The Nintendo Super Scope no battery edition!

During one of my various conversations over windows live messenger with doug the topic came up that I have a super scope. It's annoying to play on my super scope because when the 6 AA batteries start to run out of power the super scope will constantly go in and out of working which is extremely frustrating when you're trying to play a game. I don't have a lot of experience with wiring up power for electronics because I'm afraid I'll fry stuff. So I asked doug if he could help me figure out what sort of power rating I would need to get my super scope running off of wall power.

Since the super scope takes 6 AA batteries doug figured I would need an adapter that outputs 9v dc at less than 500 ma. Doug mentioned that AA batteries are about 1.5v each so 6 x 1.5v is 9v. And I checked on the internet it looks like all AA batteries are 500 ma. Conveniently....I had this wall adapter sitting in my closet that outputs 9v dc at 500 ma....I have no idea what this adapter is from....I had cut off the end of the power cord a long time ago and shoved this power adapter into my closet :? . I asked doug if it's okay that the adapter outputs 500 ma and he said it should be fine.

The next thing I did was I took the super scope apart and checked out all the hardware that's inside of this beast....not a whole lot . In fact the super scope is mostly empty. The thing I found the most interesting is what looks like 3 dark leds that are on the front of the super scope....I really have no idea what those leds are for. Anyway I found the positive and negative power wires for the super scope. Naturally these power wires were soldered onto the AA battery connection plates. I desoldered these wires, the red wire is +9v and the black wire is ground :ninja: . Also I had no idea which wire on my ac adapter was positive and which wire was negative. So I took a picture of my ac adapter and sent it to doug...here's the pic:



I had already done some searching on wire labels and from what I read on the internet it seemed like the black wire with the white "stripe" was positive. Doug said that the white striped wire being positive is correct.

After doug reassured me that wiring this adapter up to my super scope would be safe I took a leap of faith and tried it out. And much to my joy it worked perfectly! I guess with something like this things will either work or not work there's not really much else that could happen.

After I confirmed that this mod actually works I removed all the battery connectors, extended the power wires, and wired them into a small power connector that I had laying around. I also used some electrical tape and zip ties to cover the soldered connections. The +9v wire (red) has more tape because there's a resistor attached to it so I needed to cover the resistor as well.



After testing that this connector worked I then drilled a hole for the connector, and made sure my wires were the proper length. And then I stuck the connector into the hole I had drilled and made sure that the case closed okay with these new added parts. I also made sure that the other end of the power plug fit nicely through the hole which it did. And I added zip ties to make sure that the wires stay grouped together.



Then I glued the power connector firmly into place. I also re-installed the funny plastic wall that seperates the two halves of the battery compartment just for fun.



Here's the newly modded super scope all put back together:



Here's what the dc power plug looks like



And here's what it looks like when the power cord is plugged in



Here's the video demonstrating my freshly modded super scope



Really I have to give the credit for this mod to doug. Without his knowledge of how to power things I probably would have been too lazy to figure this out on my own. Another awesome team mod has been completed :thumb:

Great mod, looks simple enough, think I'll do this to my Sega Menacer as well. I don't use it that much but the amount of batteries needed is unreal.

It comes as no surprise the actual scope is mostly plastic though! Those things came with so much extra gimmicky plastic it was unreal.

RyanfaeScotland wrote:

Great mod, looks simple enough, think I'll do this to my Sega Menacer as well. I don't use it that much but the amount of batteries needed is unreal.

It comes as no surprise the actual scope is mostly plastic though! Those things came with so much extra gimmicky plastic it was unreal.

Heh first person to show real appreciation for this mod since I did it in 2011.

Drakon wrote:

RyanfaeScotland wrote:

Great mod, looks simple enough, think I'll do this to my Sega Menacer as well. I don't use it that much but the amount of batteries needed is unreal.

It comes as no surprise the actual scope is mostly plastic though! Those things came with so much extra gimmicky plastic it was unreal.

Heh first person to show real appreciation for this mod since I did it in 2011.

Sorry I didn't get here sooner!