ground loop problems? --HDBOX PRO

[drewmantrivia]

Damn! Very nice work man! And good eye for the connector. I was thinking of doing RCA jacks on the back for audio instead of messing with the mini jacks and adapters. But yours looks good! The PC's power supply should be a nice clean power source. Are you getting any interferance or ghosting from the USB power?

Just a side note. Did your USB header pick up any data from HDBP board when you plugged in the data lines or did you leave them un soldered? I know the rep from HDBP said they could re-flash the boards for different resolutions just wondering if this may be away of getting to that.

[ZOM]

Thanks, but I think I should have just drilled a hole on top of the DC-in for a cleaner look, oh well.
As for picture quality, It surely got rid of that annoying "ground loop line" wandering across the screen. Other than that there's barely noticable noise if hooked on my Sony-LCD but I'm positive that it's not caused by the power source seeing that no matter what PSU i hook on it gives the same noise.

Just a side note. Did your USB header pick up any data from HDBP board when you plugged in the data lines or did you leave them un soldered? I know the rep from HDBP said they could re-flash the boards for different resolutions just wondering if this may be away of getting to that.

And i was wondering what that connector was originally used for...
I just soldered the two pins to connect on the black & red wires to it - didn't cross my mind to just try and connect the whole thing to my PC. It surely makes sense to use it as interface for firmware upgrades.
Maybe I'll give it a go this coming weekend.


EDIT: Good Idea about the RCA jacks, personally I would completely get rid(desolder) of both mini-jacks on the front, drill the holes on the front plate a bit bigger and mount two RCA jacks there to solder on the audio output pins. Of course you'd lose the input mini-jack on the front too this way. (IMO it's not needed, the two input RCA should suffice)

[Specineff]

Hm, a crt monitor didn't help with my signal quality at all really. I still noticed the scrolling line and the same type of wavy distortions. I guess there's not much else I can do at this point as I don't really want to use a ground lift permanently.

Drat. I confirmed it as well this week. I brought my LCD monitor to my friend's house, and at her house, on her power strip, no monitor will give the scrolling line of doom. But at my place, any monitor will. Not sure if it's her power strip (Looks industrial-caliber), or the wiring on each house.

ZOM, so using USB power did the trick? Awesome. I have an USB adapter from my Mini-Disc unit that I could use. This could be the magic bullet.

[Specineff]

Bumpity bump. (With apologies in advance to the mods)

ZOM (or someone else), is there a way you can post a pic showing what goes where? It may come in handy in the future.

EDIT. NVM, I think I figured it out.

[ZOM]

I see I'm a bit late... But as you probably already found out, the connector is pretty much self-explanatory.

[Specineff]

I am going to try the mod this week. I'll shoot you a PM if I need help. (And probably will)

[headlesshobbs]

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[headlesshobbs]

Now I took notice on that USB solution and while it's neat, I'm not too keen on the idea of cutting the plates up. What do you suppose would be another solution for wiring that ground pin?

[Endymion]

How about just removing the power jack completely? Then you have a ready-made space for access.

[drewmantrivia]

Well you could just cut the "B" end of a usb cable and solder on a power jack from radio shack to the end of it. That way you leave the HDBOX alone and don't have to mod anything but a cheap cable.

I think it takes a "M" type sized jack. That might just what Radioshack uses for their size chart but i have used them with my power box and cables i made. here is a link to them. http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2103614