well rgb modding a nes toaster/nes 2/original famicom will give you video interference in your picture. However the av famicom has a revised pcb where they mostly fixed this interference. So it's with great pleasure that I present to you the rgb modded av famicom!
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff253/TheDrakon/rgb%20famicom/finalwiringlook.jpg)
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff253/TheDrakon/rgb%20famicom/twinmodded.jpg)
Basically you go from having a composite picture like this:
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff253/TheDrakon/rgb%20famicom/comparison%20screenshots/composite%20video/compmm2wood.jpg)
to this!
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff253/TheDrakon/rgb%20famicom/comparison%20screenshots/s-vidmm2wood.jpg)
And if you're still not convinced then here's a couple of youtuve vids of megaman 2. The first vid is from the composite video signal of an unmodded av famicom. The second vid is from the rgb modded av famicom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X07Tv9-aWTc&feature=player_embedded (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X07Tv9-aWTc&feature=player_embedded)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9HtdszZqto&feature=player_embedded (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9HtdszZqto&feature=player_embedded)
and lastly here's the worklog of how I built this thing:
http://moddedbybacteria.freeforums.org/the-rgb-av-famicom-t1174.html (http://moddedbybacteria.freeforums.org/the-rgb-av-famicom-t1174.html)
enjoy!
I'm convinced by that 1 picture alone! Looks fantastic! :o
Great workblog! And a great mod! Thanks for sharing!
BTW any tips on where to get a playchoice PPU? :)
I got the ppu from a playchoice arcade pcb that I won on ebay. And it wasn't cheap. And they seem to be getting harder and harder to find. My only suggestion is to stick up "wtb" ads for the ppu on forums. You could try neo-geo.com or the shmup forum and hope you don't get scammed. There's a few different types of rgb ppus you can use but from what I've read it seems that the one I use (rp2c03b from a playchoice pcb) is the safest one. I read that the rc ppus can have a row of garbled graphics on the one side of the screen.
Also thanks everyone for the nice comments. It's hard to find people who can appreciate a famicom with nice beautiful rgb/s-video. I must say this system has the most vibrant colours out of all my consoles and it looks quite amazing.
Nicely done mate!
I do want to say that a mod on a normal FC, or either NES can be done without distortion as well though. It's just a matter of ensuring that you isolate and protect against the address signal interference that causes the bars.
Quote from: Xious on February 01, 2011, 07:32:21 am
Nicely done mate!
I do want to say that a mod on a normal FC, or either NES can be done without distortion as well though. It's just a matter of ensuring that you isolate and protect against the address signal interference that causes the bars.
okay...and how do you do that? I've contacted a lot of nes/famicom modding experts and nobody had any solution. Except for modding an av famicom.
Wow! Beautiful!
If I had any tech sense, I'd try to make one myself... I'd love to have it. :star:
Quote from: tappybot on February 02, 2011, 04:33:47 am
Wow! Beautiful!
If I had any tech sense, I'd try to make one myself... I'd love to have it. :star:
thanks! However this mod is extremely difficult. I don't even think I'd want to do this mod as a commission until I find a safer way of doing it. The AV famicom is a bit of a nightmare to remove the ppu chip from.
Get a hot air gun for removing chips from PCBs. There's nothing easier than removing big chips using hot air.
Quote from: jpx72 on February 02, 2011, 05:24:18 am
Get a hot air gun for removing chips from PCBs. There's nothing easier than removing big chips using hot air.
Thanks for the info. Any particular heat rating/level that's good for safely desoldering? Or should you just get a generic electronics hot air gun? Another idea I thought of was to cut the legs from the original ppu. Then use a solder sucker on the parts side of the pcb while heating up the soldered leg from underneath with a soldering iron.
Hmm I can't help you there, because I got myself a homemade hot air gun, made from a compressor (for air blowing), a metal tube with a heating device inside. On one end is a small tip with a hole in the middle for directing the hot air to a single spot. Temperature is not very high, I would say no more than 200°C but I have really no idea. But I can tell you that by putting some oil on the PCB before blowing hot air on it will save you a lot of trouble getting rid of the excess tin (after desoldering you can remove the oil with any alcohol-based cleaning solution).
Quote from: jpx72 on February 02, 2011, 10:34:17 pm
Hmm I can't help you there, because I got myself a homemade hot air gun, made from a compressor (for air blowing), a metal tube with a heating device inside. On one end is a small tip with a hole in the middle for directing the hot air to a single spot. Temperature is not very high, I would say no more than 200°C but I have really no idea. But I can tell you that by putting some oil on the PCB before blowing hot air on it will save you a lot of trouble getting rid of the excess tin (after desoldering you can remove the oil with any alcohol-based cleaning solution).
sounds a lot better than the technique I used
Hot air station: I suggest Weller.s tools; I have one of their SMD stations and it.s awesome.
Video issues: I'm pretty certain that the 'toaster' NES is essentially immune to the jail bars issue with a Playchoice PPU. I don.t see why it would have them at all. I've seen mods of them that look crisp, clean and arcade-perfect. The NES2 and original Famicom suffer from signal contamination, but if you wire the PPU carefully and remove all possible sources of contamination (e.g. shielding them), you should be able to avert it; The Twin Famicom (Sharp) should be worry-free like the New Famicom.
I'm working on something for the vertical bars problem in general ... It may take some time, but I'm making headway (I think). A friend who's an expert in analogue video has given me some interesting suggestions and I'm looking into some different solutions. :octorok: I might have a follow-up report on one solution by the beginning of next week, if we're all lucky and I don.t get caught up with other stuff. I also have something new to offer...more on that later though. :bomb:
uhm......okay........just so you know the toaster nes has huge jailbars. I rgb modded a couple of toasters already.
This is a case where Expert(Modder) ≠ Expert(AnalogueVideo) ... Many modders use alternative parts, contrary to the suggestions of the people that devise the solutions, either because they're easier to get or cheaper. These almost always have different attributes; I saw this several times in the RGB threads, and it always causes problems.
If you're getting those bars on a NES (Toaster), then the problem is likely in your amp circuit I'd need a diagram of your amp; It's possibly a power issue, or a poor transistor choice and I'd need to know what transistors you are using to be able to help solve it.
Markus Brandel's design worked flawlessly, but his website has gone south: I'll see if I can locate him to ask what he used.
Edit:
(http://atariusa.com/rgb_Nes/Markus_Brandel_RGB_AMP.png)
Markus Brandel's AMP; use for each value (R,G,B) individually.
(http://atariusa.com/rgb_Nes/NEW-RPG-Amplifier.jpg)
His explanation key for the NES (toaster) and NFC models.
Here's the markus (moosmann) website that's "gone south"
http://playoffline.wordpress.com/mod/nesrgb/ (http://playoffline.wordpress.com/mod/nesrgb/)
he just changed to a different host...
I also have his e-mail address we've been talking over e-mail for a while now
also I hate to burst your bubble but if you read posts by people who made this "magical" markus amp they found two things
1: the transistor pinout is different because he's in germany
2: this amp makes the jailbars worse even when you find out how to wire things up properly. And if you wire up the transistors the wrong way because the pinout is different it makes the picture very blurry
in fact speaking with moosmann over e-mail/pm he tells me that it's impossible to get rid of the jailbars on a rgb nes. This is why I rgb modded an av famicom because markus mentioned that the av famicom and the famicom titler are the only systems you can get a true interference free picture from
If you can provide links to this "flawless" rgb nes that would be great.
*edit*
out of all the rgb modded nes systems I've seen people post it seems that the most "flawless" or interference free model is the one arasoi has that was built my dewman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz7T5lWmGDE
This system uses an ultimarc rgb amp and not the markus one. It's also got the jrok sync cleaner in it.
But even arasoi admits that there's still minor jailbar interference on his system (again conversation over pm).
here's my personal favourite pic of jailbar interference
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff253/TheDrakon/tech/rgb%20nes/hpim0927.jpg)
I actually got the jailbars worse than this once when I tried powering the ppu from an external psu
Hm... I had no idea he switched sites..his old one just vanished, and I didn't see anything new for him with a handy search. (Boomarked). Thanks for the new link; I'll look over his WP accunt to see what's changed, if anything, since the last time I viewed his personal pages... :octorok:
I will say this though: Nothing is impossible. It wouldn't even be impossible if it was an internal PPU issue, which it clearly isn't. As I said, I'm working on a general, global solution to this and if it works out, I'll let everyone know.
I do find it odd that in the original forum thread about his mod, nobody complained about the lines: I'd've thought that would be the first major concern. As to the transistors on his spec, as long as you ID the CB&E pins correctly, it doesn't matter how they're arranged on the package. I always keep the manufacturer's datasheets handy when working with parts, either printed or as PDFs (though I prefer the former). Rather odd that the pin numbering/assignment is different there to anywhere else, but it doesn't ultimately matter. I'm researching alternative NPN RF amps now, so it's rather topical, and I'm hoping to find a perfect one at some point for this sort of job...eventually.
It's also highly possible the the choice of CRTs can have some influence on how visible the bars are; they are also present on real Nintendo hardware though: the RGb Sharp 14CC1x/19CC1x series systems have them, so it's a phenomenon that was known and accepted by NCL. I'm pretty sure that the AN-510 had cleaner video though; I'd have to hook it up and check.
I've seen the ultimarc-based video before, and that's one of the systems that convinced me how clean the image could become. The other consideration is whether your amp is powered internally or externally. From what I have seen and read, externally powering the amp board helps a lot with this issue, although it is a bit of a burden. Another thing to consider is shielding the RGB lines all the way down to the RP2C03B, then running them to the case, and using an external (and shielded) amp box to negate signal interference from inside the console. If you want, I'll try to dig up the most relevant links for you to examine, but if you're speaking with Markus, you probably don't need them.
When I have more solid info, I.ll do what i can to make it widely available. At present, I'll not say that the toaster RGB mod is perfect, but only that I've seen instances of it where the video is what I'd consider flawless. Whether that was a trick of the light, or a fluke of nature, I can't say. :bomb:
The very first thing I did with my rgb modded system was amp the video on the s-video after encoding it to s-video. And this was from a seperate psu. Jailbars were still there. Also if you take a closer look at my rgb modded av famicom I installed a piece of shielding on top of the pcb. That's what my rgb amp is sitting on top of. Anyway I'll pm you all my work from my rgb nes days. And when you say ultimarc based video you mean the ultimarc rgb amp? And you can get the picture from a rgb nes pretty darn good. To the point where you only notice jaiblars once in a while. I got my system to that level and I have plenty of screenshots that look crisp/clear/etc. However there still would be enough jailbars present to annoy me. So no matter how perfected the rgb nes mod has become the rgb av famicom is still easily and noticably superior. Believe me I'd love to get the rgb nes to the same level since av famicoms are kind of rare/expensive and need an adapter to play nes games. Although using a top loader is certainly the better way. I really wish you good luck in solving the interference but I'm fairly certain that the work involved in fixing the interference would require some pretty hardcore pcb re-wiring.
Here's the comparison screenshot between a rgb nes wired up for the clearest picture possible vs the picture from my rgb modded av famicom. My capture card picks up every single little interference detail including stuff that doesn't show up on my tv.
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff253/TheDrakon/rgb%20famicom/final%20version%20screenshots/comparison/rgbnesstageselect.jpg)
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff253/TheDrakon/rgb%20famicom/final%20version%20screenshots/comparison/rgbavfamicomstageselect.jpg)
It is possible to get the image quality pretty good on a rgb nes. But it will always have more interference than the rgb av famicom. Atleast until someone finds a way to mod the nes pcb to clean things up the way that the av famicom pcb does.
nicley done 8)