Arcade & Retro Repairs & Mods, all new recipe, with no added MSG...

KeRbDoG

Just saw a tutorial on how resolve the overheating problem of the GDEMU in the Dreamcast. I think folks initially thought it was only due to the airflow now being channeled correctly but the tutorial suggests its due to the 12V rail not being used by the GDROM so the regulator heating up excessively.
More info on here.

Seems to be many clones of the GDEMU on AliExpress now

Steve X2

KeRbDoG wrote: »

Just saw a tutorial on how resolve the overheating problem of the GDEMU in the Dreamcast. I think folks initially thought it was only due to the airflow now being channeled correctly but the tutorial suggests its due to the 12V rail not being used by the GDROM so the regulator heating up excessively.
More info on here.

Seems to be many clones of the GDEMU on AliExpress now

I remember when I was having thermal issues with the GDEMU over 6 years ago and got on to the guy who makes them. He was proper pissed off with me for mentioning it(in public) and just said 71c was not hot and to use cardboard to channel the air/heat. I think i posted about it here along with the temps i was getting. He just kept saying I was wrong and there is no heat issue.

Retr0gamer

I'm really, really tempted to terraonion up the Saturn, Dreamcast and PS1.

Anyone got experience with them?

Relikk

I have their PC Engine and Mega Drive devices, and also had their standard MVS cart but I sold that recently. Can't complain about anything with regards to their hardware, it's all solid, high quality gear with as good a level of ongoing support as you'll get. The only issue with them in recent years is that they've moved their business from Spain to Andorra, so anything that's listed on their store doesn't include VAT and you'll also have to pay import duty on top of that. You'll be looking at roughly €250/€260 in total for a MODE, which is not at all bad for something that now supports 3 systems.

Retr0gamer

I'd be looking to get one for each system. Don't really fancy swapping between them all. That's a lot of money to slap down when I'm looking to save for a new PC as well!

The Last Bandit

That's a fair old investment alright, I've a clone GDEMU (about €60) and can't really fault it I'm sure the Mode has a few more features and a better interface but is worth an extra 200 ?

In the Mode was an external device that easily swappable between consoles then its probably worth it then.

Retr0gamer

I'll have a look. I've a friend that's gotten older drive emulators like the psio and such and he was saying they are a pain as you can only have the one game on the SD card. Would rather have all the ones I want selectable from a list as the user unfriendliness of the other options would just make me not use them.

I'll see if the GDemu offers that functionality.

KeRbDoG

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'll have a look. I've a friend that's gotten older drive emulators like the psio and such and he was saying they are a pain as you can only have the one game on the SD card. Would rather have all the ones I want selectable from a list as the user unfriendliness of the other options would just make me not use them.

I'll see if the GDemu offers that functionality.

PSIO allows many games on an SD card, it isn't always simple as copy/paste in a normal file browser but is for the majority of games.

Retr0gamer

Must have been the saturn one then.

Relikk

GDEMU and Phoebe/Rhea can definitely have more than one game on the card at a time. Well, official one's anyway. I don't have any experience with the clones, but I'd say they're the same. The Fenrir should allow it no problem, as well.

eddhorse

I have the Fenrir, pretty good compatability, getting lots of updates too.

Doge

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'll have a look. I've a friend that's gotten older drive emulators like the psio and such and he was saying they are a pain as you can only have the one game on the SD card.

McDermotX

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'm really, really tempted to terraonion up the Saturn, Dreamcast and PS1.

Anyone got experience with them?

Have a couple, one in the Dreamcast, one in a Saturn.

Bit on the pricey side compared to the other options and clones out there, but there's no doubt about its feature set along with the storage options, especially a setup on a Dreamcast with the cover art frontend (can be used with the Saturn as well, but the interlaced menu and slow performance means its not advisable).
You lose the optical drive in both cases unfortunately, but they offer good compatibility across revisions and are very well supported. File management is nice and simple - games in their own directory, ability to filter by category etc

The dual use is a bit of a misnomer as I wouldn't entertain the thought of swapping between platforms, certainly not on a regular basis, but I suppose there's nothing to stop you doing such. Personally I'm still a bit on the fence with the PS1 support, but will wait and see if its worth another expense.
As Relikk says above, you need to take the VAT into account when pricing things up, but I've been very impressed with their Modes, SSD3 and MegaSD.

Not my pic, but frontend examples

o1s1n

So I've been using one of these cheap China wireless controllers with my PS2 for a while.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wireless-Generic-Gaming-Gamepad-Controller-for-Sony-Playstation-2-PS2-Console/203042202450?hash=item2f46422352:g:5qkAAOSwrxxfBLER

The wireless works great and the buttons/sticks are better than they should be, but the case itself is awful.

I have a few broken PS2 pads knocking about, so thought it might be possible to transfer the PCBs over to a real controller and keep the original buttons/pad.

Decided to crack them open last night and have a look.

Immediately we ran into problems. The Chinese shell uses the PS2 original shell as a mold, but they did make some changes. To start off with, most of the changes appear to be on the bottom half.

There's a cut out section to allow for two batteries.
The shoulder buttons are a different shape internally
There's a cut out section to also allow for an on and off switch.

However, the top half of the shell looked identical to the PS2 original. So at this point I thought I'd keep the original China bottom half and use everything else from the top half of the real PS2 controller, a frankenstein of sorts.

You can see here that both top parts look the same:



Bottom shoulder buttons are radically different:



Can pretty much lift the China PCB out in one piece. The vibration parts are all the same as the original PS2 pad which is great, just sit into the same slots as the original ones.



You can see the top half of the shells look the same... almost!

Why they didn't keep it the same as the original I don't know. They removed a lot of plastic nubs from the China shell that are there on the Playstation one, so they had to be cut out.




Few pictures of some of the nubs that need to be cut out the original PS2 shell for the Chinese PCB to fit.

Excuse the hack job cuttings, I'll neaten them up! was more just a proof of concept for now to see if the PCB would fit.

Mainly the numb in the centre, the left nub between the two analogue sticks (this is where the power switch on the Chinese PCB sits) and the nubs that hold the shoulder buttons in place as they get in the way of the China shoulder button PCBs.











And it fits!



Had to leave it for there last night but I'll try to finish it off soon. Started Silent Hill 2 last night again so I need a controller

So as of now, the pad is wireless and has original PS2 D pad and buttons with the Chinese PCB and analogue sticks.

Need to neated up the cut sections so that the PCB fits a bit more snug in (at the moment it's still about 1-2mm too high so the buttons aren't depressing properly)

o1s1n

Well that.. did not go as planned.

I gave up on the franken controller after another hour and decided to go with the complete original PS1 shell (using the original controller cable hole to send the wires to the batteries through)

Spent an hour cutting and filing the shell to fit the Chinese PCBs, almost got there, was so close - but it just would not fit back together. I cut an absolute load of the case out but there was just some part internally somewhere that was fecking it all up.

So I rage quit and flung it all in the bin :pac::pac:

Now am on the lookout for a PS2 wireless pad...

eddhorse

I kinda feel your pain, i dismantled two PS3 controllers to fix some analogue sticks, those shoulder buttons can get in a hole and die.

Inviere

eddhorse wrote: »

I kinda feel your pain, i dismantled two PS3 controllers to fix some analogue sticks, those shoulder buttons can get in a hole and die.

Same. I remember doing a deep clean on a Dual SHock 3 at one stage, and the shoulder buttons caused a minor cardiac event.

o1s1n

Folks had been saying the shoulder buttons on the Switch joycons were a pain and that they were really annoying when replacing broken sticks - they clearly haven't gone near anything Playstation alright! :eek:

Colonel Panic

Any recommendations on where I can buy button connectors, PCB legs and assorted AMP connectors?

o1s1n

sugarman wrote: »

Instead I decided to give the PS2 a whirl and finally got around to installing the sata conversion kit for the official Network adapter I bought ages ago. Can use up to 2TB drive now with FTP functionality.

I'm kind of torn between buying one of them to FTP stuff over, or just spending a few quid on a 2TB 'Custom' PS2 HDD on ebay. Might be nice just to throw a drive into it that's packed to the rafters and not have to do anything else!

Controller wise I went with a logitech PS2 wireless pad, they're meant to be very good


https://www.ebay.com/itm/283908284509

Steve X2

For the PS2 I never bother with ftp unless its a few small files. Just pull the drive and stick it inside your PC or in a cheap external adapter and copy the files using that PS2 game manager app(cant remember the name right now).

The Last Bandit

WinHiip

Ya same here pull the drive and copy stuff that way, I used a 2.5" SATA drive in mine so easy to get a USB caddy for it.

FTP is grand from dropping stuff on memory cards.

Steve X2

The Last Bandit wrote: »

WinHiip

Ya same here pull the drive and copy stuff that way, I used a 2.5" SATA drive in mine so easy to get a USB caddy for it.

FTP is grand from dropping stuff on memory cards.

That's the one yeah. I use a SATA SSD in my main PS2 so no moving parts and hopefully a longer life.

KeRbDoG

I got an original stock Famicom a few months back as I had a plan to do something with its controllers but that never happened, so its been sitting on a table looking at me. Over the weekend I cleaned it up and now I've ordered up parts for a 'normal' AV mod. Console5 parts incoming, so many guides online and their kit seemed like the easiest to order with no components hanging off the PPU etc.

Aiming to use a 3.5mm jack for video/audio to see if I can make the mod as clean as possible externally, with the 'stereo' mod...unsure thats a great idea or not, time will tell!

o1s1n

Was playing about with my modded Wii a bit today - have been trepidatious about going back to USB HDD loading after my last harddrive failed (and took all my games with it!)

Decide to stick with Gamecube games only for now and load them all from the internal SD card. Seems to be working great so far.

Also set it up to boot directly into the homebrew channel, so no Wiimote is needed anymore.

KeRbDoG

KeRbDoG wrote: »

I got an original stock Famicom a few months back as I had a plan to do something with its controllers but that never happened, so its been sitting on a table looking at me. Over the weekend I cleaned it up and now I've ordered up parts for a 'normal' AV mod. Console5 parts incoming, so many guides online and their kit seemed like the easiest to order with no components hanging off the PPU etc.

Aiming to use a 3.5mm jack for video/audio to see if I can make the mod as clean as possible externally, with the 'stereo' mod...unsure thats a great idea or not, time will tell!

Famicom AV mod done! Note to self/others, the power adapter input is center negative. Stereo mod is actually a good thing, video is fine but I've been spoiled by the NESRGB Famicom Twin. Some jail bars which I will try some of the many guides online to reduce.

o1s1n

More PS2 bad luck for me this evening!

Finally got my logitech PS2 controller, feels absolutely amazing, sticks are still super tight - I press X, it sticks.

'Oh Damn'

That annoying button stick where it kind of clips the edge of the enclosure and doesn't pop back out.

So yep, yet again I see myself opening another ps2 controller - this time for something I just spent 40 or so euro on.

The rubber contact under the X button is worn out. I shifted it around so it's now so the dodgy rubber (!) is under triangle. Put it back together and it's working, THANK ****!

Managed to accidentally disconnect one of the vibration solder points so it doesn't vibrate anymore - but to be honest after my last PS2 controller fiasco, I'm just happy to have it back together at this point and functioning. Was an absolute pain in the tits and I'm lucky it actually works at all. The rubber underneath the pads has these insanely finnicky little tips that have to fit into holes on the PCB that would drive you to drink.

On a side note, my PS2 HDD has also stopped detecting this evening. I also tried reconnecting it a few times but no joy as of yet.

Time to pick up an SATA network adapter methinks.

On a postive note, last night I was working on a bit of an airsoft project and installed a good few mods and upgrades inside my L96. Tested it this morning and it works amazingly.

It has absolutely zero to do with retrogaming however I just want to put it out there that I'm not completely technically incompetent :pac:.

The Last Bandit

o1s1n wrote: »

It has absolutely zero to do with retrogaming however I just want to put it out there that I'm not completely technically incompetent :pac:.

I know many who've made a career out of being technically incompetent

o1s1n

Seems like I can't play a game without having to disassemble something first!

Went to have a Shenmue 2 session this evening and my new Dreamcast kept resetting to the boot logo. Happened mid game and I lost a good 30 minutes of playtime.

Luckily I had the exact same issue with my old Dreamcast two weeks ago so knew straight away it was a power issue. (If not I'd have assumed it was a dodgy SD card and probably would have went down a rabbit hole to no fix!)

Cracked her open, took the internal PSU out, isopropyl-ed the pins, applied a bit of pressure to them so they'd make better contact with the PSU - back together now and works perfectly. Two hours straight of Shenmue with no resets.

You'd think someone selling Dreamcast's on eBay with GDEmu boards installed would have done this fix on them too, it's literally a five minute job!

o1s1n

Popped a new rechargable battery in the Dreamcast this evening, seems to be holding the date and time so far.

It's weird, I only actually got a Dreamcast around 2006-2007, so setting the clock and date had always been part of playing the system.

It's odd having it switch on and boot straight to a game!