I'm trying to make my very first rgb cable

[Anthony1fromDP]

I've decided that I'm going to try to learn how to make RGB cables. It might take me a long time, and I might suck at it, but I'm going to actually try. So far, I've gone to a electronics store and bought a few supplies to start out with:


1.   One cheapo ECG J-025 25 Watt Corded Soldering Iron
2.   One Eclipse "Pro's Kit" Soldering Stand (little thing to hold the iron and a sponge receptacle)
3.   One Kester Pocket-Pak Resin Core Solder 60/40 21AWG
4.   (4) 8 Pin Din connector thing (DIN-46000-8P) - I think this is the right kind of connector for a Genesis 1 and Master System
5.    (4) DB9 Male Solder connectors - (type of plug that goes into my Commodore 1084S-D1)
6.    (4) DB9 Plastic covers for the connectors - ( The plastic thing to cover the bare DP9 connector)



Ok, so I got that stuff, and what I'm trying to do, is get the necessary items to try to make 4 Genesis 1 RGB cables that would work with my Commodore 1084S-D1. I figure that by the 4th attempt I might be successful. This shop I went to only had 4 of the 8 pin DIN connectors on hand, or I would have bought 10 of them. Anyways, I'm hoping that after 3 or so attempts, I'll actually get the 4th one to work.

Ok, so I got that stuff, but I need the actual wire. I'm not sure what the heck to use for the actual wire, obviously, I want to learn how to do this, so that I can do it over and over, so I want to try to get the wire cheaply, but I also want the cable to work right. The guy at the electronics place suggest I try to find used VGA cables to use as the wire? What wire do you guys use? What other items do I need to make a Genny 1 rgb cable, with the Genny 1 connector on one end, and a male DB9 on the other, with the right pinouts for the 1084S-D1?

Do I need any special chips or anything to boost the signal? I hope not, because I picked the Genesis 1, because I thought the RGB signal for that system was maybe the easiest to make a cable for. lol. I figure my first attempt at a cable should be an easy one.

As for audio, with a Genny 1, I'm guessing it would be better to avoid the mono audio and just use the headphone output right? I'm not going to be doing any internal audio type mods, just want to make the basic cable with the video.

Also, is there a guide online anywhere to making a Genny 1 rgb cable? Or a guide to making rgb cables for game systems in general, I'm talking about a guide with alot of pictures and step by step explanations? I'm guessing I just chop of the ends of the cable that I want to use, find the right wires, solder the wires to the appropriate pins, and that's about it? Or is there something else I need to know? Sorry for all the newbie questions, but you guys are the big time experts, and I'm hoping you can guide me in the right direction. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated!


- Anthony

[Endymion]

You might kick yourself when I tell you that most of us get a SCART RGB cable then disassemble the SCART end. That makes purchasing the right console-end connector superfluous and all you have to do is connect the dots. You can try a VGA cable if you like but it might get messy after you lop off the ends. I know a few people who swear by Cat-5 ethernet cable.

[viletim!]

Anthony1fromDP,

Have you done any soldering before? If not then maybe you should read about the general technique, wire tinning, etc. Not that it's difficult, it's just easy to melt a connector if you don't know what you're doing.

I think the most suitable cable to use is the most flexible cable you can find. Flexible cable will have good quality copper wire and it'll be easy to solder and shouldn't have any negative impact on the signal as long as you keep the length at about 1.5 meters. You should be able to buy some at the electronics shop by the meter (or foot or whatever). If they only sell the cheapo stiff stuff then you could always cut the ends off a serial cable. VGA cable (aka coax cable) is specialy made for video signals so it has the best electrical qualitys but it's a bastard to solder inside a small plug and isn't really necessary for the type of video that comes from a game console.

No consoles require any kind of boosting for their video output but many do require a few passive components in line with some signals. Your genesis is one of them and requires a 75 ohm resistor and a 220uF electrolytic capacitor in series with each colour signal (red, green, and blue). Have a look here to see what componests are required by different consoles (info is valid for any RGB connection, not just SCART).

As for audio...does video connector on you monitor have a pin for audio? If it does then there's no harm in connecting it...

As for advice....well remember to put the back shell of the din connector on the cable before solding the connector! And if you just went into the shop and bought an '8 pin din connector' then you probably bought a '8 pin din C' when infact what you want is an '8 pin din U' which will actualy fit in the back of the genesis.

And as Endymion says, you could also buy a genesis scart cable and hack the and off as a starting point. If you did this you would have to build a simple LM1881 IC to convert the composite video (used by SCART for synchronisation) to composite sync which your monitor (probably) requires.

Endymion,
Cat-5 for video cable??? These people must be insane....bend that stuff a few times in the same spot and it'll break!

[Anthony1fromDP]

Anthony1fromDP,

Have you done any soldering before? If not then maybe you should read about the general technique, wire tinning, etc. Not that it's difficult, it's just easy to melt a connector if you don't know what you're doing.

I think the most suitable cable to use is the most flexible cable you can find. Flexible cable will have good quality copper wire and it'll be easy to solder and shouldn't have any negative impact on the signal as long as you keep the length at about 1.5 meters. You should be able to buy some at the electronics shop by the meter (or foot or whatever). If they only sell the cheapo stiff stuff then you could always cut the ends off a serial cable. VGA cable (aka coax cable) is specialy made for video signals so it has the best electrical qualitys but it's a bastard to solder inside a small plug and isn't really necessary for the type of video that comes from a game console.

No consoles require any kind of boosting for their video output but many do require a few passive components in line with some signals. Your genesis is one of them and requires a 75 ohm resistor and a 220uF electrolytic capacitor in series with each colour signal (red, green, and blue). Have a look here to see what componests are required by different consoles (info is valid for any RGB connection, not just SCART).

As for audio...does video connector on you monitor have a pin for audio? If it does then there's no harm in connecting it...

As for advice....well remember to put the back shell of the din connector on the cable before solding the connector! And if you just went into the shop and bought an '8 pin din connector' then you probably bought a '8 pin din C' when infact what you want is an '8 pin din U' which will actualy fit in the back of the genesis.

And as Endymion says, you could also buy a genesis scart cable and hack the and off as a starting point. If you did this you would have to build a simple LM1881 IC to convert the composite video (used by SCART for synchronisation) to composite sync which your monitor (probably) requires.

Endymion,
Cat-5 for video cable??? These people must be insane....bend that stuff a few times in the same spot and it'll break!

1. No, I haven't done any soldering before. I absolutely have no idea what I'm doing. I'm going to be doing some searches on Google to get somewhat of an idea of what the heck I'm supposed to be doing.

2. Ok, so for cables, make them less than 5ft long, and make sure that it's "flexible cable" with "good quality copper wire". Ok, I'm going to take a printout of your post to this place and hopefully they will understand and point me in the right direction of a cable that I can buy in bulk. I'll just make sure all my cables are slightly less than 5 feet.

3. ok, so I need to "put" a 75 ohm resistor and a 220uF electrolytic capacitor  on each of the red, green and blue wires? Do I need to put anything on the horizontal and vertical sync ones? So I need to get 3 75 ohm resistors and 3 220uF capacitors? x 4 of course, for my 4 attempts.

4. "you probably bought a '8 pin din C' when infact what you want is an '8 pin din U' which will actualy fit in the back of the genesis."  - When I went to this place I actually brought along a bunch of my rgb cables. I showed them the Genny 1 connector and they looked at it, and I said did you have any of those and they said sure. I'll have to check with them about the "C" and "U" thing before actually starting.



One other major question I have, is regarding the various systems, is there a particular Part # I should be looking for, to make sure I get the right connector that goes into the A/V out of the console? For example, with Genesis 1 I need to make sure I get a "8 pin din U".  When it comes to the other major systems, is there anything specific about the type or model that I should know, like some kind of model # or specific name for it? I showed them the SNES plug, and they thought that it was definitely proprietary. Which consoles have proprietary plugs, and which cables do you need to get to be able to hack the connector off?


These are the systems that I would eventually like to know how to make a rgb cable for:


Super Nintendo/Nintendo 64 - proprietary connector?
Genesis 2/Sega CD /32X - proprietary connector?
Neo-Geo - 8 pin DIN something?
Neo-Geo CD - 8 pin DIN something?
Atari Jaguar - I showed them the back of the Atari Jaguar, and they knew what it was right away, but the guy said that it was a 20 year old part. I didn't ask him specifically whether they had those or not, but it seemed like no, considering he was talking about it being a 20 year old part.
Genesis 1/Master System - 8 pin DIN U
Playstation/Playstation 2 - proprietary connector?
Sega Dreamcast - I'm guessing it's a certain connector that places would have
Saturn - proprietary connector?

[RGB32E]

Hey Anthony, what does the "fromDP" in your username stand for?

[Endymion]

Anthony--stop what you are doing right now and go to ebay, search for "SCART," "RGB," and the name of the console of your choice. What you will get is a list of RGB cables for the various consoles that you need, the console plug on one end is already there! All of this work and searching you are doing is immediately DONE for you, capitch? On the other end is a SCART plug. If you look at this very site you will find the pin configuration for SCART. All you need is a flat head screwdriver to pry apart the SCART end, and from there you can simply desolder the wires from the pins. Use the SCART chart and you can label each wire for its function (red, green, blue, composite, and ground are all you need). Then you just reattach to a new plug for your monitor type, adding the sync circuit if necessary.

What I just described is the easiest, least pain way of getting started making an RGB cable. You can do that. You have the determination to do it already, and actually doing it requires a lot less effort than you think it does, no joke. I made a Dreamcast RGB cable just that way years ago on my very first try. You don't have to blow a lot of money or waste three efforts to get a fourth one workable. Believe me when I say you can do this. It is dead simple. Going from an existing SCART RGB cable, you will not have some electronics guy telling you they don't know where the heck you can get a Super Nintendo plug from, nor will you have to waste a perfectly good cable trying to slice off its plug to use, because your cable will already be capable of RGB, all you'll have to do is modify the monitor end and you will be done with it.

[Anthony1fromDP]

Anthony--stop what you are doing right now and go to ebay, search for "SCART," "RGB," and the name of the console of your choice. What you will get is a list of RGB cables for the various consoles that you need, the console plug on one end is already there! All of this work and searching you are doing is immediately DONE for you, capitch? On the other end is a SCART plug. If you look at this very site you will find the pin configuration for SCART. All you need is a flat head screwdriver to pry apart the SCART end, and from there you can simply desolder the wires from the pins. Use the SCART chart and you can label each wire for its function (red, green, blue, composite, and ground are all you need). Then you just reattach to a new plug for your monitor type, adding the sync circuit if necessary.

What I just described is the easiest, least pain way of getting started making an RGB cable. You can do that. You have the determination to do it already, and actually doing it requires a lot less effort than you think it does, no joke. I made a Dreamcast RGB cable just that way years ago on my very first try. You don't have to blow a lot of money or waste three efforts to get a fourth one workable. Believe me when I say you can do this. It is dead simple. Going from an existing SCART RGB cable, you will not have some electronics guy telling you they don't know where the heck you can get a Super Nintendo plug from, nor will you have to waste a perfectly good cable trying to slice off its plug to use, because your cable will already be capable of RGB, all you'll have to do is modify the monitor end and you will be done with it.

I understand exactly what you are talking about, but I don't need a specific RGB cable to use, I already have lots of RGB cables, I just want to learn how to make my own, so that I can customize all my cables whichever way I want, it's kinda hard to explain, but I want to learn the more detailed way of kinda making one from scratch so to speak. Also, I want to learn how to make the cables super cheap. Buying Scart cables on Ebay doesn't really make it super cheap.


So, I'm trying to figure out how to get both ends and the wire inbetween and how to put it all together.

[acem77]

http://www.lik-sang.com/search.php?query=rgb

this is the place i bought all my scart cables to get the special ends for each system. seems a handful are sold out now. i dont think you can make a cable for under $3 with a special end. just try to find snes,n64,saturn ect connectors...

[RGB32E]

I have unterminated PS1/2 cables that have leads for R, G, B, Composite, Voltage, Left audio, and Right audio, and GND.  They were manufactured by sony, so you could make yourself a good looking cable!  Let me know if you'd like to pickup any.