"Super" Nintendo

[wallydawg]

Not much to show yet but you can probably see where I'm going with this.



Hopeful Completion date no later than Thursday March 22, 2012 (MGC)

To do list:
Lengthen NES cart bay to SNES cart size in top of NES case
Widen NES cart tray to fit SNES cart sizes
Convert snes controller to NES controller connector
Wire cart slot
Build a base for cart tray to rest on motherboard (for better structure)
Run Power/Reset/LED from NES power board
"NES-styled" matching controller
S-Video out if time permits

[bmire1985]

looks interesting! Is this going to be a console or a portable?

[wallydawg]

That's a good question. I made this thread on my tablet during Pawn Stars so I was a bit distracted and left out some details . It is a console SNES mod to fit into a NES front loading "toaster" case. Everything will look stock NES from the outside, except a spot in the back for the snes a/v plug, and the composite jacks on the side of the NES I'm thinking of adding in S-Video connection, if I have time. Might not reconnect RF too, can't think of a reason to keep it to be honest.

So far I have lengthened the cartridge bay on top of the NES case so SNES games will fit, and I have lengthened the tray to hold SNES carts. The SNES board will be mounted into the NES case backwards so when I fold the cart slot over (to have it slot loading like the NES) the carts will be face up as they should be. I have a lot of NES controller shells from previous projects and found a smaller sized SNES 3rd Party Controller board so I'm going to try to fit it in the NES controller shell (so it looks like a NES controller with turbo buttons while still functioning as a SNES controller) to better match the project overall.

The only problem I'm having so far is I can't seem to find enough information on the NES Power/Reset board to connect it to the SNES motherboard. I found this schematic and this drawing but it really doesn't seem to be all that helpful to me (someone with limited schematic knowledge) since it doesn't label the other side of the connections. All I have found out, from multimeting is that orange seems to be +5 volts and I cant seem to find ground anywhere on the board at all.

[wallydawg]

Here's a preliminary fit of everything inside the NES case:


1. Eventual S-Video connection. The spot used to be Composite Video and Mono Audio for NES, those two spots will be L+R Audio and I'll add in a hole for the S-video connector.
2. Power
3. Never mind the placement of the Power/Reset board at the moment. Didn't make wires long enough when figuring out how to connect to the SNES board, will be placed correctly in finished build.
4. Connections form SNES motherboard to controller board. I'm going to hardwire it in. Controller board fits nicely where it is located now, just need to cut down one more screw post for it to fit level inside the case.
5. Multi A/V out. Will go in RF positions in the back of the case there. The RF box (unnumbered as I drew a line to it but forgot to add in a #) will be removed entirely. I just don't see a need for an RF box in 2012.
6. Controller ports.
7. Snes Motherboard/cart slot. The motherboard is placed backwards so when the cart slot is folded over to replicate the NES front loading design, they will be loaded in front side facing up like usual on a standard NES. I'm going to use foam-core posterboard to even out an area and for extra support for when I put the cart tray on top.

[Muniosi]

Lookin' great! Can't wait to see this done!

[wallydawg]

So I was almost done, and pretty much right on cue, PERIL. Somehow my board stopped working. The power LED turns on and the 7805 gets hot at the same interval it was before (not extremely hot really quick or really slow or anything like that) so I don't know. I checked all my connections and all that and tested on another board so it's not anything like that. Normally I would spend more time troubleshooting such issues but MGC is in 10(!) days so it makes more sense at this point in time to start over and try to fix the other board at a later date. It sucks but I guess its for the best since I wasn't keeping much of a worklog here anyway, and now I can.


Heres the old board with pretty much everything wired up and in the respective place it was going to fit. I was going to do the cartridge slot last, which I guess is good since I knew it wasn't that hot mess that was causing the problem with my old board. Most of my time to get to this point was research and multimeting to make sure all my connections were in the right place. Shouldn't take much time to rewire everything to the new board. Other than the cart slot, the most annoying job was wiring the controller board and main board together (which is also redundant in the first place since I could just grab the points from the main board connecter itself but there is space for it, and it fits nicely in the NES case so why not.


Wiring the cart slot. It is from a dead snes 2 from a long time ago (guess I'm still not having too good of luck here with super nintendos), and I put some perf board under it so all the pins won't fall out when I put in and take out a game (which they did when I de-soldered it from the main snes board). Unfortunately the expanded cartridge tray shown in the first post is too large to fit now, but I have an alternate solution in mind, more on that later.


Rewiring everything to the new board. Here is how the NES power buttons connect to the SNES board. From left to right, Yellow and Orange are for the reset button and Red and Brown are for the power. The other two that you can barely see and aren't wired up at the moment are for the LED. Interesting point (at least to me) is that the NES LED on the power board must be multicolor, as it is displaying a orangish yellow when hooked up here. I'll probably replace it with a red LED to keep it in tune with the NES stock look I'm trying to achieve here.

[Metallica Man X]

Most intriguing...can't wait to see how this turns out

[themadhacker]

Pretty cool. I've seen plenty of Nes(es?) turned into top loaders, but never an snes toasterized.

[wallydawg]

Tiny update tonight, more on the morning hopefully.


NES case with some screw posts sanded down/removed/relocated. The two relocated were attached with hotglue, worst idea ever I know but I just need them to hold through the weekend and I'll epoxy them in and all that at some later date.


Side view showing the Heatsink/7805 and their new location, along with teaser pictures of everything else relocated.

[TSX420J]

Super Cool!! I cant wait to see the final thing! Is the cart connector going to be on a hinge? Just wondering how you will insert a cartridge if it is in a fixed position.

[wallydawg]

Yeah hinges on the cart slot to keep it from moving around inside the case. To replicate pressing down on the cart I was thinking about using an on/off pushbutton switch but everything I have found so far is too tall.

This is the last thing I have to do before it is finished so hopefully I think of a solution quick.

Tapatalk mobile post wooooooo