How to convert a RF unit to composite cable ?

Started by tisurame, January 10, 2007, 09:30:49 AM

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tisurame

I bought a Saturn RF unit, and since I could not find a composite cable, I would like to build one using this unit.

Inside this unit, there are four cables: a red, white, black and green. I suppose each one carry a different signal: Stereo Right, Stereo Left, Composite Video and Ground. But I'm not sure which one.

I would like to know how the ground wire would exactly work. I mean, considering that a composite cable have three ground wires (one for video, one for right and one for left audio) - and there is only one ground wire coming from the Saturn output. So, how exactly it could be done ?

One more thing....I dont have soldering experience. So, instead of soldering, is it possible to just hook one wire with each other, and cover it with a electrical tape ? Would it degrade the picture or something ?

Thanks.

kendrick

A reminder: The color of a wire means nothing. In a military or high-productivity environment, color-coded wiring is necessary and usually mandated. For a video game console, wire colors are inconsistent and almost never indicate function.

Having said that, what you should do instead is test continuity from the plug end to the wire, rather than relying on the color or the connection type. Please use the wiki page as reference for the pinout:

http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=av:saturnav

By using a logic probe or multimeter, you should be able to tell which wire goes with which connection. You may be disappointed to learn that many RF units use the mono sound output from the Saturn and depend on the television to decode stereo sound from it. Hope that helps you out.

-KKC

NFG

QuoteOne more thing....I dont have soldering experience. So, instead of soldering, is it possible to just hook one wire with each other, and cover it with a electrical tape ? Would it degrade the picture or something ?
This should never be encouraged.  It's a flaky way to get anything done, and you risk destroying your console.  Yes it'll work, and yes it's a stupid idea.  Buy a $10 soldering iron and learn to solder.  It's easy, and it's fun!

Also, spend a dollar and buy some shrink-tube to protect your soldering.

tisurame

All right. I will try to solder it...

By the way, instead of composite, I will build a svideo cable...

One last question: there are four ground wires (two from the svideo, two from audio). Do I need to solder all four ground wires, together, on the metal connector ? Or each one needs to be soldered on a different side of the connector, without touching each other ?