Just wanted to put up pictures of the two recent console mods I did. http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/toodlesdc/my_photos
Gamecube: Region select toggle switch. That little switch in the back selects between US and Japan region when it boots up. No hardware needed, very easy mod. I had to solder the 30 guage wire to two points on the bottom of the motherboard, and then solder them to the switch. That’s all. Now I can play my legit copies of Naruto 3 and Nintendo Puzzle Collection. Instructions at: http://www.phosphors.com/gcn/region%20switch/
Dreamcast: Internal VGA box. This one isn’t quite as clean as the Gamecube mod was, but it works. This white one was for testing; if I do this mod to my black sports edition, it will be much cleaner. If the toggle switch is of, dreamcast works normal with everything going out the A/V cable in back. When it is on, you don’t need the A/V cable at all. The video goes out the VGA port, and the sound goes out through the headphone jack under the VGA port.
The knob in the middle is a potentiometer I put in between the headphone ground and real ground so I could control the volume. By itself, the headphone volume is actually pretty loud, just a little too loud for my tastes. Some of you audio people may be chuckling at the potentiometer, because it doesn’t work too well. I thought it would reduce volume, and it only kind of does that. It reduces the volume on higher frequency sounds, and doesnt really touch the more bass sounds. It is much more livable, but isn’t as clear as a true amplifier would be. If I do this again, I will be using an amp in there.
Because I can now easily play this DC at work, I may get fired soon. Please be sympathetic and buy whatever my broke ass tries to sell.
Schematics for VGA output are everywhere. Inspired by someone else who did this mod, and used the ‘ghetto vga’ schematic.
http://devcast.dcemulation.com/mods/internalvga/vga.php
Next up for me: PS2 VGA cable a la ShinHed. I just need to hunt down chips for a headphone amplifier that wont be a bitch to make or power off of +5v
EDIT: Wii Mod is done. I put up pictures on my Wii mod on flickr:
The socket idea and where to mount it came from Crazy Monkey’s guide available online. There are a few differences though.
- I used a machined socket instead of the cheapy socket he used in his guide. Once the holes are drilled for the pins, the plastic mounts flat against the Wii without cutting anything; the cheapy socket needs some trimming to do that.
- I soldered a piece of stripboard on the inside of the case to hold the socket in place. With modelling glue holding the socket to the outside of the case, and the stripboard on the inside, this socket is SECURELY mounted. It wont go anywhere even after repeated insertions/extractions of the chip from the socket. No wiggling at all.
- I went ahead and wired up all 6 of the debug points on the drive. Most chips use three, the WiiKey uses 4, but I wanted to make sure I was covered in case people come up with uses for the other two. I do not want to open this bitch again if I can help it.
- My solder job and socket mounting looks cleaner
No covering crap in hot glue, for instance.
Right now, I’ve only got a WiiFree chip and a WiiKey (and self made adapter), but since all of the modchips use the same pins on the drive, I can easily fit any chip to the socket and have it work. I’m also future-proof in case of legit games detecting chips; all I have to do is remove the chip.
Im not cute enough for a cyber-stalker…
So lots of disposable income. I only have three arcade cabinets, a Korean DDR 3rd Mix, a big red 2-slot NeoGeo, and a large Tekken machine converted to a 1-slot neo geo. All of them are sadly in storage because they are too big for my little apartment. No other arcade pcb’s, but a little over 20 Neo carts. The trip to japan was three weeks of paid vacation, and three weeks unpaid time off. Since the place to stay was given by a friend, that means I only had to pay plane ticket and food, so it actually wasnt too expensive of a trip.