Reputable places/people installing S-Video,etc on Duo's?

[MrFulci]

It's pretty easy to have a Neo Geo, Sega Genesis, Sega Master System, Atari 2600, etc modded with S-Video. I know of at least 2 different sources for each of those systems.

I would really like to have S-Video on my Duo-R, however I'm not about to tackle it myself and foul something up. The Duo isn't as cheap as a genesis!

Anyplace else offer this S-Video mod? I asked Old School Gamer (Canada) about the mod, they said they only install region switches on those systems. D-Lite I've contact about 3 times the past 9-12 months. So far, every 3-4 months I send him an e-mail asking him if he is performing this mod. No response so far, though I did just send out another e-mail today, perhaps that will receive a reply...

Looking for someone to point me in the right direction.

[grahf]

The information is now out there to do it yourself, but I know most people lack the equipment and skill to do it.

D-lite seems to be MIA for a while now unfortunatly. If there really isnt any place left, I may start offering to build circuits/mod peoples systems.

[nat]

My biggest fear in sending my system away to be handled by someone else is not so much that they will screw something up or that it will get damaged in shipping, but that they will not send me my own system back again. I always kind of kept this to myself as an irrational paranoid fear, but recently I read in a forum here it actually happened to someone (nod?)!!

Regardless of whether or not the unit they send back to me is the exact same model, swapping decks on you without your knowledge is just plain immoral. Not to mention there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for someone to do that unless they have ulterior motives. What if the "replacement" deck has a small malfunction your old one didn't? One you might not notice right away? Like the SRAM that won't hold it's memory? Or a laser that's on it's way out?

For this reason I will never send my system away to be modded by anyone.

[grahf]

That is a pretty shitty business practice.

[MrFulci]

Rather than search for it, what exactly happened with nod?

I understand there are chances things can happen, which is why I was looking for reputable places. D-Lite, I've read no complaints about his work, other than one on the this board recently about an ietm being damaged during shipping.

Old School Gamer, I've read no complaints either.

When I was searching around I noticed a poster on neo-geo.com who is doing many, many mods for about 6 different systems, however PC Engine isn't one of them. He also has a lot of good refferals.

Shipping isn't much of an issue for me, as I would ask the person sending the item back to me to reuse my shipping materials (bubble wrap and box). If that person wraps it, the same way I did, and damage happens, not their fault. I would want them to ship it with insurance and delivery confirmation, and I would pay that.

I have other genesis decks aroudn here, sometime I will attempt a mod on one of those, that way if things go awry I'm only out $20.

With The PC Engine Duo-R I'm looking for someone who has done this a few times, and knows what they are doing.


grahf,

Any pictures of your finished system? I'm curious to know what the exterior looks like, where you placed the jacks and such. I've seend pics fo the interior, that's about it.

If D-Lite doesn't get back to me in a week or two, and you're feeling up to it, I may work out somethign with you on the condition that if you melt my Duo-R you provide a replacement, hahaha.

If anyone else is in touch with D-Lite, please let him know I've been waiting a while and I've been really looking forward to an S-Video mod, however I can't wait anotehr year, hah!

[grahf]

grahf,
Any pictures of your finished system? I'm curious to know what the exterior looks like, where you placed the jacks and such. I've seend pics fo the interior, that's about it.

If D-Lite doesn't get back to me in a week or two, and you're feeling up to it, I may work out somethign with you on the condition that if you melt my Duo-R you provide a replacement, hahaha.

If anyone else is in touch with D-Lite, please let him know I've been waiting a while and I've been really looking forward to an S-Video mod, however I can't wait anotehr year, hah!

I found these really cool flush mount svideo jacks when I was doing mine. They are a little more pricey than the regular nut-mount jacks that you find, but its way cleaner. Plus you never have to worry about the nut coming off the back of your svideo jack.  Another option (I probably should have done mine this way), is to remove the original din-5 plug and install a din-8. With the right din-8 you will have backwards compatability with the original A/V plug, plus you can solder up a din-8 cable that has audio and svideo in one cord, instead of two.

[MrFulci]

Nice, graah. Are the screws the only thing holding the S-Video jack in place?

So, you are pumping the audio through the din-5, and the video through the S-video? Are there L/R audio jacks on there, somewhere?

[grahf]

The screws go about 1.5cm into the jack, so its 100% sturdy. Also, you cant see from the picture but the plug part protrudes out a few mm, so it sits into the hole I made in the case. The jack is made by Calrad, and can be bought from www.minute-man.com among other places. I was going to add two rca audio jacks so I didnt have to waste the original a/v cable just for audio. Instead, I just used a din-5 solder plug and made up an audio-only cable.

[MrFulci]

grahf,

Your Duo-R functions with the S-video, no problems with it catching fire or anything, right?

I have 2 possibilities at the moment in getting this mod done. One is researching, the other has yet to get back to me.

grahf, if neither person is wiling to mod my Duo-R, would you be interested in making some $$$?

A request I would have is that it has it's own L/R audio jacks. If possible a composite video to go along with the S-Video would be nice. Is this something you could do?

[grahf]

Haha, of course it hasnt caught fire yet .
At the moment I have enough components on hand to make 1, maybe 2 encoder circuits EXCEPT for the actual cxa1645. Im waiting to hear back from a place about buying a small lot of them. Adding the jacks and installing the circuit is the easy part. Adding standard colored rca jacks is trivial.

Tell you what, Im going to get supplies together and build some more circuits. I'll let you know when that time comes. Hopefully sometime over the next few weeks, time permitting.

[SNKNostalgia]

Hey Grahf, I would be more than happy to pay you for a S-video circuit board ready to go any day when get up and running some time. I would like to maybe try it myself first since I have 3 dead Playstation model 1 systems for CXA chips and can buy the rest at the local electronics store.

Also, I got a question on capacitors for the Turbo Duo US I own. I replaced most of the capacitors for the sound fix and now it works 100% perfect. How do the capacitors with the weird different values go with uf and volts? For example: 40 16s 20B, 22 6A 22M, or 100 6A 2NA. I assume the first 2 values will always be uf then volts but not so sure as the values will seem right on the second and third numbers at times.

[grahf]

You guys will have to be patient with me, but i'm in the process of designing and having some professional style PCBs produced. I think this is the best way. I'm also looking into using the CXA2075 encoder instead of the CXA1645. Its a drop in replacement with fewer external components required, and is generally considered a better chip in all areas except minutely higher power consumption.

SNKNostalgia, yes the first two values are usually uf(pf, etc), and volts. On a lot of caps thats all that is marked. Anything after that is usually a tolerance rating (either electrical tolerance, or sometimes thermal tolerance). It really depends on the manufacturer though. Just check the datasheets if you can.

[MrFulci]

Wow, sounds nice grahf!

So, I take it you are serious about doing at least a few S-Video mods?

No one has replied to my requests (so far) about the PCE Duo-R S-video mod, so there is a good chacne I will be going to you.

I'll go over more details as to what I'd like in a later e-mail with you, when you're ready to mod my machine. Though, what's most important to me:

- S-Video jack
- L/R audio jacks

External jacks would be good. A Composite video jack would be nice to have, though not absolutely needed.

grahf, are you handy with region switches also?? Not as important as S-Video to me, though if the price is right I'd ask you to rig that as well


Keep us updated with your progress!

[grahf]

Yeah, i'm certainly going to be doing them. I've ordered enough parts to built at least 10 encoder circuits. Region mods are no problem to do. I'd have to order a few switches if people wanted it done.

I dont know exactly what I will charge for this work, but I think what D-Lite charged when he was still around was pretty fair. I have to go over all the part costs and such still.

[MrFulci]

Any idea when you will be ready to accept machines?

Next week? The following week?