Cloning the Gamecube component cable

[Spidex761]

So now that the semester is coming to an end, I started to gather the components for the GCPlug. I already have some resistors and capacitors lying around. The 0402 capacitors I have are 2.2uF, .1uF, and 4.7uF. After checking the part numbers, it looks like the .1uF are rated at 16v, 4.7uF at 10v, and 2.2uF at only 6.3v. Just wondering if all of these will work given the different voltages? Do not want to buy any new ones if I don't have to. Thanks.

[thrasherx]

So now that the semester is coming to an end, I started to gather the components for the GCPlug. I already have some resistors and capacitors lying around. The 0402 capacitors I have are 2.2uF, .1uF, and 4.7uF. After checking the part numbers, it looks like the .1uF are rated at 16v, 4.7uF at 10v, and 2.2uF at only 6.3v. Just wondering if all of these will work given the different voltages? Do not want to buy any new ones if I don't have to. Thanks.

I believe citrus mentioned that all caps should be rated for 6.3V or above so you should be good.

[wesclemens]

I was able to get my GCPlug assembled and programmed. The video is displaying perfectly but I am lacking sound and I can't seem to get the IR receiver to work I was hoping that someone would have a suggestion.

[citrus3000psi]

6.3v caps will be work, but one cap that touches the 12v (only one decoupling cap feeding the 5v voltage reg should be rated 25v.
The other decoupling cap after the 5v rail should be at min 10v.

I’m on mobile atm but will list the cap numbers later

[Spidex761]

6.3v caps will be work, but one cap that touches the 12v (only one decoupling cap feeding the 5v voltage reg should be rated 25v.
The other decoupling cap after the 5v rail should be at min 10v.

I’m on mobile atm but will list the cap numbers later

Kind of confused about your reply lol I will just wait until you put the cap numbers on and explain it more. I saw the GC HDMI 4.0 internal one said at least 6.3v for all caps, but not sure how much different the GCPlug is.

[citrus3000psi]

For the hdmi plug.

C15 should be rated min 25v
C16 should be rated min 10v

All other caps can be rated 6.3v

[Spidex761]

For the hdmi plug.

C15 should be rated min 25v
C16 should be rated min 10v

All other caps can be rated 6.3v

Thanks for the clarification. I take it that tantalum caps are also not required based on the pictures you posted? I remember looking up the shuriken video and it had some tantalum caps to "reduce noise". Not sure if that makes a difference for your design.

[citrus3000psi]

All caps should be ceramic

[Spidex761]

All caps should be ceramic

Thanks! I successfully flashed it with the 2.3 provided. I did see on twitter that 2.4 had some issues and you were talking to Unseen about it. Did 2.3 suffer the same issues? Just want to be sure as this is a Christmas gift for a friend.

[citrus3000psi]

Thanks! I successfully flashed it with the 2.3 provided. I did see on twitter that 2.4 had some issues and you were talking to Unseen about it. Did 2.3 suffer the same issues? Just want to be sure as this is a Christmas gift for a friend.

2.3 as far as I know is fine. Unseen should be releasing a 2.4a shortly.

Maybe he'll chime in and give a technical explanation of it.

[NevynPA]

Finally got parts ordered and got the first of the two I'm building finished.

Has anyone programmed using a USBTinyISP? If so, anything in particular I need to be careful of?


Also - where does the GCHDMI 4.0 board pull controller signal for the OSD from? Is it present on the QSB, or will I need to run a wire or two to somewhere else?

[citrus3000psi]

Also - where does the GCHDMI 4.0 board pull controller signal for the OSD from? Is it present on the QSB, or will I need to run a wire or two to somewhere else?

On the HDMI board there is a pad called "pad" which needs to be hooked up the controller input. Which is found here:

https://github.com/ikorb/gcvideo/blob/m ... roller.jpg

[NevynPA]

Also - where does the GCHDMI 4.0 board pull controller signal for the OSD from? Is it present on the QSB, or will I need to run a wire or two to somewhere else?

On the HDMI board there is a pad called "pad" which needs to be hooked up the controller input. Which is found here:

https://github.com/ikorb/gcvideo/blob/m ... roller.jpg

Thanks. I had found the photo and hypothesized that 'PAD' was for gamepad, but having it confirmed before 'soldering and hoping' makes me feel much better.



Anyone able to answer on the USBTiny?

[Unseen]

Maybe he'll chime in and give a technical explanation of it.

There isn't much I can explain - it seems that there is a remaining spot between audio and video where I haven't sufficiently "decoupled" the timing, which can result in audio glitches in 2.4 because I specifically told the software to ignore timing paths between those two in that release. So I turned that back on and instead fixed the thing that made me turn it off in the first place.

2.4a release here, only needed if you experienced glitches with 2.4.

[NevynPA]

So I got my first one installed!


It doesn't work.

Getting black screen/no input on the TV. Gamecube still works, though, so I didn't blow it up. Ended up getting an LCsoft board to do the programming, so I don't think I did anything wrong there.


Flashed with the 2.3 code, just came back and found the link to the 2.4 BIN file. Going to try that next.


*UPDATE* Okay, might have found the issue. I'm getting a "Page 0 failed to verify" error. Any help/suggestions?


UPDATE #2:

Programming went OK after fully soldering the leads. Now I'm getting "Would you like to display in Progressive Scan mode?" prompt, but TV is blank/black.

[Spidex761]

I have been trying to figure this out for days if anyone can help (especially citrus), that would be much appreciated. So I am trying to build another one for a Christmas gift (gcplug), and I seem to be having an issue. I am almost certain that it was programmed correctly, but get no signal. I started to do some digging on the internet for maybe other users having issues. Only thing I could really find is with the shuriken video with 2.2V for pin 1 meaning its not programmed.

I get 3.41v on pin 1, but then realized on a spare board that pin 1 is connected to 3.3v and pin 17. I ended up checking out the shuriken and it looks like that pin 1 is not connected to them. Is there any points on the gcplug board that I can test to see if the IC chip is programmed correctly? Maybe output a certain voltage when it is programmed vs when its not like the shuriken? Because it seems what I found would not help with this board as pin 1 is tied to 3.3v and pin 17 (side note is that suppose to be the case?). Thanks.

[wesclemens]

I have been trying to figure this out for days if anyone can help (especially citrus), that would be much appreciated. So I am trying to build another one for a Christmas gift (gcplug), and I seem to be having an issue. I am almost certain that it was programmed correctly, but get no signal. I started to do some digging on the internet for maybe other users having issues. Only thing I could really find is with the shuriken video with 2.2V for pin 1 meaning its not programmed.

I get 3.41v on pin 1, but then realized on a spare board that pin 1 is connected to 3.3v and pin 17. I ended up checking out the shuriken and it looks like that pin 1 is not connected to them. Is there any points on the gcplug board that I can test to see if the IC chip is programmed correctly? Maybe output a certain voltage when it is programmed vs when its not like the shuriken? Because it seems what I found would not help with this board as pin 1 is tied to 3.3v and pin 17 (side note is that suppose to be the case?). Thanks.

Pin 54 is high (3.3v) once the FPGA has been programmed successfully. You can check this from R1. If that isn't high I would check to see if you are getting the correct voltage out of both voltage regulators.

[citrus3000psi]

Pin 54 is high (3.3v) once the FPGA has been programmed successfully. You can check this from R1. If that isn't high I would check to see if you are getting the correct voltage out of both voltage regulators.

What he said

[wesclemens]

I was able to get my GCPlug assembled and programmed. The video is displaying perfectly but I am lacking sound and I can't seem to get the IR receiver to work :( I was hoping that someone would have a suggestion.

Does anyone have a suggestion on my sound issue. I have been using the analog RCA sound as a workaround but would love it if I could get sound via HDMI. I have checked all the voltages from the regulators they seem fine. The only thing of interesting I found was that I get 3v high out of the IR sensor. I think that my IR sensor maybe defective, but done understand how this would effect the sound output.

I also downgraded the firmware to 2.3. This didn't have any effect on the problem.

[citrus3000psi]

I was able to get my GCPlug assembled and programmed. The video is displaying perfectly but I am lacking sound and I can't seem to get the IR receiver to work I was hoping that someone would have a suggestion.

Does anyone have a suggestion on my sound issue. I have been using the analog RCA sound as a workaround but would love it if I could get sound via HDMI. I have checked all the voltages from the regulators they seem fine. The only thing of interesting I found was that I get 3v high out of the IR sensor. I think that my IR sensor maybe defective, but done understand how this would effect the sound output.

I also downgraded the firmware to 2.3. This didn't have any effect on the problem.

Enhanced DVI needs to be turned on for sound to work. By default this is turned off in the firmware. You have to be able to get into the menu to turn it on. When you hold the button down do you get the popup to choose buttons?

[wesclemens]

Enhanced DVI needs to be turned on for sound to work. By default this is turned off in the firmware. You have to be able to get into the menu to turn it on. When you hold the button down do you get the popup to choose buttons?

The menu pops up but I the IR sensor doesn't seem to be working. I have tried every remote I can find including an Apple TV remove, which Wikipedia claims is a 38 kHz NEC remote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Remote

[citrus3000psi]

The menu pops up but I the IR sensor doesn't seem to be working. I have tried every remote I can find including an Apple TV remove, which Wikipedia claims is a 38 kHz NEC remote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Remote

Pretty much any basic universal remote should work. Did you buy the plug or build yourself?

[wesclemens]

Pretty much any basic universal remote should work. Did you buy the plug or build yourself?

I built it myself. I have checked the circuit a dozen time. I have a feeling it is the IR sensor. Now that you confirmed my sound problem is a setting issue, I went ahead and ordered a replacement IR sensor. Thanks for your help and all the awesome work you have done,

[creamygarlicdip]

hey guys,

alot of this is above my understanding of electronics, so forgive me if i sound too noobish. but, is this something that could improve the component signal of the wii?

i was really dissapointed in the quality of the component video output when i got a wii, tried two different sets of cables and both produced poor image quality. it made me not want to play it.

[bobrocks95]

hey guys,

alot of this is above my understanding of electronics, so forgive me if i sound too noobish. but, is this something that could improve the component signal of the wii?

i was really dissapointed in the quality of the component video output when i got a wii, tried two different sets of cables and both produced poor image quality. it made me not want to play it.

An all-digital signal path will improve quality slightly, though the Wii and Gamecube both have 4:2:2 chroma subsampling (i.e. lower color resolution that smears colors a bit) that won't be removed by the mod.

If anyone has a link to Unseen's image comparison post handy that'd be helpful to demonstrate.

[andykara2003]

the Wii and Gamecube both have 4:2:2 chroma subsampling (i.e. lower color resolution that smears colors a bit) that won't be removed by the mod.

Very interesting - I didn't know this, thanks. I wonder how pronounced the PQ upgrade will be for the analogue version of GCvideo on a CRT like the NEX XM29 which is already so forgiving to the WII's image. Using this monitor is my preferred way to play these games so I'd love to see a visible bump in image quality, even if relatively slight..

[Xer Xian]

You won't have better PQ by going with GCVideo Lite.. it's a sidegrade, just with a very slighlty lower brightness/black level vs. the official component cable (in the unit I tested).

http://image.ibb.co/m3YA7G/Test5_OEM_CII.jpg
http://image.ibb.co/bXocnG/Test5_GCVideo_CII.jpg
http://image.ibb.co/gzTouw/Test2_OEM_CII.jpg
http://image.ibb.co/frnRgb/Test2_GCVideo_CII.jpg

Edit: Also, I wasn't referring to the Wii, but rather the GC..

[andykara2003]

Thanks very much for that, really appreciated - I'll be sticking with my official cables then..

[andykara2003]

Just an additional thought, your tests of GCVideo lite are using the Gamecube right? The Wii has worse component quality than the Gamecube - but does the Wii's lower quality originate in the process that converts the digital signal to analogue (component)? I don't know much about it, but I would imagine that this might be true (is there any other part of the signal chain that might explain this lower quality output?)

So my point is, GCvideo lite for Gamecube is not an improved analogue solution because the official component cable already has great digital-to-analogue conversion. But if the stock Wii has a worse digital-to-analogue conversion process for component, might it not be possible that in this case GCvideo lite component or VGA for Wii would produce significantly better image quality than stock component as it's conversion process is on par with that of the Gamecube?

[bobrocks95]

Just an additional thought, your tests of GCVideo lite are using the Gamecube right? The Wii has worse component quality than the Gamecube - but does the Wii's lower quality originate in the process that converts the digital signal to analogue (component)? I don't know much about it, but I would imagine that this might be true (is there any other part of the signal chain that might explain this lower quality output?)

So my point is, GCvideo lite for Gamecube is not an improved analogue solution because the official component cable already has great digital-to-analogue conversion. But if the stock Wii has a worse digital-to-analogue conversion process for component, might it not be possible that in this case GCvideo lite component or VGA for Wii would produce significantly better image quality than stock component as it's conversion process is on par with that of the Gamecube?

viewtopic.php?p=1254152#p1254152

I forget if the difference was down to the DAC in the console or not though.