NESRGB board available now

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bobrocks95
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by bobrocks95 »

Damn that joke's like an onion. Plenty of layers.
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Jeppen
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Jeppen »

Haha
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Emperor Udan
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Emperor Udan »

Just to be sure, wich cable I have to buy on http://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk to make NESRGB board work on framemeister?
This one?

I will mod a AV Famicom and a Pal Nes Front Loader, same cable I guess?

And finally, I will mod Jap and Pal N64 too.
Is the GameCube cable sold on retrogamingcables working too?
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Sorry for my bad english, Frenchy here.
DarkShock
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by DarkShock »

Emperor Udan wrote:Just to be sure, wich cable I have to buy on http://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk to make NESRGB board work on framemeister?
This one?

I will mod a AV Famicom and a Pal Nes Front Loader, same cable I guess?

And finally, I will mod Jap and Pal N64 too.
Is the GameCube cable sold on retrogamingcables working too?
For the AV Famicom, since it's a NTSC system you should either use a Super Nintendo NTSC cable like this one: http://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/supe ... -sale.html or the PAL RGB Gamecube cable.

For the PAL NES, I'm not sure thought. Are you hooking up a new AV connector ?
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keropi
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by keropi »

The AV famicom only outputs composite+audio on the multi-out port, the other pins are not connected to anything.
So you can use whatever cable you have, just wire accordingly.
Or you can install Tim's socket on both machines and use the same cable (not sure what ports the PAL NES has)
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ApolloBoy
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by ApolloBoy »

keropi wrote:not sure what ports the PAL NES has
The PAL NES has standard RCA jacks just like the NTSC console, although the French console has that unique multiout port instead of having RCA jacks.
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Ed Oscuro »

Emperor Udan wrote:Just to be sure, wich cable I have to buy on http://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk to make NESRGB board work on framemeister?
This one?
DarkShock wrote:For the AV Famicom, since it's a NTSC system you should either use a Super Nintendo NTSC cable like this one: http://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/supe ... -sale.html or the PAL RGB Gamecube cable.
Please think carefully before buying / recommending RetroGamingCables products. Refer to the following post:
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 6#p1064716

A good alternative, but US-based, is Retro Console Accessories.
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Pasky
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Pasky »

Ed Oscuro wrote:
Emperor Udan wrote:Just to be sure, wich cable I have to buy on http://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk to make NESRGB board work on framemeister?
This one?
DarkShock wrote:For the AV Famicom, since it's a NTSC system you should either use a Super Nintendo NTSC cable like this one: http://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/supe ... -sale.html or the PAL RGB Gamecube cable.
Please think carefully before buying / recommending RetroGamingCables products. Refer to the following post:
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 6#p1064716

A good alternative, but US-based, is Retro Console Accessories.
Retro Console Accessories (or whatever the Florida based one is called, you called it retro console accessories here, but said stay away in the other thread) can also be hit or miss. I've had 2 SCART cables come from them using cheap chinese caps and the exposed solder touching the giant ground pin/outer connector. I've also had to fix another one by them that was sent to me with a system to mod for RGB and wanted to test the cable with it. Two of the wires were broken off from stress and it hadn't even been used yet.

I've heard numerous complaints about her cables as well as praise. I've heard from someone here that she changed staff at some point or whoever was making them for her which caused the variables in quality.

I'm unsure, but thought it should be known.
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Ed Oscuro
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Ed Oscuro »

In this other thread AdamBlue just posted pics of a retro console accessories cable. It looks decent enough, but the cheap caps are still there. Would I prefer the probably-ChongX brand (i.e., bottom of the barrel) caps to the ones from the RGC cable he posted? Yes, I think I would. The other caps are smaller and appear to be no brand at all, plus their operating temperature is just 85 degrees. I'm not sure how reliable Huahong's / ChongX's declaration of 105 degree operation can be seen, of course.
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bobrocks95
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by bobrocks95 »

The Genesis II cable I got from them didn't even have enough ground pins connected to function, namely the composite video was in need of a ground connection. I had to go in and solder them myself. That's more than enough to make me never buy one of their cables again.
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Xan
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Xan »

Hopefully those bottom of the barrel caps won't leak over time like we've seen with that Super Famicom RGB cable fiasco. Why these sellers are pinching pennies like that is beyond me, with a custom made cable they might as well be using reliable brand caps and advertise it. Retro Gaming Cables even manufacture their stuff in the UK if I'm not mistaken. Perhaps most people just don't care, but it's good to see their quality standards exposed here.
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Smashbro29 »

I will say this for retro console accessories, when something didn't work right they worked with me until it did and that only happened once, maybe twice. Don't remember too well.
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by leonk »

bobrocks95 wrote:The Genesis II cable I got from them didn't even have enough ground pins connected to function, namely the composite video was in need of a ground connection. I had to go in and solder them myself. That's more than enough to make me never buy one of their cables again.
Who is "them" ? The posts above are talking about 2 different companies / which one are you referring to? (Retro Console Accessories - Florida girl vs RetroGamingCables)
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by leonk »

FYI: I purchased my 3rd SCART cable from Retro Console Accessories; a Genesis 2 cable to be used in my RGB modded TG16.

quality of retro_console_accessories has gone down. My Nintendo SCART cable uses to China 220uF 10V 105C caps. The new cable uses no name (all dark blue) 220uF 6.3V 85C caps.

I'm amazed that on a $20US cable a company will try and save about 50 cents (a lot less if purchased in bulk) by using poor capacitors. Doesn't she realize that this extremely small market is well informed and bad news spreads like a wild fire? People spend hundreds of dollars on RGB setups and she tries to save 50 cents!? DAMN.. increase the price by 50 cents and let people know you're using top components inside!!

Time to order caps and fix my cables.
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RGB32E
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by RGB32E »

leonk wrote:FYI: I purchased my 3rd SCART cable from Retro Console Accessories; a Genesis 2 cable to be used in my RGB modded TG16.

quality of retro_console_accessories has gone down. My Nintendo SCART cable uses to China 220uF 10V 105C caps. The new cable uses no name (all dark blue) 220uF 6.3V 85C caps.

I'm amazed that on a $20US cable a company will try and save about 50 cents (a lot less if purchased in bulk) by using poor capacitors. Doesn't she realize that this extremely small market is well informed and bad news spreads like a wild fire? People spend hundreds of dollars on RGB setups and she tries to save 50 cents!? DAMN.. increase the price by 50 cents and let people know you're using top components inside!!

Time to order caps and fix my cables.
This cable talk probably needs a different thread. What do you expect for a $20 cable?

The standard cable stock used by RCA is a 15C+1 28/30 AWG cable with an outer foil shield. Even with 5 conductors used for ground + drain wire connected to the 21 pin hood, you still get crosstalk with that configuration - small conductor size, insulation material/thickness are certainly factors (audio buzz, softer picture, and slight washout). The end result isn't awful, but there is room for improvement, just not at that low of a price.

You can still improve the signal transmission with higher performance non-individually shielded multi conductor cable, but the conductors must be larger, have thicker/better insulation, along with thicker outer shielding (foil and braid), and selecting the right signal to conductor placement.

Even mini coaxial cable varies as some SHVC-010 owners have noticed (the slightest of buzz depending upon gear). Most just use serve shielding (ground is a single wrapped helix instead of a braid and/or foil). The coaxes on both the DOL-013, SHVC-010, and the official PlayStation cable (has thick outer braid shield too) all use serve shield mini-coaxes - even RCAs $20 upgrade is this way. Then again, depending upon the source component and how the cable is terminated you can still get great results!

Though I will say that the $20 RCA upgrade is kind of required for a reasonable cable, despite the same cheapie caps still being used with the upgrade. It appears to be made from VGA with audio style cable stock with an 80s action figure plastic smell (inexpensive PVC). :lol:

Image

Ultimately, if you want to have specific cable construction parameters you really need to DIY.

Also, these caps are pretty nice, and small too! http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/e ... /P16362-ND
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CkRtech
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by CkRtech »

RGB32E wrote:Ultimately, if you want to have specific cable construction parameters you really need to DIY.
Yep. Seconded.

A lot of people here recommend Retro Console Accessories (she sometimes posts here) over RetroGamingCables, and that is where the comparison usually begins and ends. It is indeed a niche market, and there isn't a lot of competition. Retro Console Accessories looks to have great customer service, and that is obviously a plus. I suppose you could contact her if you have issues/questions about the caps used in the cable and get some genuine answers. I think she has also sold higher end "pro" cables on ebay before for like $65-$85. I believe these used mini-coax and most likely higher end caps. I don't see any at the moment, though.

If you are opening your cables and examining them, why not try taking the DIY approach?
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by mvsfan »

when your talking about something as low stress and low temperature as the inside of a scart cable and caps on video lines - are top of the line 105o C caps really nessecary?
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Pasky
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Pasky »

Nope, just elitism at work. Unless you can't find the ESR rating you want with a 85* capacitor C there's no reason to go with 105* C capacitors in a SCART cable. Reliability and accuracy on the ratings sheets plays a far more important part.
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by leonk »

mvsfan wrote:when your talking about something as low stress and low temperature as the inside of a scart cable and caps on video lines - are top of the line 105o C caps really nessecary?
One can say the same thing about most consoles and handheld devices .. none of them come any close to 105C, 85C or even 40C where the caps are found .. but that's not the point as some still have leakage. The last thing I want is a cap leaking all over the inside of my SCART cable 5 years down the road. It doesn't take that long for cheap caps to start leaking.

Temperature and voltage rating go a long way for one to estimate how long a cap will function under normal usage.

At the end of the day, the price difference between these cheap caps and good caps is counted in pennies. We're just surprised to what extend someone will go. Why take the risk? 1 RMA of a cable will eat the cost difference of dozens of cables.
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by leonk »

RGB32E wrote:
Ultimately, if you want to have specific cable construction parameters you really need to DIY.
I don't think this is an option any more for a lot of NESRGB users. If I could purchase just the Nintendo MultiAV plug, I would have made my own cable a long time ago. Good, very well shielded (braid and foil) SVGA cables are an overkill for this application but can be add for 1-2$ at most electronic shops around me or even less on eBay. SCART plugs can be found online .. but it's the Nintendo plug that's the problem and why most people go to these companies - they have old stock (or had, as it seems they don't sell these cables anymore either!)
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Ed Oscuro »

Temperature rating - if the manufacturer follows the standard practice, hence my caveat earlier about not entirely trusting Huahong - is directly tied to longevity. So while I have lots of devices from the SNES era with 85 degree caps inside and still working just fine, it is an extra point of assurance to have good caps inside.

Thankfully it is just a cable and changing caps, if necessary, will be a lot easier and safer than trying to replace them on ESD sensitive components.

I personally would be more concerned about the shielding on the cables myself. I haven't noticed any crosstalk whatsoever on my own retro_console_accessories cables but I could take another look.

@ leonk: Probably nobody has ever had grounds to RMA a cable because of cap problems down the road though. And the price would add up a bit.

A couple other points - I have seen some original Xboxes with 85 degree caps, but the 2005 one I just opened has all high quality caps on the mainboard - nippon chemicon and sanyo at a mix of 85 (small caps) and 105 (all the larger caps) degrees. Of course the power supply board has a nippon chemicon cap in addition to some cheaper caps. And this has been pretty typical in my experience - I think you have to go way back to start finding really really low degree rating caps on consoles and handhelds (though the surface mount plastic box style stuff I'm not much up on).
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by CkRtech »

leonk wrote:I don't think this is an option any more for a lot of NESRGB users. If I could purchase just the Nintendo MultiAV plug [...]
Well, NESRGB users are going to have to add some sort of output port in order to output their RGB signal. With the exception of the AV Famicom that has the built-in MultiAV plug might influence one's decision to just stick with that plug, the options really open up when it comes to AV output.

In my opinion, the love for the Nintendo MultiAV plug makes no sense at all - especially when you have to add one from scratch like in the case of the NESRGB.

1: It makes more sense (imho) to isolate your audio from your video rather than have them travel down the same cable. Tim would seem to agree with this as he includes a separate audio jack despite the fact the included mini-din 8 (xrgb framemeister-ready plug) can pass stereo sound. I assume the only reason people would want them to travel together is so they can easily end together (via SCART)?

Users have the options of using whatever multiout they want and can even put a SCART, VGA, or BNC connectors on the NES provided the body will allow for it.

2: The NESRGB already has the signals ready to go for your display - there is no need to pair it with a cable that has extra caps and/or resistors in it. This being the case, you can use the freedom of your output plug to basically go with a standard output and then just buy whatever high quality cable you want from your favorite store without the need for purchasing a specialty cable from some sort of retro gaming online store.

When I made my custom RGB cable for my SNES, I just ended up cannibalizing two SNES composite AV cables and using the Nintendo-branded multiout plug. You can pull the pins out of the plugs and create a plug that uses only the pins/signals you want. No need to worry about hunting down a source for fresh, 3rd party plugs. :mrgreen:
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bobrocks95
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by bobrocks95 »

leonk wrote:
bobrocks95 wrote:The Genesis II cable I got from them didn't even have enough ground pins connected to function, namely the composite video was in need of a ground connection. I had to go in and solder them myself. That's more than enough to make me never buy one of their cables again.
Who is "them" ? The posts above are talking about 2 different companies / which one are you referring to? (Retro Console Accessories - Florida girl vs RetroGamingCables)
My bad for not reading through well enough to notice my mistake. Talking about RetroGamingCables.
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Ed Oscuro »

RGB32E wrote:What do you expect for a $20 cable?
Retro Console Accessories' SCART SNES cables are $30 US at least.

Edit: Maybe that was a different quality level. I just took a moment to crack mine open - exactly the same as the one seen here (AdamBlue's photo, used in RGB32E's post), down to the same Huahong caps. In person the soldering points all looked quite nice, though I didn't pull out a magnifying glass to check.

Don't know about PVC smell, but it does have a cheaper plastic smell. The main length of gray cable is labeled "Belkin pro series for optimum data transfer," whatever that means.

I recall also that shortly after I bought mine there was some discussion about grounding, I think, in the RCA cables, so I could have probably returned them for a slight improvement.

I dunno - perhaps it would be best to DIY after all, but I still don't have the equipment for it. In my current setup I haven't noticed anything amiss (the PVMs do a fine job eliminating many artifacts, though), but I need to do some more careful listening to the stereo output.

For all the talk here, honestly I'm not worried about the cable right now.
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by kamiboy »

Any person trying their hand with SCART building has my full sympathy. It is a shitty standard with too many small pins packed too close, in too little space. Busting one open to solder additional ground pins in hope of fixing buzzing or other artefacts of insuficient ground is always a nightmare.

If you keep a soldering iron on the pins for too long they will start to melt the plastic holding them in place and what have you.

I tried my hand at making one or two custom SCART cables for some surpluss RGB mods that I wanted to sell off and they all managed to arrive in the buyers hand broken.
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Emperor Udan
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Emperor Udan »

I made a few research and...
RGB32E wrote:Ultimately, if you want to have specific cable construction parameters you really need to DIY.
You were right, so for nes:
As Tim said:
A Gamecube SCART cable must be used. The official Super Nintendo SCART cable will not work unless it is modified before use (all 75 ohm resistors must be removed).
Japanese RGB 21 cables mat also be used but may require repair as they suffer from leaky capacitor problems.
For a snes cable, we have two schematics from his website:
Pal: http://members.optusnet.com.au/eviltim/ ... nespal.png
NTSC: http://members.optusnet.com.au/eviltim/ ... esntsc.png

If we remove caps from pal cable, it will not be the same as ntsc wich contain 220µ caps.
CkRtech wrote:The NESRGB already has the signals ready to go for your display - there is no need to pair it with a cable that has extra caps and/or resistors in it.
So we should use the pal cable removing caps.
But, as wee can see here, Tim cable use what he cald a boost converter board.
Image

Do you know what exactly do this board?

Depending from this answer, I think I may buy cables from Tim. As I don't like the two external cables (video and sound), I will remove led, cut extrenal plug from scart and use a single cable.

And for information, here is what French Nes cable look like:

http://raborak.com/mpimage/files/5/IMG_ ... 180454.jpg
http://raborak.com/mpimage/files/5/IMG_ ... 180502.jpg
http://raborak.com/mpimage/files/5/IMG_ ... 180432.jpg
http://raborak.com/mpimage/files/5/IMG_ ... 180322.jpg
Image
Sorry for my bad english, Frenchy here.
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antron
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by antron »

That board is only for people connecting to actual SCART televisions. They expect a 12V signal to tell the TV to use RGB. The board pumps the 5V up to 12V to accomplish this.
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ApolloBoy
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by ApolloBoy »

kamiboy wrote:If you keep a soldering iron on the pins for too long they will start to melt the plastic holding them in place and what have you.
Maybe you should change the temperature of the iron you're using, I've built a few SCART cables for myself and not once has that ever happened. Heck, I've opened up SCART cables made by others to add extra ground wires and I never had any issues.
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Emperor Udan
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by Emperor Udan »

Thanks antron.

So we can use Pal GC cable with 220µ caps or Pal snes with caps removed.
Wich one should give best results?
Image
Sorry for my bad english, Frenchy here.
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Re: NESRGB board available now

Post by leonk »

Because I reuse my Nintendo MultiAV SCART cable across multiple Nintendo consoles (NES, SNES, ...) I leave the 220uF caps in the SCART cable and remove the 220uF caps from the NESRGB (don't forget to jump the empty spots with wire for R,G and B).
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