Phantoon
I cuss you bad
Thursday. The waiting is killing me. I don't want to open and close it more than I have to. The screen is gorgeous with the retro pixel option, and being able to adjust the position is fantastic.
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Hardware Mods - the thread of "wtf is shorting out this time?!"
I meant to say, this is super cool and I enjoy reading about it, because it wasn't something I was even aware could be done.
One of these days, I'll attempt to hack my Switch. Probably whenever the next system comes out, like I did with Wii U.
Okay, so I'm all jazzed about Ogre Battle 64 right now but my N64's S-video cable is practically broken. I found out I have a compatible S/N with one of the cheaper & more straight-forward RGB solutions, so I took this as an opportunity to order a board from Voultar: about 3-4 wires to solder from modboard to PCB, and another 12 prongs from the PCB to the modboard itself. I am excited, I think it'll work with my SNES scart cable as it's CSYNC, but that'll come later.
Can anybody recommend a fine-tip soldering iron for this sort of thing? I have a really old one but I don't think I took the best care of the tips, so I am willing to just get a new one. Also, I'll need the 4.5m Nintendo security bit. I may just order from StoneAge Gamer if I get an EverDrive 64 from them?
I'll def let y'all know how it goes. Link to the board below:
Can anybody recommend a fine-tip soldering iron for this sort of thing? I have a really old one but I don't think I took the best care of the tips, so I am willing to just get a new one. Also, I'll need the 4.5m Nintendo security bit. I may just order from StoneAge Gamer if I get an EverDrive 64 from them?
I'll def let y'all know how it goes. Link to the board below:
This is the soldering iron I use, and these are the tips I bought that work with it. There's probably cheaper options (in fact, I know from my eBay history that the iron was about $45 when I bought it last year, and the tips $10, so they've gone up in price a bit)! They work great imo, I had a cheapo $15 soldering iron with a non-replaceable tip, and it was quite difficult to use since it was too big.
Kazin's recommendation is a good one, but you definitely don't want to get a super cheap iron. They'll have poor temperature regulation and may not even stay hot between solder joints. If you plan to be soldering fairly regularly, the Hakko FX888D is a good upgrade choice from the X-Tronic. I've been using a good old Weller for 10-ish years, but I think those are a bit pricier. In any case, you'll want to be using a fine conical tip (as opposed to a wedge). If you don't have a ton of soldering experience, the important difference to keep in mind is that the heat comes from the sides of the cone, not the pointed tip.
Whichever one you end up going with, make sure you get a brass sponge to clean the tip between joints. Don't bother with a regular sponge; you'll need to keep it wet, which means it'll also lower the temperature of your iron every time you wipe it. With a brass sponge you can just jab your iron into the thing and happily keep working.
The subtext here is that I really like soldering.
Whichever one you end up going with, make sure you get a brass sponge to clean the tip between joints. Don't bother with a regular sponge; you'll need to keep it wet, which means it'll also lower the temperature of your iron every time you wipe it. With a brass sponge you can just jab your iron into the thing and happily keep working.
The subtext here is that I really like soldering.
It's fun, isn't it? It's a very simple pleasure, but it's very satisfying.
I need some good flux that preferably isn't expensive - any good sources for it? I have like a flux... marker thing that does the job, but is kind of a pain to use.
If your iron is clean and hot enough, and you're not keeping it on your joints for longer than it needs to be, you shouldn't have to worry about cold joints. You can also clean the parts/pads you're soldering with isopropyl alcohol beforehand if you're worried about that.
Also, if you're using rosin-core solder, it's already got the flux baked in! It's pretty common so you may have already been doing it without realizing. (Full disclosure: I use rosin-core solder, and I should've mentioned that in my last post. I guess what I meant was "I've never needed extra flux".)
Also, if you're using rosin-core solder, it's already got the flux baked in! It's pretty common so you may have already been doing it without realizing. (Full disclosure: I use rosin-core solder, and I should've mentioned that in my last post. I guess what I meant was "I've never needed extra flux".)
Sarge
hardcore retro gamin'
Yeah, I'm using solder that has flux already as well. No issues (so far). I don't do enough projects, though. I should get off my butt and fix a few of these systems I've got laying around (like my 3DO that needs a recap, or my childhood NES that's showing video degradation issues).
Phantoon
I cuss you bad
As I understand it, flux is important to get proper wetting, mechanical strength and stop the joints from having a higher resistance than they should. While solder does generally have a flux core that flux boils off really quickly so you need extra flux for proper wetting. You'll see that unless you're super fast with the iron your solder will be a dull grey. That's oxidisation, solder should be shiny.
With all of that said, I haven't bought any flux yet either, but if I'm doing a proper soldering project I know I'm going to have to.
With all of that said, I haven't bought any flux yet either, but if I'm doing a proper soldering project I know I'm going to have to.
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That sounds like a recipe for bridged pins if you ask me. I would not recommend that method!Actually, it will likely still be useful. I've seen some folks drown surface mount pins in flux and managed to solder them with an iron in one go. I can't do that.Or maybe I could if I had flux on hand like they did.
That's all true, but there's enough flux in your solder to accomplish all of those things without needing to add more. And it's supposed to boil off; once the joint has been made, the flux isn't needed anymore. I've been building electronics projects for 11 years and I've never had an issue. If you're getting oxidation on your solder joints, more likely the issue is that you're keeping the iron on the joints for too long. There could be a few reasons for that -- the tip of your iron might not be clean and that could prevent proper heat transfer, or maybe the parts you're trying to join are dirty and that's preventing solder flow. But you never want to keep your iron on a joint for longer than the few seconds it takes for the solder to melt, and pretty much all modern solder/circuit boards are designed to be easy to work with. If I screw something up in a project, the issue is pretty much always something with my soldering technique.
I hope I'm not coming off as preachy or defensive, and I apologize if I am. Not my intent at all! This stuff was important to the people who taught me, and I want to keep their knowledge around.
Was bored last night (because my Wonderswan flash cart is still not here, dangit) so I put together this Rips v4 DMG IPS:
It has the "retro pixel" effect, which puts a line between every side of every pixel, mimicking the original Gameboy screen. I had to install this in my old DMG because I'd been playing whack-a-mole with vertical lines on the original backlight, which was driving me mad. Installing this meant I had to desolder the bivert chip I'd installed, which was actually very easy because I used a solder sucker for the first time, and it worked like a charm. Those things are cool.
The lens is from Aliexpress - here - which I'd ordered before the actual screen because I knew it'd take forever to get here, and I wanted a white lens rather than the grey one that comes with the kit.
Shell modification was easy, as these things go - you do have to widen all four sides of the screen hole, fwiw. They're not very clear about that. Otherwise, it's a pretty easy install, though because of those damned vertical lines, my battery compartment screw holes are pretty loose - I'd opened the thing up so many times that the console isn't closed as tightly as I'd like it to be, which is frustrating. But, I have a rechargeable USB-C battery in here now with a hole in the battery lid for charging, so hopefully I'll never have to open the thing up again.
Still messing around with the color values to get the perfect puke green. Hey @Phantoon, when you get a chance, could you post the black and white values from your screen? I overwrote the black and white color with the above attempt at puke green original DMG, and forgot to note what the color values were lol. I'm going to overwrite the ugly orange/pastel pink setting with black and white.
It has the "retro pixel" effect, which puts a line between every side of every pixel, mimicking the original Gameboy screen. I had to install this in my old DMG because I'd been playing whack-a-mole with vertical lines on the original backlight, which was driving me mad. Installing this meant I had to desolder the bivert chip I'd installed, which was actually very easy because I used a solder sucker for the first time, and it worked like a charm. Those things are cool.
The lens is from Aliexpress - here - which I'd ordered before the actual screen because I knew it'd take forever to get here, and I wanted a white lens rather than the grey one that comes with the kit.
Shell modification was easy, as these things go - you do have to widen all four sides of the screen hole, fwiw. They're not very clear about that. Otherwise, it's a pretty easy install, though because of those damned vertical lines, my battery compartment screw holes are pretty loose - I'd opened the thing up so many times that the console isn't closed as tightly as I'd like it to be, which is frustrating. But, I have a rechargeable USB-C battery in here now with a hole in the battery lid for charging, so hopefully I'll never have to open the thing up again.
Still messing around with the color values to get the perfect puke green. Hey @Phantoon, when you get a chance, could you post the black and white values from your screen? I overwrote the black and white color with the above attempt at puke green original DMG, and forgot to note what the color values were lol. I'm going to overwrite the ugly orange/pastel pink setting with black and white.
First, thank you for all of the recommendations! I didn't get the fancy soldering station yet but if I decide to dive into any of these fancy IPS mods or fix my DSi LL or whatever, I'll definitely get it. For now I just used a cheap 15W iron, some old rosin-core solder I had around, and a silly amount of time to install the N64 RGB amp board!
It was 12 pins and 3 wires (I have an older model that does its own csync buffering to the A/V so I actually had a bit less to do than others). It took hours because I couldn't get the Green to come though after my initial installation, only Red and Blue: I was super worried I messed up the VIA on the PCB for that connection, but in fact it was one of the twelve pins that the chip installs directly on top of. I thought my soldering looked good since it was the easier part of the installation; But, after like a bajillion retries on the chip to PCB wire for Green I pulled up a diagram of the amp, noted the pin, and figured "maybe this is the issue". And it was! I'm proud I got it to work but I'm not gonna show a pic because I don't want anybody to die from shock at the soldering job. Definitely was frustrated for a while but w/e. It turns on and it's sending RGB via SCART now so I can enjoy some Wave Race again.
Anyway I sure am glad it works lol.
It was 12 pins and 3 wires (I have an older model that does its own csync buffering to the A/V so I actually had a bit less to do than others). It took hours because I couldn't get the Green to come though after my initial installation, only Red and Blue: I was super worried I messed up the VIA on the PCB for that connection, but in fact it was one of the twelve pins that the chip installs directly on top of. I thought my soldering looked good since it was the easier part of the installation; But, after like a bajillion retries on the chip to PCB wire for Green I pulled up a diagram of the amp, noted the pin, and figured "maybe this is the issue". And it was! I'm proud I got it to work but I'm not gonna show a pic because I don't want anybody to die from shock at the soldering job. Definitely was frustrated for a while but w/e. It turns on and it's sending RGB via SCART now so I can enjoy some Wave Race again.
Anyway I sure am glad it works lol.
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Congrats on the successful install! It's very satisfying fixing an issue like that. And it's okay if you don't post a picture of your soldering job, but you should see the mess going on in my Metroid themed GBA - that was one of my earliest soldering jobs, and it's comical how bad it was. Nothing to be ashamed of, though - it works!
IPS installed, flashcart otw!
Thank you, Kazin, for helping keep lookout! In the meantime, we have this to tide ourselves over:
Oh, no problem at all. I just don't want to be the only Wonderswan player here lol. Looks fantastic, enjoy!
do it do it DO IT
Phantoon
I cuss you bad
Stop it you
I'm already trying to decide what to mod next. Probably SP or my Color (I have two of each so I will leave one stock) or possibly the Neo Geo Pocket Color, although I like to keep a stock one and I'd be modding my only console
I don't need Wonderswan in this mix
I'm already trying to decide what to mod next. Probably SP or my Color (I have two of each so I will leave one stock) or possibly the Neo Geo Pocket Color, although I like to keep a stock one and I'd be modding my only console
I don't need Wonderswan in this mix