Started first SnesP (PAL Fullsize), now with Pics

Sledge Hammer · Post by **Sledge Hammer** » Thu May 22, 2008 1:04 pm

Ive started with my SnesP project the day before yesterday.
Bens book finally arrived the day before yesterday, and I allready bought two PAL-SNES Consoles and a PSOne Screen (Redant).

Since the book is covering the Mini-SNES and the original Sony screen I'm a bit screwed now

The good things:
The Redant Screen has a NTSC/PAL switch
The PAL-SNES can also be modded to NTSC
The board of the screen is not a big round one, as the original, it contains 3 small boards, so Im a bit more flexible.

The downside:
All the chips are sanded, and because of this I dont know which chip do what. I didnt even see those linear regulators to get my power for the SNES.

I will post my progress here, but I dont have pictures on my pc yet. I have some crappy pics still on my mobile phone (because my digicam didnt survive its recent soda-bath

)

So it began:
2 days ago I hacked my SNES open with raw force to get to the guts.
Since I didnt order a gamebit, and the pencil-trick didnt work for me, I used several screwrivers.

At first I cracked the walls around the screws and thought, ok, thats it now it should open with ease.
But the screws are hold by the top part of the case, and the board itself is hold by the bottom part

So I cracked all side walls until I discovered that, and then I started to crack small pieces of the top part of the case.
It was a slaughter!

Yesterday I desoldered some of the easy parts from the SNES board, like the extension connector, the power jack and the Multi-Out Jack.

Today I connected the SNES Board with power and my TV and it still worked

Then I looked for a way to get the power from the PSOne screen.
One of the screen boards has a connector with black and red cables, this provides voltage to the screen. So i used that connector.

When I connected the board with the power jack and the on/off switch, and the LED from the screen, then the power connector had around 5V.
So I connected these connectors to the linear regulator 5V output from the SNES Board.

But the SNES kept resetting. Voltage was only 4.3V on the connectors any more.
I desoldered the regulator, with no effect.
Then I eventually disconnected the screen power LED and then it worked.
Now the connector has ~7V, I tried it only very short because the regulator on the SNES board is not in place

but it seemed to work, just the sound was gone (I used the antenna cable connector).

Tomorrow Im going to buy some stuff (smaller soldering iron (only have a 30W), some tips, cables, maybe a desolder iron, because I only have an extra pump).
And then Im going to connect the lcd to the snes directly and see if it runs.

And I have two question:
The PSOne screen from Redant, where can I get regulated 5V?
How easy is the LED-Mod for that screen?

Greetings, Sledge

Sledge Hammer · Post by **Sledge Hammer** » Mon May 26, 2008 9:36 am

The store did not have anything I needed except solder...
I desoldered the audio/video plugs from both the SNES and the Screen.
And I desoldered the power plug (output) from the screen.

I then connected the 7.5V lines from the screen to the linear regulator on the SNES board.

Then I hooked up the screen to the SNES for the first time. I connected just the video lines.
And I got nothing. Only a white screen with some horizontal and vertical lines.

I switched from PAL to NTSC on the screen then the screen turned white completely.

So I played around with all the connections from the screen audio/video port, and found 2 other lines where the screen was not just white. But none of them showed a real picture.

I then connected the SNES video line (and GND of course) to my old VCR SVideo input and had a clear image.

So I fear, that I already fried the screen

Does anyone have some experience with PAL screens, or the PSOne screen from "REDANT" in particular? What can I check to see if it is still working?
Do I need any special circuit for the video to work?

Sledge Hammer · Post by **Sledge Hammer** » Mon May 26, 2008 3:47 pm

Did some digging in the web tonight,
I think I found the pinin of my screen, it seems to have a SVideo (Y&C) input, as well as RGB input.
Composite Sync and NTSC Video seems to be on the same Pin.

I dont know where to get the Composite sync from the SNES, so I will try to get the RGB connection to work as next step.

Ill hope that will work, and I can continue with the project...

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Mon May 26, 2008 7:25 pm

Any chance of some pics?

The SNES (PAL, fullsize board) will be my next project.

This might help:

Not sure quite how to get stereo from the pins 11 and 12. Looking at the pics you can get S-video / composite / RGB using an old PAL SNES. Looks like you will need to compare the pins from this to the pins on a Scart and make sure they tally (make your own connector?) - or you might fry the Scart in your television...

Instead of 220uf capacitors, some people say they got better results from using 47R resistors?

Not sure what the "Blanking signal" is used for - any ideas?

Ben Cebhrem · Post by **Ben Cebhrem** » Mon May 26, 2008 7:42 pm

bacteria wrote:Any chance of some pics?
Not sure quite how to get stereo from the pins 11 and 12.

Looking at your second (SCART) picture confirms to me at least, that left channel audio is actually the monaural channel; so, connecting 10 to left, and 11 to right, you ought to have stereo sound.

I've used resistors when connecting a PS1 LCD to my computer, but keep in mind that was NTSC; that might be a bit different electrically on PAL. It shouldn't hurt to try either method for short term testing however.

Sledge Hammer · Post by **Sledge Hammer** » Tue May 27, 2008 4:53 am

Hey Bacteria, these diagrams help a lot, thanks!!!
So I can try to get all 3 video versions tonight, now that I know what every pin is assigned to!
Lets see if the pin assignment I found is the right one for my strange screen

On another page I read that the PAL SNES should use resistors for RGB and NTSC SNES should use capacitors.

Im really hoping the screen isnt fried (I accidently put power with wrong polarisation into the screen once, very shortonly. Then there was some smoke right next to the power plug *g*)...

EDIT:
My new camera arrived today, so I will post some pics tonight, hopefuly with a running LCD *g*
The camera is a cheap one not as good as my last one.
(I had a Panasonic Lumix FX-something, the new camera is a Casio Exilim Z-77, worse LCD, worse zoom, worse reaction, but only half the price...)

Website · Post by **Life of Brian** » Tue May 27, 2008 9:01 am

Sledge Hammer wrote:Then I hooked up the screen to the SNES for the first time. I connected just the video lines.
And I got nothing. Only a white screen with some horizontal and vertical lines.
I switched from PAL to NTSC on the screen then the screen turned white completely.

I think you might have just forgotten to connect ground between the SNES and the screen.

Sledge Hammer · Post by **Sledge Hammer** » Tue May 27, 2008 9:50 am

Hehe, nope thats not it. Its connected through the power lines which comes from the screen.
I also connected the ground from the video-plugs with each other with no effect.
And I measured the connection between the grounds with the multimeter ;-)

What I did wrong is:
I tried to connect the composite video to the screen but without connecting the syncs.
All these Video formats are pretty confusing to me ;-)

Tonight I will connect the sync as well, and if does not work I will try the S Video Y and C.
Unfortunatly I cannot not test RBG today because I dont have any resistors yet.
I live in a rather small town, so no good shopping opportunities here. I might need to order the stuff online...

Sledge Hammer · Post by **Sledge Hammer** » Tue May 27, 2008 2:14 pm

Ive included some pics in the previous posts...

Ok I tried the SVideo input today:

But with no result again.
The screen again shows the horizontal and vertical lines:

I used this page as a reference for the Video Input connector of the LCD:
http://www.gamesx.com/avpinouts/psxav.htm

Pin Name Description
1 Gmd Ground
2 Rt Right Audio
3 Gnd Ground
4 Lt Left Audio
5 Y S-Video Y
6 Sync NTSC Video/
Composite Sync*
7 C S-Video C
8 V-Gnd Video Ground
9 B Blue
10 +5v +5 Volt
11 R Red
12 G Green

This is the connector on my board:

The black marked are ground, and the upper diagram is the only one I found which matches the grounds.

So appearently the Screen does not take Composite Video, only Composite Sync???

Maybe I need to connect the 5V lines, maybe the power is directed somewhere...

I will try to get some 47Ohm resistors to connect via RGB.

Any other ideas?

EDIT:
Putting through the 5V from the SNES Pin 10 to LCD Pin 10 didnt work either

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue May 27, 2008 3:57 pm

3 options to connect to things:

Composite - composite video (or chroma+luma joined), ground

S-video - Chroma, Luma, ground.

RGB - red, green, blue, C-sync (also known as composite sync), ground.

Volla!

Post by **Triton** » Tue May 27, 2008 9:11 pm

also consider that you might not be suppling enough voltage or current to the screen! try it with a different power source and see if that changes anything

Sledge Hammer · Post by **Sledge Hammer** » Wed May 28, 2008 12:41 pm

I use a switchable power supply.
It is set to 7.5V - 8.3V normally.
Today I set it to 9V - 9.9V with now visible effect.

I connected the RGB (with and without the sync) and used 47Ohm resistors for each line.

The screen showed vertical lines which all disappeared quickly but one colered line.
When I switched to NTSC on the board, it turned black, which is different then it was with the SVideo (there it turned white).

But still I did not get a picture

I probably have to buy another screen

Post by **Triton** » Wed May 28, 2008 2:45 pm

what is the max current that powersupply can output? if its anything less than 500-1000ma it probably isnt adequate to power the screen

Sledge Hammer · Post by **Sledge Hammer** » Thu May 29, 2008 2:38 am

It says 1100mA.

Sledge Hammer · Post by **Sledge Hammer** » Thu May 29, 2008 2:38 pm

I was thinking about the current today.

I think bacteria wrote the PAL SNES takes 1600mA.
Since I power the SNES through the screen with a 1100mA power supply.

Might that be to low?

If I want to measure how much current the SNES and the screen consume I just put the multimeter in serial between the ground and the positive part of the power supply right?

I will measure the current consumption tomorrow, and if it is to high I will power the SNES or itself and try to connect it to the screen then.