Another RGB SNES Mini

Nothing overly fancy here but I was happy with the results so I figured I would post it. I RGB Modded an SNES Mini today and added a power LED. Here are some Screenshots of the unit and how it looks going through my CVS287.

Nice. Textbook. Very clean.

I don't own a mini and still have never seen one in person. They weren't too popular in Canada, or at least in my area. I still can't get over how small those boards are.

Grambo wrote:

Nice. Textbook. Very clean.

I don't own a mini and still have never seen one in person. They weren't too popular in Canada, or at least in my area. I still can't get over how small those boards are.

Personally I like the look of the Super Famicom or PAL Super Nintendo but the SNES Mini and the One Chip SNES revision have a better PPU. They produce a much sharper image and the colors are a bit better. You can get these things for about $40-50 on eBay now in decent condition, well worth the money.

Yeah, I do prefer the look of the ones you've mentioned too. I want my collection to consist of 1st gen US consoles, cosmetically. My eventual plan is to stick a Mini board inside my existing original US shell. Even if it's ugly, it's still the one that's widely recognized

That's pretty low on my to-do list though.

I had one buddy say tapping rgb from the built in encoder gave him that annoying translucent bar in the middle of the screen. It seems to be luck of the draw which systems come with the translucent bar. I recommended that he tap the rgb + sync and the video encoder inputs instead of the outputs, wire up a ths7314 amp, and see how that looks. He said my idea works and fixed the translucent bar haha. My personal snes mini has a noticable translucent bar with the built in encoder. To fix my system I tapped rgb, sync, and the colour subcarrier inputs of the built in encoder, wired up a sony cxa2075 circuit and fed the inputs into it. Not only does the sony cxa2075 remove the translucent bar from the middle of the screen, it produces noticably sharper s-video than the encoder built into the snes mini. The cxa2075 will also amplify your rgb and output nicely amped rgb which again should be without that translucent bar. What you did here is the easier way and is okay if you only want to use rgb and are lucky enough to get a system without that pesky translucent bar.

I like the LED it's nice and small and not too bright.

I actually had the amp wired up on this SNES. So far out of the four minis I have modded 3 of them needed the amp and tap points from the RGB in. I got lucky with this one, it does not have the translucent bar. The picture did not look any better with the amp on this specific unit so I removed it. The LED is actually a super bright as hell 5mm blue LED. I just drilled out the dimple next to the ON imprint, plugged the hole with superglue to diffuse the light, then glued the LED in place.

Skips wrote:

I actually had the amp wired up on this SNES. So far out of the four minis I have modded 3 of them needed the amp and tap points from the RGB in. I got lucky with this one, it does not have the translucent bar. The picture did not look any better with the amp on this specific unit so I removed it. The LED is actually a super bright as hell 5mm blue LED. I just drilled out the dimple next to the ON imprint, plugged the hole with superglue to diffuse the light, then glued the LED in place.

That's good that you atleast know about the fix for the ones that have the translucent bar. Talking to tiido he says the translucent bar is because of just noisy power in the console leaking into the encoder. For some reason the cxa2075 doesn't get effected by this noisy power.

That's a 5mm 20mA LED? Wow. I bet the inside of your case is lit up good.

Did tiido say the noise is somehow induced in the console? Or is it just that the cxa2075 is less prone to incoming noisy DC?

If it's just noisy DC, a friend recently directed me to a source for quality, inexpensive power line filters: http://canada.newark.com/te-connectivity-corcom/10vr6/rfi-power-line-filter-10a-700ua/dp/52K3303
The 20A version of these filters are the same as the ones found in Furman line conditioners, apparently.

I haven't gotten around to building a conditioner yet, so I can't say this'll help for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if it would clear it up.

Drakon wrote:

Skips wrote:

I actually had the amp wired up on this SNES. So far out of the four minis I have modded 3 of them needed the amp and tap points from the RGB in. I got lucky with this one, it does not have the translucent bar. The picture did not look any better with the amp on this specific unit so I removed it. The LED is actually a super bright as hell 5mm blue LED. I just drilled out the dimple next to the ON imprint, plugged the hole with superglue to diffuse the light, then glued the LED in place.

That's good that you atleast know about the fix for the ones that have the translucent bar. Talking to tiido he says the translucent bar is because of just noisy power in the console leaking into the encoder. For some reason the cxa2075 doesn't get effected by this noisy power.

I wonder if adding a 2.5mm or 2.1 mm powerjack and powering with a straight 5v PSU would fix the problem on those then. I know the PSU's i use for the CMVS units are pretty low noise.

Grambo wrote:

That's a 5mm 20mA LED? Wow. I bet the inside of your case is lit up good.

Did tiido say the noise is somehow induced in the console? Or is it just that the cxa2075 is less prone to incoming noisy DC?

If it's just noisy DC, a friend recently directed me to a source for quality, inexpensive power line filters: http://canada.newark.com/te-connectivity-corcom/10vr6/rfi-power-line-filter-10a-700ua/dp/52K3303
The 20A version of these filters are the same as the ones found in Furman line conditioners, apparently.

I haven't gotten around to building a conditioner yet, so I can't say this'll help for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if it would clear it up.

The noise is induced by the pcb design. The cxa2075 is much less proned to it as I discovered, on the snes mini the 2075 gets rid of it completely. I wired up a cxa1645 to the same pcb and the translucent bar reappeared. It's not "noisy dc", the power is regulated, the problem is just the pcb design itself. Tiido cleaned up the problem on his snes by adding power decoupling capacitors all over the place.

Drakon wrote:

The noise is induced by the pcb design. The cxa2075 is much less proned to it as I discovered, on the snes mini the 2075 gets rid of it completely. I wired up a cxa1645 to the same pcb and the translucent bar reappeared. It's not "noisy dc", the power is regulated, the problem is just the pcb design itself. Tiido cleaned up the problem on his snes by adding power decoupling capacitors all over the place.

Ah, sadly, no amount of AC power conditioning is going to fix it then.

I'm somewhat suspicious that this is the same issue I'm facing with the YM3438 in my model 1 Genesis. https://16bitgamer.canadian-forum.com/t229p15-ym3438-in-a-model-1-genesis

Grambo wrote:

Drakon wrote:

The noise is induced by the pcb design. The cxa2075 is much less proned to it as I discovered, on the snes mini the 2075 gets rid of it completely. I wired up a cxa1645 to the same pcb and the translucent bar reappeared. It's not "noisy dc", the power is regulated, the problem is just the pcb design itself. Tiido cleaned up the problem on his snes by adding power decoupling capacitors all over the place.

Ah, sadly, no amount of AC power conditioning is going to fix it then.

I'm somewhat suspicious that this is the same issue I'm facing with the YM3438 in my model 1 Genesis. https://16bitgamer.canadian-forum.com/t229p15-ym3438-in-a-model-1-genesis

YM3438 in a model 1 isn't having power issues it's just the outputted audio needs a very tweaked circuit. It's a useless mod anyway the stand alone 3438 has a terrible quality built in dac.

Skips wrote:

Grambo wrote:

Nice. Textbook. Very clean.

I don't own a mini and still have never seen one in person. They weren't too popular in Canada, or at least in my area. I still can't get over how small those boards are.

Personally I like the look of the Super Famicom or PAL Super Nintendo but the SNES Mini and the One Chip SNES revision have a better PPU. They produce a much sharper image and the colors are a bit better. You can get these things for about $40-50 on eBay now in decent condition, well worth the money.

There are 1-chip super famicoms, and they are easy to identify. they say shvc-jpn-1 on the bottom label. regular ones dont.

I found one here.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321112550180?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

mvsfan wrote:

Skips wrote:

Grambo wrote:

Nice. Textbook. Very clean.

I don't own a mini and still have never seen one in person. They weren't too popular in Canada, or at least in my area. I still can't get over how small those boards are.

Personally I like the look of the Super Famicom or PAL Super Nintendo but the SNES Mini and the One Chip SNES revision have a better PPU. They produce a much sharper image and the colors are a bit better. You can get these things for about $40-50 on eBay now in decent condition, well worth the money.

There are 1-chip super famicoms, and they are easy to identify. they say shvc-jpn-1 on the bottom label. regular ones dont.

I found one here.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321112550180?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

Thanks a million man! I bought the system in the link just to test this.

Drakon wrote:

mvsfan wrote:

Skips wrote:

Grambo wrote:

Nice. Textbook. Very clean.

I don't own a mini and still have never seen one in person. They weren't too popular in Canada, or at least in my area. I still can't get over how small those boards are.

Personally I like the look of the Super Famicom or PAL Super Nintendo but the SNES Mini and the One Chip SNES revision have a better PPU. They produce a much sharper image and the colors are a bit better. You can get these things for about $40-50 on eBay now in decent condition, well worth the money.

There are 1-chip super famicoms, and they are easy to identify. they say shvc-jpn-1 on the bottom label. regular ones dont.

I found one here.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321112550180?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

Thanks a million man! I bought the system in the link just to test this.

sure. Take a look at one of the regular ones and they dont have it on that label.

I noticed this a while ago when i started trying to figure out how to find 1-chips.

I hope he didn't do a case swap haha.

I can confirm that these Famicoms are 1 chips. I just opened one up today. Doing an RGB Bypass mod on it now.

mvsfan wrote:

sure. Take a look at one of the regular ones and they dont have it on that label.

I noticed this a while ago when i started trying to figure out how to find 1-chips.

Just so everyone knows this super famicom isn't a onechip. Mvsfan is wrong about being able to find them by that marking on the case.

well, ive bought a few snes's that were UN304 and up, and they had APU boards in them. Although, the earliest 1-chip i bought was UN301.

ive bought 2 superfamicoms with that marking and both were 1-chips.

I originally suspected a case-swap on the sneses, but perhaps nintendo was just using up old stock. what board revision is this sfc you bought? apu?

if it was anything besides an apu i would suspect the case has been swapped.

Sorry, Drakon, ill make it up somehow.

mvsfan wrote:

well, ive bought a few snes's that were  UN304 and up, and they had APU boards in them. Although, the earliest 1-chip i bought was UN301.

ive bought 2 superfamicoms with that marking and both were 1-chips.

I originally suspected a case-swap on the sneses, but perhaps nintendo was just using up old stock. what board revision is this sfc you bought? apu?

if it was anything besides an apu i would suspect the case has been swapped.

Sorry, Drakon, ill make it up somehow.

Btw, this is the reason that i now put custom made foil security stickers on every snes 1-chip i sell.

It removes all doubt.

mvsfan wrote:

Btw, this is the reason that i now put custom made foil security stickers on every snes 1-chip i sell.

It removes all doubt.

Wait, does this mean you stock 1-chips?

Wait, does this mean you stock 1-chips?[/quote]

id like to keep them all the time but its impossible.

right now, i have 4 clean 1-chips, with 2 more on the way.

On the 1 chip super famicom systems that you ran into did the serial number start with SM?

Skips wrote:

On the 1 chip super famicom systems that you ran into did the serial number start with SM?

i have only got 2 of them and i dont have them anymore. I was looking for the shvc-jpn-1 marking. I wish i remembered the sn.

Drakon wrote:

I had one buddy say tapping rgb from the built in encoder gave him that annoying translucent bar in the middle of the screen.  It seems to be luck of the draw which systems come with the translucent bar.  I recommended that he tap the rgb + sync and the video encoder inputs instead of the outputs, wire up a ths7314 amp, and see how that looks.  He said my idea works and fixed the translucent bar haha.  My personal snes mini has a noticable translucent bar with the built in encoder. 

That was me, and you are right that it got rid of the translucent bar over RGB. However, I have since then forgotten what I had done, and wanted to do it again but keep failing. A little help would be appreciated.

I noticed you said "tap RGB and sync at the video encoder". I think that's where my problem arises. Where on the ths7314 would I solder the sync line? 

This is the chip: 



Pin 4 of the ths7314 I have wired to 5v right from the SNES regulator, and pin 5 of the ths7314 I have wired to ground right from the SNES regulator. Channel 1 of the ths7314  is wired to pin 1 of the SNES encoder (blue in), channel 2 of the ths7314 I have connected to pin 3 of the SNES encoder (green in), and and channel 3 of the ths7314 I have wired to pin 5 of the SNES encoder (red in). 

On the SNES encoder I have lifted pins 20, 22, and 24, as those are red, green, and blue outputs. I then wired pin 8 of the ths7314 to pin 4 of the SNES' A/V port. Then I wired pin 7 of the ths7314 to pin 2 of the SNES' A/V port. Finally, I wired pin 6 of the ths7314 to pin 1 of the SNES' A/V port. 

And I am not getting a picture. What could I possibly be doing wrong? This is so frustrating because I did get it working once a long time ago and I forgot to write down what I did. I know you hate dealing with me Drakon because I'm basically an idiot compared to you but if you (or even Skips who seems to have done this) could lead me in the right direction, it would greatly be appreciated. 

Is it something with sync? Again, I don't even know where you'd put sync on the ths7314 because it only has "spots" for R, G, and B as well as ground and 5v. Like the mmmonkey guide on N64 RGB modding here:

http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/ntsc-nintendo-64-rgb/

I do have the capacitor in place as he describes. Could the capacitor be causing this problem? Please help :(