FS\FA: Silver modded SNES

[Lord_Magus]

Hi all, some of you have seen this pop up in various "Modded Consoles" threads from time to time and have already expressed interested in it, but I thought I should make a post to let everyone know that I have 6 of these babies available, and I'm looking to sell them over the course of the next 2 weeks.

I'm looking to sell these as soon as possible, due to the fact that I will soon be leaving the country to move to Japan, and as you would imagine I won't be able to take these with me :) I'm open to offers as well, but as it stands the current price is set to AU$130 (this is approx ~US$101 or ~GBP52, according to xe.com) plus shipping. Shipping within Australia is set to AU$10 for regular, and AU$20 for express - international shipping is unfortunately a little higher, at AU$60 (approx ~US$47 or ~GBP24) for regular airmail. Also, please note that the above price includes the console ONLY, without cables, accessories or joypads. I'm sorry about this, but I have run out of SNES accessories at the moment :embarrassed:

I've currently set up an ebay auction for one of the 6 consoles, which can be found here (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=006&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&viewitem=&item=160068439132&rd=1&rd=1).

Other than the obvious color mods, the console has also been modified to play imports (US\JAP NTSC titles), and as you can see from the attached photos, the cartridge port has also been widened to fit the more blocky US carts as well as the standard PAL\JAP carts. There are two switches at the back of the console (not shown, but can provide additional photos if needed), which control the lockout chip (enable\disable import play), and another one which allows to interchange the output frequency between 50Hz<->60Hz.

In practice, this means that you can play nearly all SNES games (the only ones I know that you can't play are Mario RPG and Strret Fighter Alpha 2), and also means that PAL gamers can finally play all those "crippled" PAL releases at full-screen and full-speed. Again, I'm assuming most of you are familiar with this, but if you are unsure about some of the terminology mentioned here, please let me know and I will happily provide more information :)

Cheers,
Harry

EDIT: Damn, I just thought of this right after I hit the submit button... Anyway, I've been looking to buy some of the following DS games for a while now, so if anyone is interested in a silver SNES, I would happily accept some of these as a "partial payment" (i.e. deduct the value of the game from the total price of the SNES):

Touch Detective
Contact
Trauma Center
Phoenix Wright
Elite Beat Agents
Electroplankton
Deep Labyrinth
Yoshis Island
Animal Crossing
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin

Thanks! :)

[Lord_Magus]

bump, and happy new year to all :)

[agbulls]

Can you give us a little tutorial on how you painted it? My Super Fami is pretty discolored. :)

[Lord_Magus]

bump again. All of the SNESs are still available and I'm currently considering all (reasonable) offers, so PM me if you're interested and we'll work something out :)


Can you give us a little tutorial on how you painted it? My Super Fami is pretty discolored. :)

Sure! :)

First of all, you'll need to get some special SNES bits to open the casing and separate the different plastic parts you'll be painting - don't even consider painting the SNES as one piece, as I can guaranteee you'll get a very ugly result. Search for "SNES bit" on ebay, and you'll probably find a few going for around $5 each.

Once you've opened the case and decided which plastic part you'll be starting with, you'll need to make sure the surface is absolutely clean before painting it. You can use a wet sponge for this, and add a little soap or metholated spirits, depending on how dirty it is. Once clean, if you notice any dints or scratches on the plastic, you might want to use some fine sandpaper(I use grade 400) to smooth them out a bit. (DON'T use very coarse sandpaper, as although it takes care of the scratches\dints much faster, it will most likely leave you with several hairline scratches which will be visible when you actually paint it).

Once the surface is clean, get a few high quality cans of your preferred color. It is absolutely crucial that you don't skimp out on the quality of the paint, as lower quality ones may be cheaper, but will fade much quicker, be more prone to dust and dirt, fingerprint marks etc. I pay around $10 per can for mine, but the end result is very "professional" and well worth the extra penny. I don't know what brands are available in your area, but if you go to any good automotive dealer you should be able to find something to do the trick.

Now, when spraying, you'll want to make sure you keep the can a fair distance away from the plastic - too close and it will leave ripples, too far away and you'll end up wasting the paint for no reason. Different countries use different metric systems, so I'll use a universal measurment and suggest you go for the distance of around 1.5 SNES controllers :)

Try not to rush it, and take your time to paint it properly. Don't try and paint it using only a single continuous spray; instead, spray the surface in short separate bursts. The way I do it is as follows:

Point the nozzle a little to the right, away from the surface you want to paint.
Then, press the nozzle, spray the surface with a swift right-to-left motion, and let go.
Then do the same from left to right.
Repeat until you see a nice faint layer of paint formed on the surface.

This way you apply the paint in small "layers"- remember that short, quick movements are the key here. When you see that you have covered the whole surface with a faint layer of color, take a break and let it dry. After a few minutes, apply another pass, and repeat until you get a nice smooth finish. I usually do around 2-3 passes until the color is satisfactory, but remember, let the paint dry between passes! If you gather too much paint at one spot, things can get real ugly real quickly :)

...and that's about it! I'm sure there are several other (better?) ways to go about painting a console, but the above method has worked fine for me so far. Oh, and if you do end up painting your SNES anytime soon, let us know how it goes (and remember to post some pics!) :)

[Lord_Magus]

b u m p

[agbulls]

Magnus, thanks for the great tutorial. I just don't know if it is worth de-valuing the Super Fami as it is. However, I don't plan on selling it anytime soon. Hmmmm...

[rhiohki]

I may consider this. I was wondering if you knew anywhere to get an actual SCART RGB cable without paying ridiculous prices? I have a multi-system TV that has an RGB input in SCART form

[Lord_Magus]

bump again... All of these are still available, make an offer!

...and rhiohki, I'm not sure what the best place to get RGB cables is - maybe ebay?