Have you been to the Workshop? I would love to have a professionally-made VB head mounting solution. What kind of a price-point are we looking at? If you put it on Kickstarter (etc.) could you bring the price down any by, say, buying in bulk?
@Dreammary: Looks? Srsly? 😛 If someone wants to watch you play VB, they have bigger problems than having to look at an ugly head-strap 😉
Lee Chapman wrote:
Thanks. What’s a ball park figure for that kind of work?
I only know what I charge, so you’ll have to contact TheForce81 to find out his pricing scheme. I’m sure you’ll find it very affordable, though, given what you’re likely to spend on the unit itself.
Lee Chapman wrote:
Wanted it to be new old stock as obviously no chance of cracked stands or viewer image problems.
The stand will probably be in good condition, but don’t bet on the displays being in perfect working order, even on an NRFB unit. The degradation isn’t caused by use, but by time. Even if they do work right off the bat, you’ll probably want to have them soldered to prevent them going bad in the future. When you find one, I suggest you contact TheForce81 and have it done.
Sounds like a standard cable failure. Soldering should fix it. If you live in the Americas, I can help you. If you live in Europe, TheForce81 is your man. Anywhere else: contact us both and get postage quotes.
thunderstruck wrote:
I use a free library that allows the conversion from 2D to 3D images using depth maps.
I’m looking forward to getting more info on that. I tried to find it, to no avail…
I hope I can find the time to try this demo, soon. Does anyone here in North America want to become an apprentice VB display repair technician? (he said, only half-jokingly) 😉
DogP wrote:
Ha… nice! Maybe you could use some flexible material like Ninjaflex to make it more comfortable… or put some foam/cloth around the edge. Nice design either way though.
DogP
That was my first thought, too: maybe glue some kind of foam pipe insulation or tubular weather-strip over the edge for a cushion. You might also try printing it with a thicker edge, to distribute the force over a wider area.
I’m also curious about internal reflections. If they’re a problem, a light sanding and/or some matte spray would probably fix it.
Nice bit of sleuthing there, DogP! It’s barely tested (the ROM booted to the warning screen, but I didn’t go past it), so let me know if it doesn’t fix the problem, or if it causes other problems. I added the needed register init to the most obvious place, so it should be fine.
I believe Wyndcrosser was talking about this thread. Is this the actual VB you’re having trouble with? Back then, I also thought it might be a very specialized cable glitch problem, but that’s been eliminated, obviously.
It has to be something like Greg mentioned; damage related to video RAM or the VIP itself. However, rather than actual damaged parts, it could be as simple as a short between some of the upper address lines, which would cause only certain areas of memory to be affected. Maybe a thorough wash with IPA (isopropyl alcohol) and/or ultrasonic vibration, followed by drying in a hot oven (with gradual warm-up and cool-down to prevent thermal shock to the parts), would solve it.
They specifically mention using custom-molded cart shells, rather than donors, which makes me wonder about two things:
1. Unless they’re buying the shells from someone who already has the tooling, $10,000 seems low for the shells.
2. How are they planning to get around the CIC lockout? Even if there’s still a source for counterfeit chips, wouldn’t said chips be illegal (under DMCA and various other laws)?
Other than half-formed “pie-in-the-sky” ideas for add-on hardware, the only real idea I had for them is as address decoders to allow lots of small, cheap SRAMs and a small flash boot-loader to coexist on the ROM bus, to allow downloading code through the link port and shorter development cycles.
I didn’t even look through the datasheet enough yet to know they were OTP. That’s kind of a bummer, but if you prototype what you’re doing with discrete logic, it shouldn’t be too hard to convert stuff to greenpaks on the first try (after you study their quirks). I wonder if anyone has simulation software/SPICE models for them, yet.
If your MinGW installation includes the MSYS bash terminal, you should be able to follow the steps in this post, perhaps with a few minor modifications depending on whether you get errors and what they are.
The rest of that thread contains a lot of other information that might also be of use.
I don’t recall where I got the actual patches I used, but they’re in an archive attached to one of the gcc4-related threads, so the search function should get you there fairly quickly.
RunnerPack wrote:
somewhere between 6 and 15 volts (lower is better)
Just curious… where did you get 15V as an upper limit? The bottom of the VB system specifies 6V to 13V.
Actually, that was just from memory, and I obviously got it a bit wrong 😛
I would go with what is printed on the VB, obviously.
Also, it has a switching regulator, so the efficiency will be relatively flat across the input voltage (i.e. you need about twice the current at 6V than you do at 12V).
That’s why I specified the power at 4.5W, which I took from the wall-wart on my Performance adapter.
And while the current requirements depend on what is shown on the screen, the volume of the audio, etc… on the Galactic Pinball title screen, I just measured approximately 250mA @ 6V and 130mA @ 12V. So you can probably get away with a much smaller adapter than the SNES one (10V 850mA).
DogP
It’s good to have some actual numbers, even if they’re only typical, rather than absolute maximum. Still, like I said, it’s better to err on the side of more current capacity, than less (as long as you don’t go overboard).
Wyndcrosser wrote:
Trying to identify what size power socket I would need for building a VB to SNES controller
My plan is VB controller cable to a RadioShack project box that will house the snes port and power socket.
I should only need to solder the cables like mentioned a few posts above, correct? and then solder Power and one ground to the power socket, correct? No need for a controller?
This will be used for HF demo and games like Bound High.
The size and shape of the socket you use is determined by the plug on your power supply – they have to match. The 2.1×5.5mm barrel jack/plug is a very common size. Also, be sure your supply is DC, somewhere between 6 and 15 volts (lower is better) and can supply at least 4.5W (e.g. 500mA at 9V), higher current is okay, but you shouldn’t use too high a supply current, for safety’s sake. As a general guideline, limit it to 1A (1000mA) or less.
As for wiring, you’ll want to connect the positive pin of the power socket (usually the tip or center, but again, check your power source to be sure) to a switch, and then connect the other pin of the switch to the battery input of the VB. You might want to include a hefty diode in series, to prevent reverse polarity.
Connect the other pin of the power socket (ground, 0V, or -; usually the outside of the plug) to the ground pins on both the VB and SNES pad. Everything else is just connecting the same signals together 1:1.
None of us want you to hurt your VB (or yourself!) so, if you are unsure of anything, come back and ask.
Ah, yeah, I’d seen that, but I didn’t remember Roli comparing my work to someone else’s.
As for the screwdriver, there’s a high-quality, relatively inexpensive one made by Silverhill Tools that is almost a perfect fit for the VB (it could stand to be a few mms longer, but it works as-is). You can get it from eBay, or, if you also want one for opening cartridges, you can buy a set of two from Amazon.
I’m not affiliated with either of those sellers or Silverhill themselves, I’m just a satisfied customer 😉
Feel free to look around using those search terms, and if you find a cheaper source, let us know.
