NES RGB mod

[Europemodder]

My friend have skills to install  surface mount chips, so its not anymore problem.
If you can make layout with this 3 needed chip and other items,  It would really help me out.
And my console is AV Famicom from Japan. I use socket with RP2C03B.

[Salamander]

Never heard of frying a PPU like that before, something you would consider selling broken?  You have a few options to remove the heatsinks of which the easiest is to take a pair of needlenose pliers and squeeze the fins together until it pops off the chip.  If you want to clean up the epoxy from there a hair dryer and the edge of a knife or razorblade can chip off the big chunks.  Don't go crazy with the heat so the chip gets nuclear you just want it hot enough to loosen the bond the epoxy has on it.  A magic eraser will remove the remaining residue to get your PPU nice and pretty (do the epoxy removal with the chip socketed outside the system).

[Live_Steam_Mad]

Lastly I was wondering how you guys went about removing the heatsinks from your PPU's? Since I might have a dead PPU to practice on I am thinking of trying it instead of cutting the case. I just didn't want to risk breaking my PPU the first time.

I used heat and a sharp craft knife (Tamiya Fine Craft Knife, 30 degree blade point with interchangeable blades). I used a 1.6KW hair dryer and it has a 2" x 1" diffuser on it and I set it to medium air flow and maximum heat and put a pair of old cotton pajamas on the kitchen floor and put the PPU onto the cloth and then blasted one end of the PPU with the hair dryer for 30 seconds, no more. The cloth of the pj's grips the legs of the PPU automagically and stops it moving. Then I tried gently pulling the heatsink with large pliers. After blasting both ends a few times with the hairdryer, the heatsink came off fairly easily. But then I wanted a clean chip (for aesthetic reasons LOL) so I could admire it for a while! So then came where I had to scrape the heatsink adhesive off the top of the PPU chip itself.

So then I pulled some cloth over the rest of the PPU to stop me getting burned (WOW it gets HOT maybe over 120C or so I imagine, it's nearly burning me through the cloth LOL, don't wanna risk any more than 30 seconds on the hairdryer unless I damage the PPU) and then scraped the black stuff with a Tamiya knife.

It's an Epoxy that is on the PPU between the chip and the PC10 heatsink, as supplied from Nintendo. When I tried to remove the adhesive off an RP2C03 with no heatsink, it was impossible to scrape off without heat. Epoxy melts or at least goes much softer with heat (at about 140C I think I remember)

Don't worry about digging into the ceramic too much, it's impossible to do so with the force you could create, the legs on the PPU will bend long before you could dig in with enough force, and the blade would be blunt long before then as well. I found this out for myself (after much scraping of the Epoxy off the chip) that it doesn't matter how sharp a craft knife you use on the left and right sections of the RP2C03B, and the sharp blade becomes blunt towards the front end of the blade after about 10 minutes of heavy scraping, and there's sometimes only so much you can remove using the hairdryer and knife.

My 1st RP2C03B that I used was a bitch to clean, the Epoxy just wouldn't all come off, so then I just started scraping at it with a fresh blade in my Tamiya Fine craft knife on a cutting board. I attacked the hell out of it. The ceramic started to look shiny or metallic like in places almost as if I had removed the top layer of ceramic and exposed something underneath!

But I also discovered that sometimes the only way to remove the remnants on there is to use P400 grade Silicon Carbide abrasive sheet (used dry). After much sanding the remains finally started to slowly come off. The shiny areas of the ceramic where I thought I had damaged the surface just went back to being purple matt again and the epoxy showed up really well by going matt black. Then I realised that you cannot damage the surface at all with the P400, even the gold line and plus sign. All went well and I got off all of the remains of the epoxy and then cleaned with White Spirit and it looks like new again. The surface is very smooth to the touch, as the ceramic is extremely hard and resists the P400 grit almost completely. It was a good enough surface to accept the thermal pad on the heatsinks that I bought, the heatsinks never came off when the PPU is upside down in the NES and was warm.

On another PPU, one side the Epoxy came off without too much effort, after only a couple of tries of the hairdryer, but the stuff on the other end of the chip was layed on thick and gave me quite a lot of grief and it took much scraping and goes with the hairdryer, quite annoying. But I got there in the end, and got all of it off so the chip looks way better now. I bent a few PPU pins but they are easily straightened again. Moral is don't press too hard or move forwards / backwards too forcefully when scraping LOL.

Later EDIT: I used a thick bed blanket the second time around on my next PPU  so that the legs didn't get bent hardly at all.

I show 3 pictures below showing the PPU 1) after it's scrape clean under heat 2) after I just attacked the heck out of it with the fresh sharp knife and 3) after it's had P400 Silicon Carbide on it and been cleaned up.

Also I had a thought that I clean every cart I buy with Isopropyl Alcohol on the contacts using cotton buds on plastic sticks, and I am plugging in old dirty chips into my nice clean new precision socket, so I thought that I should clean the legs of each PPU that I try. So I clean the insides of the legs with the same method and by putting the chip on a sheet of Aluminium whilst I am doing it, and then clean the outsides of the legs by placing the legs of the chip along the edge of the Alu. sheet so they don't get bent.

I chose to add my own heatsink to the PPU, since after playtesting for maybe 30 min's, the PPU without heatsink was rather hot, maybe a little under 60C, not burning my finger though but was very hot when I put my upper lip on it as a test (!). At least, a heatsink can't do any damage LOL.

Also I realised that the raised central hump that contains the die is NOT heatsinked at all !  It's only the 2 far left and right sides of the chip that had adhesive on that are heatsinked. How stupid. So the heatsink has very little surface area and is really touching in the wrong place. Doah.

Thus, I used 3 x smaller low profile replacement heat sinks, one mounted on the flat main die area in the middle, 2 either side of that. I used GPU RAM heatsinks that were suggested to me (these ones ;- http://tinyurl.com/3fbcx5l ) and they had a thermal adhesive pad backing.

The RP2C03B has a space either side of the raised central (die) section, each space is 18mm long x 15mm wide. The die containing central section is 14mm square and is raised up about 1mm above the left and right sections.  

The heatsinks I used are 6mm low profile Aluminium alloy heatsinks. In case anyone wants to buy them later on but can't find them when the Ebay link dies after 90 days, the description is "8 x GPU RAM VRM Heatsinks With Adhesive Thermal Tape" and "8 small heatsinks suitable for RAM, GPU's, games consoles, laptops, and other electronics to provide better cooling and reduce over-heating." "The heatsinks come with 3M adheisive thermal tape on the back, just peel and stick!" "The shape helps to quickly dissipate heat." "Made from aluminium alloy." "Each heatsink is approx 15x14mm and 6mm high."
"I use these on my ATI 5870's bare memory chips and they knock about 10C off at idle, and 20C at load!". These small heatsinks fit the RP2C03B just great.

There was an item code on the packet that showed it was from Deal Extreme ;-

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/aluminum-alloy-chipset-heatsinks-for-pc-memory-chips-8-hsk-set-15361

The adhesive doesn't look like any thermal compound I am aware of (I know what the grey thermal pads look like on the PS2 for example), instead it looks just like thin servo tape (like from my RC models hobby). I cleaned the chip with Isopropyl Alcohol and I peeled the paper off the adhesive pads and stuck the heatsinks on, I used 3 of them to completely cover the chip (just about).

The adhesive is just like on servo tape (black glossy and extremely tacky, not like on the thermal pads in the PS2) so watch out and don't press them on just place them on until you are happy, otherwise repositioning is almost impossible. When you press them on they stick down very tenaciously and you can lift up the whole PCB by pulling up one heatsink. So I don't think that they will come off in the NES.

I am still a little worried about the heat and it being upside down on the "wrong" side of the board, in an unventilated small plastic box that is the NES, but there's little that I can do about that. I ran the NES for many hours and checked for lockups. No problems so far.

Pictures below in the link, to show the heatsinks and how far below the expansion port they come to. I can't tell whether the middle heatsink (the raised one on top of the die) is pressing against the plastic of the NES casing or not as I can't see it. I was hoping that I could see though the expansion port blanking plate but when I removed the big rectanglular lump of plastic off the bottom of the NES where the expansion port was (you just press in the sides and pull and the clips of it come off) there was still a small plate of plastic covering the port that could not be removed without cutting it off! And I can't see beyond it well enough to see the PPU properly. With the 3 heatsinks in place on my RP2C03B the NES PCB does seem to sit properly in the casing and allow the screws to be screwed in properly so I'm fairly happy with it now.

Note in the pictures how I have separated the middle heatsink from the left and right one so as to allow air to circulate fully between them.

http://picasaweb.google.com/LiveSteamMad/RGBNESHeatsinks

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Europemodder]

Is there any problem if I use just the original heatsink, wihout removing it?

[Salamander]

The combined height won't fit inside the AV Fami unless you either hack a chunk out of it or the case.

[Salamander]

Post a pic of how your current setup looks?  I do have a spare THS7314 on an SOIP to DIP8 board that with some 75ohm resistors would amp your color lines.

[Salamander]

Alright so looking this over...

You must be sending +5v to the underside of the ultimarc board as the website suggests.  You could send that to pin 9 instead since you have desoldered the db-15 connector.  Are you positive no damage was done while desoldering/soldering to this board?  I would try sending RGB straight off the PPU into the JROK first to see if it is producing a correct looking (but dim) image.  If that's fine then it's got to be how the color lines were soldered to the amp probably on the output side.

Do you own a multimeter?  If so try to work backwards testing for continuity between where you desoldered those screw down output terminals and the surface mount chip on the board.  If you are really really stuck on this I wouldn't mind taking it on as a project.  You could keep the most expensive components with you (PPU, JROK) since those would not be necessary to get this working if that's an issue.

[Live_Steam_Mad]

The only thing I do not like this time around is the jail bars are in your face noticeable on blacks such as the start of Mario 2. It wasn't quite this bad the first time I attempted this mod however the first time it was on a CPU 10 board. Both the CPU 7 and 8 boards I have seem to give really strong jail bars. I do not have a CPU 10 board to try it on anymore unfortunately. I am going to try putting 220uf capacitors on the RGB lines coming out of the amp to see if that obscures the jail bars a bit. Pins 17 and 21 are lifted on the 8 board and lowered on the 7 bored. It did not seem to make a difference like it did on the 10 board. Ill probably keep working with this encoder and save the JROK for another neo-geo board ill be consolizing. The neo-geo would benefit more from the component video anyway. I have not given up completely on this yet. Thank you for the offer though. I want to see if I can get this done well myself before I pass it onto someone else. I am learning a lot from this project and despite it having some frustrating parts has been an overall fun experience. If I cant get it to how I want it ill probably pass it off to another eventually. Paid to much for the PPU to not get a working NES with S-video.

Might I suggest you use the NES CPU 04 board like mine (all you have to do is find one with serial no. below 1 million) and then mod it like I have fully described, then use the same J S Technology RGB SCART to S-Video converter and Moosmann amp that I do. I have no caps on the RGB lines. I use the NES RF box to amp the C-Sync.

I have no jail bars visible on blacks, and no noise or patterns or diagonal lines or any other picture flaw, and the picture is sharp. It's the same with each RP2C03B PPU that I tried. Looks like I got the right revision of NES LOL. The only glitch I have is the 2 short vertical blue lines in SMB 2 NTSC USA version, at the very right hand edge of the screen, which Markus tells me is caused by the RP2C03B itself and doesn't happen on the C1 or Titler PPU.

Pity I can't get decent S-Video from my large SNES, or RGB and S-Video and C-Sync modded SNES 2 (mini / Jr) ...I have diagonal lines on S-Video from both SNES's... But the SNES 2 Composite is sharp and it's RGB is fair, if not quite as sharp as the Composite output... RGB from my large SNES is blurred...

Regards,

Alistair G.

[Live_Steam_Mad]

As for the SNES I wonder if that is a PAL thing? I dislike the US SNES design so I got a super Famicom awhile ago and filed the cart port to fit US carts.  One of the first things I did with it was install s-video and audio left/right jacks. There are two things in this world I despise most with electronics, the proprietary multi video cables game consoles use and composite/RF video.  I did this to all my game systems. Anyway the S-video on it looks better than using the official Nintendo S-video cables via the multi-video port. All I did was solder lines from the multi-video port to the s-video connector. Chroma and Luma are both running through 22ouf capacitors before going out to the port. It looks great on my old TV and with 0 interference. Have you tried 220uf capacitors?

Both my large SNES (SNS-CPU-RGB-01) and my SNES 2 (SNN-CPU-01) are NTSC USA models. I play only NTSC USA games on it. There are no 220uF caps in my DIY S-Video cable, I didn't know S-Video needed them. I'll try them and see what happens!

I have detailed my diagonal lines issue with my SNES's here ;- http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?126959-SNES-Jr-S-Video

Regards,

Alistair G.

[Live_Steam_Mad]

Well I tried adding a 220uF cap on each of the Luminance and Chrominance (7,8 of MultiAV into S-Video bare plug) and it made bog all difference. S-Video from both SNES's is still diagonally totally line-tastic on yellows and blues on the 29" TV (I'll test on the IN76 pj later on). This sucks big time  

I know it's not the TV or pj since both give me perfect pictures on the Pioneer LX60D in PAL 50Hz, my chipped UK PS1 and my chipped UK PS2 when playing NTSC USA games at 60Hz, via S-Video. If anyone has any contructive suggestions I'm be happy to hear from them.

Hey hang on a minute, I wonder if it's the color encoding... just remembered that my RGB SCART to S-Video converter is PAL encoded color output only, at both 50Hz and 60Hz. I can't remember what the PS1 and PS2 give out when on S-Video. If they are all PAL encoding and I only get lines on the 2 SNES's, then it maybe be NTSC color encoded S-Video that my TV and pj don't like. I'll test this and report back.

Regards,

Alistair G.

[Live_Steam_Mad]

I think I have a US SNES sitting around somewhere. If I get time this weekend Ill drill some holes in the case and run  an S-video port to the points on the AV connector and see how it goes. I wouldn't think there would be much of a difference between it and a super Famicom though. Ill do it both with caps and without caps and see how it goes.

Thanks Skips. I just tested ;-

1) Composite @ 50Hz 625 lines w/ PAL 4.43MHz
2) Composite @60Hz 525 lines w/ NTSC 3.58MHz
3) Composite @60Hz 525 lines w/ PAL 4.43MHz
4) S-Video @ 50Hz 625 lines w/ PAL 4.43MHz
5) S-Video @60Hz 525 lines w/ NTSC 3.58MHz
6) S-Video @60Hz 525 lines w/ PAL 4.43MHz
7) RGB SCART via adapter block w/separate sync (C-Video) @ 50Hz 625 lines
8 ) RGB SCART via adapter block w/separate sync (C-Video) @60Hz 525 lines
9) Component (sync on green) @ 50Hz 625 lines
10) Component (sync on green) @60Hz 525 lines

...all from my Pioneer LX60D DVD / HDD recorder, direct into my IN76 projector, and NONE of them gave me any diagonal lines. S-Video was perfectly line free. I'll have a look at both PS1 and PS2 next.

UPDATE: My chipped FAT UK model SCPH-30003 R PS2 has a perfectly diagonal line free picture via S-Video into my IN76 pj, with the genuine Sony S-Video PS3 cable, when playing USA 60Hz games, and always outputs with PAL encoding @ 4.43MHz but with 525 lines, @60Hz interlaced.

These games had a perfect picture in S-Video on my pj ;-

Burnout NTSC USA @60Hz
Colin McRae Rally 3 NTSC USA @60Hz
Colin McRae Rally 3 UK PAL @50Hz
Gran Turismo 3 NTSC USA @60Hz
Gran Turismo 4 NTSC USA @60Hz
Gran Turismo Concept UK PAL @50Hz
MotorStorm Arctic Edge NTSC USA @60Hz
Need For Speed Carbon UK PAL @50Hz
Network Startup Disc
OutRun (Remake) NTSC Japan @60Hz - but slight banding on the large blue sky
Pro Rally UK PAL @50Hz
Sega Rally 2 (2006) NTSC Japan @60Hz
Sega Rally Championship NTSC Japan @60Hz
Tomb Raider Anniversary UK PAL @50Hz widescreen
Tomb Raider Legend NTSC USA @60Hz widescreen

However in Colin McRae Rally 04 and 05, both 50Hz versions, in PAL, there were herringbone patterns everywhere, but the really wierd thing was when I tried Colin McRae Rally 03 in 50Hz in PAL, and GT Concept in 50Hz in PAL, and Need For Speed Carbon in 50Hz in PAL, there was a perfect picture! In Richard Burns Rally in 50Hz in PAL there was a clear screen (intro graphics) BUT full screen dither pattern at all times during the game!! All this played from a HDD via HDLoader v0.8c, and via S-Video. I tested them all twice to make sure. Need to check some more games... and my PS1...

UPDATE: Tried my PS1 in S-Video in nearly all my games, I get a perfect picture via S-Video on my pj at all times, when it's outputting 625 lines @50Hz in PAL 4.43MHz, or when it's outputting 525 lines @60Hz with NTSC color encoding at 3.58MHz.

OK this is weird... when I try my chipped PS1 UK model 7500 with the cheap 3rd party PSX RGB SCART cable that I have, I can only get the boot rom screen (Sony / PS logo) to appear on my pj (in 625 lines / 50Hz), I get NO in game picture at all no matter what game I try with it, either from my PAL PS1 games or my NTSC USA PS1 games. No matter where I get C-Video (for sync) from. Any idea what the heck is going on?

UPDATE: I think there are maybe 2 explanations for this... either my pj doesn't like the RGB from my PSX (even though it works perfectly with my Slim or Fat PS2 (with PS2 games) and Pioneer LX60D in RGB mode at 525 lines @60Hz or 625 lines @50Hz), or my PS1 mod chip is causing some problem.

At first I thought it was because maybe the PSX changes to Composite Sync when in RGB mode, but then again it hasn't got any "mode", it's giving out RGB ALL the time, same as the PS2 Slim and Fat, (except when PS2 is in Component), and PSX is giving out Composite Video at all times (I checked) in 576i or 480i, with all my PS1 PAL or NTSC USA games, so it can't be that causing it.

BTW, this made me realise that maybe the reason that I can't get a picture out of my RGB NES on my IN76 pj is because maybe my pj can't handle C-Sync in RGB mode, it maybe only accepts C-Video as sync in RGB, hence the reason for no picture (I have to use the RGB SCART to S-Video converter instead), it's maybe because the RGB PPU doesn't have C-Video anymore, only C-Sync instead.

The same thing does NOT happen on my Fat chipped PS2 UK model SCPH 30003 R with my PS2 games, I get an RGB SCART picture on all my PS2 games (either NTSC USA ones or PAL UK ones). Same with my Slim non-chipped PS2.

I can't test whether there is no picture from either my Slim unchipped PS2 or my Fat mod chipped PS2 in RGB with my PS1 NTSC games, since the Slim won't let me play NTSC USA games (because it's not chipped) even when softmodded to play PS2 backups via ESR patch (since I don't think you can ESR patch PS1 games?!), and the Fat PS2 will only let me read PS1 discs when I disable the mod chip, which then won't let me read games from another region (since it then acts like an unchipped PS2!). And I can't put PS1 games onto USB stick and try them in the Slim like I can do with PS2 games on the Slim, and I can't put PS1 games onto the HDD of the Fat PS2 since it uses the PS1 CPU for HDD access when you are in PS2 mode!

In addition I get NO picture from my pj when using the Fat chipped PS2 or Slim unchipped UK PS2 model SCPH-70003 in RGB mode when using PAL original PS1 discs, in either Component or RGB, when the game starts. I only get a picture in the boot screen logo and sometimes in a video before the game. However I get a Composite Video picture at all times with PAL PS1 discs in either my Fat or Slim PS2's. So PS2 is acting like my PS1 in this case. But of course I get a picture using PS2 games in Component and RGB.

I notice that the RGB picture from both PS1 and PS2 Phat is noticeably sharper than the S-Video picture (which is already pretty sharp).

Just ordered an original genuine Sony PS3 Component cable (compatible with PS2) from Amazon USA (it was 1/2 the price of the UK one) and will see how I get on with that, looking to hopefully get the sharpness of RGB that I get on the Fat PS2, but in Component on my PS2's.

UPDATE: Noticed that my chipped PS2 cannot be set to Component video out, only RGB (screen does not go green or alter at all when I change it to Component in the System Configuration menu), maybe because of the mod chip. BUT my UK unchipped Slim PS2 SCPH-70003 will freely change between RGB and Component, and my pj accepts Component from it very nicely.

RGB SCART from my PS2 Slim, taking C-Video as sync half way along the cable from the C-Video socket on the RGB cable, looks nearly perfect in 625 lines @50Hz with only sometimes faint diagonal lines on some colors, and totally perfect 525 lines @60Hz, and no noise or wavy lines , using the same cheap 3rd party RGB cable as I used with PS2 Fat. Not quite as sharp as the PS2 Fat though on RGB, about the same sharpness as S-Video from the PS2 Fat.

Component from my Slim is pretty nice in 625 lines @50Hz with only very faint diagonal lines on certain colors, but at 525 lines @60Hz has some problems with quite a bit stronger diagonal lines on some colors, but there is no noise or wavy lines, again using the same cheap 3rd party RGB cable as I used with PS2 Fat. However if I remove the C-Video from the socket half way along the RGB cable (RGB cable becomes Component in Component video mode on the PS2) then the 625 lines @ 50Hz picture's faint diagonal lines become noticeably more pronounced, and the 525 lines @ 60Hz picture becomes a  diagonal line tastic picture, not good, even though my Pioneer LX60D gives me a perfect picture in Component on this pj using the same cables when in 525 lines @60Hz. Again this Slim via Component is not quite as sharp as the PS2 Fat was though on RGB, about the same sharpness as S-Video from the PS2 Fat.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Salamander]

Could be a jailbars fix?

http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=4713.msg117174#msg117174

Apparently works with Famicom composite so I wonder if PPU shielding could be applied to Playchoice PPUs with similar results?

[Live_Steam_Mad]

Wow, finally solved the stupid diagonal lines and wavy vague lines problem on my PS1 / PS2 in RGB, it wasn't the cable, it was when I take Composite Video (pj needs C-Video to sync, i.e. separate sync) from a SCART adapter block that I have to use to get the signal into the projector. When I use the separate Composite Video from half way along the PlayStation RGB cable itself, I finally have a perfect RGB picture on the PSX!!

UPDATE: Oh dear, I can't use that above technique with the genuine Sony Component PS3 cable used as RGB cable since there is no Composite Video to tap off for Sync.

Now if only I could solve the SNES problem and all my consoles would be perfect LOL.

Regards,

ARG

[Live_Steam_Mad]

Huh, I looked at that link Salamander posted and also noticed them saying that a 1uf capacitor between pin 40 and ground on the CPU could also clear up jailbars. What do you guys think?

Markus said here ;- http://nesdev.parodius.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=601&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=90&sid=32c4296994cfe0bd4294cd99a2adb685 "I got an old Famicom last week and i see very much vertikal stripes lines.

To reduce the lines, lift Pin 21 from the PPU or disconnect the line from pin 21 to 2sc...transistor and solder the Video-Amp directly to the PPU. However, you always have some vertikal lines on some games (e.g. Bird Week), so please solder an 220uF electrolyt capacitor between PPU Pin 40 and GND. You also have to take the 5V for the Video Amp from PPU Pin 40 (...and 220uf capacitor) and not from an other 5V place from the PCB.

Solder an 220uF electrolyt capacitor without lift Pin 21 from the PPU or vice versa don`t make it 100% stripes free.

Greeting Markus"

...the 220uF electrolytic capacitor would have it's positive leg onto pin 40 of PPU (PPU pin 40 not lifted) and negative leg going to GND (which ground?!, pin 20 of PPU ? I assume if so that you do not lift pin 20 of PPU).

Markus also mentioned this at http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=2990.0 where he said "The AV Famicom don`t have the vertikal stripes lines.

Only the old Famicom and NES2 have them. But the Problem is not the PPU.

Lift Pin 21 (Video, PPU-Chip) from the PCB and take the Amplifier like describted in the Nesdev-Forum from leonk.
http://darthcloud.da.funpic.org/img/bypass.html

However, only lift Pin 21 don`t reduce the lines complete, you have to solder an 220uF Electrolyt Capacitor from PPU Pin 40 to GND. Take 5V for the Amplifier from the same Place from Capacitor (PPU Pin 40).

This works fine on an old Famicom 1989.

Greetings Markus"

Arasoi already tried this on his ;- http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=1592.msg28786#msg28786 but it didn't do anything to the jail bars, but I he didn't say what revision his NES is (he is using RP2C03B).

Drakon also mentioned in a post to try connecting pin20 of PPU (ground) to the ground of the video amp, that finally completely removed the jail bars on his NES revision 6 and also removed the audio buzzing (only worked when he also had pin17 of PPU lifted and connected to the SCART ground).

Also I read here ;- http://nesdev.parodius.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=601&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=165 that "you need to add a 47uF - 100uF capacistor between PPU #22 (SYNC) and #20 (GND) <-- This is like magic and removes - if not all, most of the vertical bars. I've done this on several Famicoms with good result. Some machines give more jailbars then others and with the cap over #22-#20 they dissapear or become wery faint depending on how much interference there is." ...but actually PPU Pin22 is RESET http://jpx72.detailne.sk/modd_files/fc/avmod.htm

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Europemodder]

Is there anybody who have RGB NES, XRGB and Hauppauge HD PVR?
I like to see, how XRGB work with HD PVR, if its installed using RGB NES.

[imparanoic]

just wondering as rgb on a nes/famicom seems to be the holy grail for rgb conversions, are their alternative methods,  if you use a famicom/nes to snes adaptor for nes/famicom games on snes/sfc pluged via rgb to monitor or xrgb, will you get a good result, would this be acceptable solution than spending hundreds of US$ on ppu and frankenstien transplanting to a nes/famicom?

would their be difference in quality compared to the proper rgb nes ?

[mvsfan]

just wondering as rgb on a nes/famicom seems to be the holy grail for rgb conversions, are their alternative methods,  if you use a famicom/nes to snes adaptor for nes/famicom games on snes/sfc pluged via rgb to monitor or xrgb, will you get a good result, would this be acceptable solution than spending hundreds of US$ on ppu and frankenstien transplanting to a nes/famicom?

would their be difference in quality compared to the proper rgb nes ?

the problem with that is that those adapters use a nes on a chip. many games dont work at all on it, or they work poorly.

the day that someone comes out with a nes adapter or clone that actually has a seperate cpu/ppu, etc, it will be a viable option.

[Europemodder]

I have REV. 2 AV Famicom, its the best machine I think.
And My PlayChoice PPU is RP2C03B PPU. I have THS7314 RGB-Amplifier too.
I dont need stereo mod, I only like to get perfect component video.

Is there anybody who have time and interesting to finish this mod?
I can send this items to Europe/USA and somebody solder it -> send back to me.
And of course I will pay this work.

[Live_Steam_Mad]

the diagram found at http://circuits.datasheetdir.com/331/CXA1645P-circuits.jpg it shows pin 6 being something called SCIN or SIN-PULSE. I was wondering what this was and where does it come from?

SC is "Sub-Carrier", I believe. Normally in video terminology this is the color subcarrier information (encoded in SECAM, PAL, or NTSC) at 3.58MHz or 4.43MHz. Why it is an input to this chip I don't know. Unless it has something to do with video overlays (video titling, genlock, etc) for when the encoder is used in consumer video devices?

Regards,

Alistair G.

[eastbayarb]

http://imageshack.us/scaled/landing/138/nesdisksystem.jpg

Here is my setup (it is basically a Toploading NES DISK System )

RGB modded NES with car grade shiny black paint, Audio adjustment knobs in back, SCART RGB cable, extra sound channel mod

HES Unidapter - cart slots for NES,  Famicom and Pal carts.

Famicom System with write mod, FDloader cable for writing my own disks.



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note using Tapatalk 2 (THE BEST forum app)

[Live_Steam_Mad]

So that means using a 3.579545 MHz oscillator (http://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?Keyword=3.579545+MHz+oscillator) I should be able to provide it with what it needs then?

Yes, it just dawned on me that it appears to need the SC reference signal in order to generate Composite and S-Video in NTSC video output for TV's with only Composite or S/Video inputs, when coming from a console that has only RGB. Euro TV's can of course accept RGB directly and don't need that chip.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[fandangos]

Hey my friends.

Since this thread helped a lot discovering a bunch of methods to prevent jail bars, I'll post here because I REMOVED COMPLETELY THE JAIL BARS.

It's a fix posted by a user here in this same thread pointing to another forum. The fix in relation was to remove jail bars on famicom system while doing the AV composite mod.

Well, I used that self adhesive copper tape and it worked.





As you can see only scanlines no jail bars. Compare to the images Drakon posted of his NES while it still had jail bars.
No jail bars on the wheels.

Enjoy

[Salamander]

When you shielded that PPU did you ground the shielding?  If so, did you protect the trace that runs on top of the chip or was it fine grounded?

[fandangos]

Grounded it.

And it won't touch the solder points under the PPU because of the socket.

BTW: swapped all the cables today for shielded cables and guess what? Everything is even worst!

So all I can say now:
1. jail bars are caused by interference.
2. It runs via Green wire.
3. Don't ground anything else on the shield of the jailbars will be worst.

We got to find the source of the interference to get ride of it.

[Live_Steam_Mad]

I did some tinkering around today and decided to redo my whole RGB mod with a version 7 board I had lying around. The version 7 had jail bars worse than any board revision I have performed this mod to (I have used a 4, 6, and 10 for various friends). I combined all the methods of reducing jail bars I have found in this thread so far and the results were stunning. Here is everything I have done to this specific board in regards to reducing jail bars.

• Powered amp off the PPU
• Ground PPU Power with 220uf Capacitor
• Ground CPU Power with .1uf Capacitor (ground to outer edge! Grounding to the ground pin on the CPU seems to cause massive slowdown in areas that normally don't have it)
• Do not connect pins 17 or 21 to the Board (keep them lifted like the RGB pins)
• Socketed, shielded, and grounded PPU with copper tape
• Socketed, shielded, and grounded CPU with copper tape

Shielding the CPU seemed to do A LOT more for my version 7 board than it did on the version 10 I initially tried this on. It was well worth the effort to socket and shield the CPU on this revision of the NES hardware. I also tried a few different encoders based of both the Sony CXA1645 and the AD724. On the few different TV's I tested all these on all the CXA1645 encoders had at least some faint trace of jail bars. The AD724 encoders seemed to show no jail bars (unless you cranked brightness all the way up) on all my smaller CRT TV's or HDTV's. They did show slightly on my larger 63' Projection TV but even on that beast they are almost nonexistent (its a picky and sensitive bastard).

I also wonder if socketting and shielding the rest of the IC's would do anything to reduce jail bars? Not sure I want to try that as its time consuming and they are already almost nonexistent. I have included a picture of my NES board this time so you can see my novice modding skills!

Wow! Awesome. That's really good how we are getting the best out of these various revisions of NES now. Great work.

Also, by putting 3 small heatsinks on my PPU, I think I'm electro-magnetically shielding it as well LOL.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live_Steam_Mad]

Answered my question. The PPU is in fact going, I started having other major issues. It goes for about 5 minutes and the video becomes garbled. Guess I will just have to wait an hope a PPU or play choice board gets put up on eBay for cheap.

After a couple of PPU's going bad on this forum I wonder if it's heat that's doing it. The PC10 board has a heatsink, but hardly anyone seems to use a heatsink on their NES's RGB PPU except me and very few others LOL.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Moosmann]

PPUs broken mostly non-observance of ESD.



Thread can be closed, because a HDMI Mod is announced in the near future. No RP2C03B RGB PPU is needed  

[eastbayarb]

PPUs broken mostly non-observance of ESD.



Thread can be closed, because a HDMI Mod is announced in the near future. No RP2C03B RGB PPU is needed

Maybe VGA instead?

[Salamander]

@Skips:  Was it acting strangely before or after that shielding experiment?

I don't see how an HDMI (DVI) NES in any way makes an RGB modded one obsolete though it will probably ease the demand on RGB PPUs significantly which is a good thing.

[Drakon]

I fixed the jailbars ages ago.  I found what causes jailbars is the distance between the ppu and the rgb amp / video encoder.  Adding even a few inches between the amp and the ppu makes the rgb pick up distortion.  It might also have to do with how close your ppu rgb lines are to the pcb before they hit the amp / encoder.  Adding distance between the ppu and the amp / encoder also made the image more blurry for my setup.  Maybe this funky tape thing is also a fix?

I use the cxa2075 it's the sharpest and best looking s-video I've ever seen, much better than the cxa1645.  I would have used the cxa2075 sooner but the first ones I bought came from utsource and they were faulty.  I thought my circuit was bad, turned out that utsource sends dead encoders.  I bought a cxa2075 from a different supplier much later and it worked fine.

*edit*

Some s-video pictures:







As for a crt rgb / s-video from a composite ppu mod there's this:

http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=9561

They found a way to make the composite ppu output digital signals which can be converted into whatever video format you desire.  Even if bunnyboy continues treating the world like nobody can solder and everyone uses only hdmi, someone else will make the same thing but with rgb / s-video / whatever format you want.  Once you find a way to get the digital signals you can do pretty much anything you want with them.  That's why there's no audio over hdmi from the nes, no digital audio to be found in the system unless you feel like recreating the entire cpu.

Regarding glitching ppus, a couple of people sent me their ppus for testing:

ppu glitching

And the all time winnar:

maxwar demo

This's your ppu on serious drugs.

I run my ppus all day with no heatsink and nothing bad ever happens.  All the systems I built for clients I removed the heatsinks and nobody said their ppus had any issues.  I've been building these for commissions for years now.  I extensively tested my ppu with no heatsink first.  I'm sure if removing the heatsink caused any issues one of the many many many many consoles I built would have had issues by now.

*edit again*

I built a rgb nes-cpu-07 toaster ages ago for a client that has no jailbars.  No funky shielding.  This toaster actually had already been rgb modded ages ago by someone else but the client said it was full of jailbars.  I didn't even test the old circuit once I redid the system there were no jailbars.  I didn't do any shielding or fancy grounding tricks.

[Salamander]

Interesting link, I wonder who figured this out first.  Hard to believe there is still misconception about RGB PPU removal being violent or destructive.

[eastbayarb]

Drakon,

What RGB monitor do you use?

[Drakon]

Drakon,

What RGB monitor do you use?

None, this's a rca F27668 using s-video.

[Live_Steam_Mad]

Anyone got a link to this HDMI NES idea?

I can't imagine how it could possibly provide a crisp picture with just the analog output of the Composite PPU plugged into an A/D converter and then into an HDMI interface? Or are they re-creating the Composite PPU in FPGA form or something?!

On another note I just finished doing the 2nd audio circuit mod on my RGB NES so that now I have 2 separate audio channels with just as good quality and loud audio as the mono audio circuit RCA socket in the RF box, I'm rather pleased with it. Now I have to install all the 3 PCB's in the NES and tidy it up.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live_Steam_Mad]

Well looks like here's a good link that will do for starters ;-

http://www.retrogamenetwork.com/2013/01/17/nintendos-nes-console-to-get-2-modern-upgrades-hdmi-and-online-leaderboards/

Official Forum Thread: http://www.nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?StartRow=1&catid=7&threadid=92557

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Drakon]

The hdmi thing is using digital signals.  They figured out how to get digital video signals from the composite ppu by exploiting a mode where it's designed to work together with another ppu.  It's all documented on nesdev thefox built a fpga device that converts the signals into vga, you can convert the digital signal into any format you desire.

[skips]

I figured I would post this here to see if anyone else had any ideas.

I decided to finally splurge and get a couple AV Famicoms to RGB mod since everyone seems to be saying that jailbars are either almost nonexistent or not visible at all on most TV's. I also have three of the AV Famicom RGB kits found here http://homepage3.nifty.com/F-LABO/ProductsList.html. Two of them have a CXA2075 and one has the CXA1645 it came with. I managed to get everything hooked up flawlessly on both the AV Famicom systems, however the jailbars are horrendous. I tried both systems with all three kits with the two PPU's I have and all combinations had much worse jail baring than my US consoles. It is like this on all my televisions using s-video and my external component encoder.

At first I thought I did something wrong but one of the kits were built by Drakon and it did not have any jailbars in his setup. The were no errors made when socketting the PPU and was probably the cleanest de-soldering job I have ever done. I also bent the RGB pins up and tried my own amp from another working US RGB NES and ran RGB back to the AV port. It had the same terrible jail baring, even worse than the US NES the same amp had been pulled from! Something has to be wrong or I am missing something if these systems are supposed to be a lot better than any of the other revisions of the NES. The PPU's I am using are labeled RP2C03B 4B3 40 and a 4A4 2B. The only thing I can currently think of the culprit being are the PPU's themselves, unless its the wire I am using to connect the kit to the AV port. I am just using standard 26 gauge un-shielded stranded wire. It seems to work fin on all my other projects.

[Live_Steam_Mad]

2 of my PPU's (they are all RP2C03B ) had 8L4 18 on them, another 2 had 9F3 27 on them, 1 had 4B2 36 on it.

I sold one of the 8L4 18's. The one I sold showed faint jail bars on blues and oranges in SMB1 USA version on my IN76 projector, but no jail bars on black backgrounds when contrast was 50 per cent and brightness at 64 per cent, and with lamp on high power mode.

I tried all 5 PPU's on my 14" Sony CRT 4:3 TV and they all looked identical (nice and sharp, no jail bars visible). My NES is a USA NTSC Revision 4 toaster NES. My PSU is 9V DC (NOT AC) PSU of 2 Amp's capacity. I have given a full and complete description of my modded NES throughout this topic. Sorry I don't have an AV Famicom.

So all I can help with is that I have a PPU which is very close in revision / batch number to yours, and it has just about no jail bars.

Drakon probably is the most experienced here, and might well be able to solve it.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Salamander]

Run S-Video out of that LABO kit if you want the cleanest (but not the sharpest) video.  If I run straight RGB onto my Sony PVM it will produce weak bars which are more noticeable depending on game.  Playing with your television settings, particularly brightness, can also noticeably reduce the bars.

[Tighe]

I am so glad I have 2600's NES to playchoice adapter, RGB video on my arcade monitor, no jail-bars.