sammickk wrote:
Danexmurder wrote: I'm pretty new to the hobby as well and have recently started in on doing this project. Maybe we can help each other along. One thing I noticed when I was desoldering the ppu is that there are a handful of pins that are particularly tricky to get all of the solder out of. I found that flushing them with new solder first and then desoldering was helpful but I did end up having to hit both sides of the board with my desoldering vacuum.

The bigger issue I ran into was when I was installing the 40 pin socket adapter. It was hard to get the solder all the way through to the other side of the board for all of the pins. I thought I'd be able to just finish soldering from the other side but I ended up melting some parts of the socket adapter. I bought a pack of replacements from amazon and am going to try another go at it.

I also ordered a couple working NES motherboards from ebay in case I really mess something up.
I'll keep all that in mind. If i get time tonight i'm going to try my hand at extracting the PPU. did you get the little soft black tube looking piece in your pack? I'm still trying to figure out what it is. Its about an inch wide and as long as the NESRGB board.
Hmmm... I don't think so. That sounds like heat shrink to me.
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Kez
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Kez »

The trick with the desoldering guns is to make sure you keep the nozzle clear. They clog up really easily.

I found that the metal wire that comes with it is too flimsy and bends too easily, but I found a jeweler's screwdriver I had was exactly the right size so I use that now instead.

If your nozzle is clogged you will find the solder isn't getting sucked up properly and takes multiple attempts which may end up lifting pads.

In terms of getting solder through the board, use a chisel tip for better heat transfer, good quality (ideally leaded) solder and flux.
Sammickk
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Sammickk »

well i got all of them out but one and no matter what i do I can't seem to get the last pin to accept new solder!! when i tin the tip and try to reflow the join its like it will not accept the new solder to wants down in the board, its like whatever solder i try to add to just sits on the top and when i try to desolder it with the desoldering gun it will only pick up what site on top of it!

Any ideas what to do?

for the record, what temp do you set your soldering irons to for this?

I'm using leaded solder too btw. and i did as voultar did in his video and reflowed all my joints and i might have to go back over a few but most of them came clean.
nmalinoski
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by nmalinoski »

Sammickk wrote:well i got all of them out but one and no matter what i do I can't seem to get the last pin to accept new solder!! when i tin the tip and try to reflow the join its like it will not accept the new solder to wants down in the board, its like whatever solder i try to add to just sits on the top and when i try to desolder it with the desoldering gun it will only pick up what site on top of it!

Any ideas what to do?
Did you add more flux to the joint? If you don't have a flux pen or something, I suggest getting one or two of these flux pens, since they're recommended in the UltraHDMI installation documentation, as no-clean is apparently corrosive when you don't run your board through a rework oven.
Sammickk wrote:for the record, what temp do you set your soldering irons to for this?
I have my Hakko FX-888D set to 650F; IANAEE, so I have no idea if that's high or low, but I imagine it can probably come down a bit.
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FBX
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by FBX »

Sammickk wrote:well i got all of them out but one and no matter what i do I can't seem to get the last pin to accept new solder!! when i tin the tip and try to reflow the join its like it will not accept the new solder to wants down in the board, its like whatever solder i try to add to just sits on the top and when i try to desolder it with the desoldering gun it will only pick up what site on top of it!
I've not had a look at this myself, but 'last pins' are often ground pins, which require a lot of heat and a lot of patience to properly desolder with a gun. I've had them take two minutes to heat and melt, while the next pin took mere seconds. Again, I don't want to suggest this is the case, but grounded pins can be a bitch like that.
Sammickk
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Sammickk »

I got the full PPU out last night at 2 AM lol, though the board suffered a pad loss on the bottom and the leg on the chip was shortened a wee bit but still comes through the board, I may just solder in from the top of that pin as its on the end and easy to get to.The "stuck pin" I was able to get out Via the top of the board using copper wicking thread.

OK I'm gonna list what I did wrong so anyone behind me in doing this can learn from my mistakes.


1) CHECK your Solder, use SMALL Diameter .5mm or less with 60/40 tin/lead content with flux built in as well. I didn't pay attention to what I bought and I used lead free (whoops) to re-flow with, it it didn't work out as well when using my soldering station gun.
2) IF you have pins that are still no free even though they appear to be free of solder I was able to get more solder out of the top of the board using a copper braided wicking thread
3) Flux is your FRIEND. Use flux to help bonding and reflowing, and wicking!
4) Get a desoldering station! I couldn't imagine doing this without at least a solder sucker or better yet a de-soldering station.
5) Have patience! lol i know this is hard sometimes, but i had to wick several times to get that last pin unstuck.
6) I did all this at a temp of 350. I don't think having it any higher helps. Could be wrong though.
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vol.2
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by vol.2 »

Sammickk wrote:I got the full PPU out last night at 2 AM lol, though the board suffered a pad loss on the bottom and the leg on the chip was shortened a wee bit but still comes through the board, I may just solder in from the top of that pin as its on the end and easy to get to.The "stuck pin" I was able to get out Via the top of the board using copper wicking thread.

OK I'm gonna list what I did wrong so anyone behind me in doing this can learn from my mistakes.


1) CHECK your Solder, use SMALL Diameter .5mm or less with 60/40 tin/lead content with flux built in as well. I didn't pay attention to what I bought and I used lead free (whoops) to re-flow with, it it didn't work out as well when using my soldering station gun.
2) IF you have pins that are still no free even though they appear to be free of solder I was able to get more solder out of the top of the board using a copper braided wicking thread
3) Flux is your FRIEND. Use flux to help bonding and reflowing, and wicking!
4) Get a desoldering station! I couldn't imagine doing this without at least a solder sucker or better yet a de-soldering station.
5) Have patience! lol i know this is hard sometimes, but i had to wick several times to get that last pin unstuck.
6) I did all this at a temp of 350. I don't think having it any higher helps. Could be wrong though.

i would use a temp higher than 350. maybe 400 to 500. if its too low, then you have to leave the iron on the pins attached to ground plane for too long which can damage stuff. there's something to be said for heating up a joint really quick vs lower and slower
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Unseen
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Unseen »

vol.2 wrote:i would use a temp higher than 350. maybe 400 to 500.
I have a suspicion that one of you talks about Celsius and the other about Farenheit =)
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vol.2
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by vol.2 »

Unseen wrote:
vol.2 wrote:i would use a temp higher than 350. maybe 400 to 500.
I have a suspicion that one of you talks about Celsius and the other about Farenheit =)
lol.

makes sense. i was just thinking to myself, 350 is wayyy too low.
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Danexmurder
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Danexmurder »

I got some work done on my RGB mod/recap yesterday. I got the ppu off the board using a bit of soldering wick to clean up the last bits of solder that were stubborn on the chip side of the board. I also didn't have any trouble getting the RF unit off of the board and all of the caps in there desoldered. It's an alps board and I had to order a couple of caps I didn't already have. seems easy enough to get it recapped.

I do have a couple of questions. I've been using my desoldering station at 450c and my soldering iron at about 400c.

There's a spot on the ground plane where some of the coating got removed. Will this be a problem? I wasn't sure if it's something I should worry about or try to fix.

Image

On one of the recaps I had a weird joint where it kinda looks a little burnt. The solder flowed to the other side of the board no problem but this joint looks a little weird. I thought I'd show you guys and see if it seems like something I need to mess with more or if it will be ok.

Image

Thanks for the help. I'm having fun with this and learning more all the time.
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FBX
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by FBX »

Do you have a multimeter? If not, you should get one for doing continuity tests. It's a must-have for these situations where you're not sure if the joint is cold or not.
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Danexmurder
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Danexmurder »

FBX wrote:Do you have a multimeter? If not, you should get one for doing continuity tests. It's a must-have for these situations where you're not sure if the joint is cold or not.
I do have one but I've never used it. I guess this would be a good time to learn how to use it. I'll hit youtube and watch some videos on the subject. Think that exposed copper on that ground plane is ok?
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FBX
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by FBX »

As long as it doesn't touch anything connected to something else, it won't matter.

But yeah, learn how to use continuity mode on a multimeter. It's real simple and absolutely required for extensive modding like this. Some mods you don't dare turn on the console without doing a continuity test of every solder joint, because one short might ruin the system.
Sammickk
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Sammickk »

Just a quick chime in on this subject and a question or two..

I've since gotten my Top loader modded up and everything is working and done, I've hooked this up to a Akai CRT TV that I've RGB modded using an unused scart port on the TV's motherboard ( thanks to the help from this forum) this all hooks coming from my NES through the mini din --> Scart Adapter--> Scart port I installed on TV into a secondary unused Analog RGB input on the Tv's Jungle chip.

I was recently watching a Vid on youtouble with Bob from retro rgb and Voultar and a couple others talking about Composite sync output type, TTL and 75 Ohm. And according to them, TTL is bad because it pumps too much voltage from your system through sensitive parts in say a framemeister a tv, or any device. So shorting jumper J8 on Tim's board would be a wise move and shouldn't affect anything on my mod, am I assuming correctly?

Second question... on Tim's site the scart adapter comes with a " boost converter board" that he supplies with it , seen here, http://etim.net.au/cable-adapter/scart- ... -guide.htm and printed on the circuit board it goes into, it says "DC -DC converter optional" ... ok to a newb such as me i had no idea what that did so I just put it in where it was suppose to go. can anyone explain what that little board does and why i should or should not have put it in there?

He could really do with putting that info in the guide to help bring down the confusion on anyone like me who's never done a mod like this before.
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Syntax
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Syntax »

Keep your sync 75R and it should work for pretty much everything except some consumer Sony and LG tvs.

The little board just converts 5v to 12v to force the TV set into different video modes or that channel.
Seeing as you have a modded set, and probably didn't populate the input select pin I would not worry too much about it.
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Kez
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Kez »

Sammickk wrote:I was recently watching a Vid on youtouble with Bob from retro rgb and Voultar and a couple others talking about Composite sync output type, TTL and 75 Ohm. And according to them, TTL is bad because it pumps too much voltage from your system through sensitive parts in say a framemeister a tv, or any device. So shorting jumper J8 on Tim's board would be a wise move and shouldn't affect anything on my mod, am I assuming correctly?
In most situations you want to be putting a 75 ohm signal into your display device, even if the console outputs TTL. Several unmodded consoles output TTL csync rather than 75 ohm csync, thus their cables need to have extra components in to bring the sync down to 75 ohm. The main reason many of these mods allow TTL sync at all is to allow compatibility with existing common cables.

If you have a cable without any extra components on the csync line, you basically always want to have 75 ohm csync coming from your console. It is also electronically better to do this as TTL csync is more likely to cause interference.
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by FBX »

Sammickk wrote:
I was recently watching a Vid on youtouble with Bob from retro rgb and Voultar and a couple others talking about Composite sync output type, TTL and 75 Ohm. And according to them, TTL is bad because it pumps too much voltage from your system through sensitive parts in say a framemeister a tv, or any device. So shorting jumper J8 on Tim's board would be a wise move and shouldn't affect anything on my mod, am I assuming correctly?
The thing about Tim's version 1.4 board with the J8 jumper is he has a 470 Ohm resistor in series already on the line. So at load, it's like 700mv even with J8 open. That's in the upper range for SCART, but still well within tolerance. But if you use an RGB cable with another say 470 Ohm resistor (and still leave J8 open), that will bring it down to like 350mV or so, which is perfectly fine too. If you're using a straight cable, just close J8 and you'll be fine. Leaving it open isn't going to send actual TTL voltage to your equipment, even though Tim labels it as such.
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Danexmurder
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Danexmurder »

I salvaged a SNES multi-out from a bad SNES motherboard. I'm having trouble figuring out how to wire audio for it though. Since the NES is mono should I just run the audio from the audio out to both the left and right audio on the multi-out? I also decided I wanted to do a 4 position rotary switch for palette selection and toggling composite video out. Has anyone on here done something like that successfully? Thanks!
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