Modding Genesis 3 system for S-Video - help?

[Sylentwulf]

OK, I've looked at this site, which is the only one I can find of any help
http://www.gamesx.com/rgbadd/genesis3.htm

But none of that makes a damn bit of sense to me, I don't read electrical diagrams and couldn't tell you what any of those squiggles mean any more than I can read russian.

Does anyone have PICTURES of whta I need to do and where? Or a clearer explanation in dumbed down english?

[InsaneDavid]

Don't have pictures as I don't care for S-Video mods myself (although I would love for Anthony1 to put his money where his mouth is and post a picture of this mod completed, but that's another story) but I can help you out. Squiggly lines are resistors, 75 ohm in this case, other symbol is a capacitor.

Resistor color codes (http://engr.astate.edu/circuits/resistor-code1.jpg) - you need two that are black, violet, green, black. This is a capacitor (http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/camera-flash-5.jpg), you need two at 220 microfarads, that's the little uF symbol. Negative pin on a capacitor is denoted by the chain of - symbols that run down one side. Here's the layout for an S-Video type connector (http://www.gamesx.com/hwb/co_SVideo.html), connect the resistor and capacitor leads to the pins described in the mod directions.

And if you find resistor color code hard to remember...

Bad - Black - 0
Boys - Brown - 1
Rape - Red - 2
Our - Orange - 3
Young - Yellow - 4
Girls - Green - 5
But - Blue - 6
Violet - Violet - 7
Gives - Grey - 8
Willingly - White - 9

...I guess if someone finds that grossly offensive then A) they've never taken any kind of electronics training and B) I'll remove it later tonight when I'm back.

I didn't read over the mod so there may be more to it as I need to leave right now but hope that helps. Good luck.

[Sylentwulf]

Colorblind, so the chart won't help :) I went to radioshack and bought the resistors, I pulled the caps off a broken cd player.

So, I solder either end of the res to the onboard chip, then the other end to the pos leg of the cap, then the neg end of the cap to the svideo jack?

[XianXi]

Colorblind, so the chart won't help :) I went to radioshack and bought the resistors, I pulled the caps off a broken cd player.

So, I solder either end of the res to the onboard chip, then the other end to the pos leg of the cap, then the neg end of the cap to the svideo jack?

I hope you are a skilled solderer. The easier way to do it is to use Kynar wire which looks like wrapping wire but is coated so you can solder it.

When I did mine I created a small PCB to hold the components and I just soldered the inputs and outputs.


http://img423.imageshack.us/img423/2487/rgbsvid4iq.th.jpg (http://img423.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rgbsvid4iq.jpg)

http://img423.imageshack.us/img423/6852/videoboard5uk.th.jpg (http://img423.imageshack.us/my.php?image=videoboard5uk.jpg)

[Sylentwulf]

I SUCK at soldering actually.

Here we are (Big pics, sorry forgot to scale them down, wifes cam)

http://www.ElectricQuarter.com/subimage/genny1.JPG
http://www.ElectricQuarter.com/subimage/genny2.JPG
http://www.ElectricQuarter.com/subimage/genny6.JPG

Obviously it's not cleaned up and put back together yet, but you get the idea. Here's the problem. The picture comes up fine, everything works, it looks like CRAP. It looks VERY VERY muddy and washed out, like the brightness is turned way down, but the picture is turned way up (I guess).

The second pic is really fuzzy, but I checked with a magnifying glass, nothing is touching anything it shouldn't be.

I used 2 150ohm resistors because that's all radio shack had, the guy was great, and gave them to me for free and tested them with a multimeter before I left, and it was indeed 75 ohms connected (75.5 I think).

[XianXi]

where's your ground for your s-vid?

All I see on your connector is the Chrominance line and the Luminance line and no ground.

[Sylentwulf]

Noone told me to hookup a ground, so I didn't :P

Should I just connect the 2 ground wires to the huge metal RF shield plate somewhere?

[XianXi]

Noone told me to hookup a ground, so I didn't :P

Should I just connect the 2 ground wires to the huge metal RF shield plate somewhere?

This is the pinout:

http://www.gamesx.com/hwb/co_SVideo.html

To make your picture bighter use lower value resistors.

[Sylentwulf]

Yeah, I had the pinout, but what do I coonnect pin 1+2 to, just a screw somewhere in the case?

I had a feeling it was the resistors, I'll have to pick up a couple 75's tomorrow.

[XianXi]

Also you might have the lines reversed. Try reversing them first before buying new resistors.

[Sylentwulf]

Also you might have the lines reversed. Try reversing them first before buying new resistors.

I tried that a couple times, when I switch them, I essentially get no picture at all (a few very faint wavy lines, then the tv says "no signal")

[XianXi]

Also you might have the lines reversed. Try reversing them first before buying new resistors.

I tried that a couple times, when I switch them, I essentially get no picture at all (a few very faint wavy lines, then the tv says "no signal")

Then it looks like you need to hook up the ground pins and after that if it is still washy get some different resistors.

[Sylentwulf]

Yeah, I tried the grouns, exact same thing. I suppose it could even be the caps, since I pulled them out of an old nonworking cd player, but the look fine to me. Not like it's too expensive to pick up some new parts for it.

[XianXi]

Yeah, I tried the grouns, exact same thing. I suppose it could even be the caps, since I pulled them out of an old nonworking cd player, but the look fine to me. Not like it's too expensive to pick up some new parts for it.

The caps could possible be dried out, use new ones. I never use parts off of anything, I always go new to eliminate these variables. The caps I used were 16v 220uf caps.

Let me know how it goes.

Also is the quality of the s-vid cable alone good?

[Sylentwulf]

LOL, I had the whole system put back together with the video working, game in, controller hooked up before I even realized I hadn't done the audio yet :P Seems it WAS the caps that were the problem.
XianXi - You have a PM :)

[s1lence]

Thanks for bumping this thread up, I'm looking at going the same thing to a model 3 but I was in the same boat. Now I know what to do. :D

[Sylentwulf]

Ya, so if anyone has a link to how to mod a genesis 3 for stereo audio output, that'd be great :)

[Sylentwulf]

Wanted to do a final bump on this for future searches, etc..



For the stereo you can go off the AV pin out. If you flip the board over you will see something like this:

00 00 00
0000000

Stereo L and R are the first 2 on the bottom row on the left."


Worked perfectly, add a full stick of hot glue all over the place to keep it steady, and we're good to go :)