Unstablewarpfield

I see I didn't answer this question. My plans are to open source the design on my Github. The latest revision uses one smaller IC for managing power instead of two LDO's and the number of 0201 components got down from 27 to 9. It's doable to solder these but 0402 is a bit more friendly towards home soldering. I couldn't get rid of all of them though. Before releasing this into the wild I'd like to know exactely how it performs on the Morph 4K so as soon as I have an analog bridge I'll give it a run on this scaler. It works on the Framemeister and I perfected timings on the OSSC which almost gives it an emulator-like quality. Haven't tried any of the Tink products since I don't own one. Things are moving ahead, but slowly. Also my health is still not where it should but, so that's not helping 😞

No sweat. I'm actually in the process of creating said Github now. I'll try to include decent schematics and a BOM there too 🙂 Actually... here's the link to it.

As said, here are the gerber files to this design. I have never bothered cleaning up the schematics for this one. Also, keep in mind that I am by no means a professional electrical engineer. Just an enthousiastic hobby-ist. The design for this mod comes from the schematics that are in my Intellivision album, and I believe they come from the schematics for the RGB output of the 7400, although I can't remember exactely. I uploaded those way back in 2017-ish I believe. If you have no experience soldering 0402 or QFN packages I suggest passing on this. It is small-ish. I like to use a microscope for this kind of work. Nowadays I'd go down to 0201 to be fair. It just looks more clean on the board. I had always envisioned to release these designs into the wild and have people toy with and improve upon them. If there is one thing your post did it is have me rethink the whole website idea and move my designs to Github. I haven't done anything on Github so there will be a learning curve, but it might be more suitable than a brand new website from scratch. I hope you find this useful. Edit: Keep in mind that the layout of this version is different from the one in the picture show in the OP. It is a revision that I have not tried. Electrically nothing changed. It is just a different layout of components. Videopac G7000 RGB mod smd V1.2.zip

It's life. It happens sometimes. My initial idea was to put every mod I ever designed on a website. Which I ended up having totally no time for whatsoever since it is all hobby. Maybe I should have made that clear at some point. I'm sorry that I was not able to deliver my design to you. Schematics are publicly available though. I never designed anything for the 7400, just the 7000. Should you still want the design I'd be happy to attach it here for you.

New revision has been soldered and confirmed working. I measure a total current draw of about 82 mA under load, so I want to make another (final?) revision with an AP7312 LDO in DFN package to save a bit more space on the pcb. Current LDO's are rated at 500 mA, which is too much headroom for the space they take up if you ask me. I'll just keep on hobbying until I get it right 🙂

For those of you following along... I had a test run with this board. Works as it should. In the mean time I made a revision with a bit easier access to the pic for programming it, and another way of getting Vcc to the board. Also took care of a usb receptacle. Shifted some components and I'm still looking for a way to get rid of the 2 LDO's and use one IC for that. I'll have to measure and see how much current the board draws under load to select the right component. I hope to get away with something a bit smaller for power management than what I have in there right now. Space is at a premium on this one. I'm toying around with the idea of totally omitting the pic and usb connector which would make the firmware updatable through SPI. This would save space at the cost of convenient programming. Choices... I think the next update will be in a couple of weeks when I have soldered up and tested this new revision.

Yes. The fpga can be programmed via usb. The 7 holes are V3, V4, V5, rst, clk, GND and Vcc (of which Vcc won't be taken from that pin in the next revision) from the STIC. V1 and V2 are on the opposite side. The board is soldered directly onto the stic on the bottom of the motherboard.

I have been out of it for a bit due to some health related issues. Still feeling weak, but last weekend I wanted to solder again so I managed to cook up a quick testboard. It's not perfect and sizewise the 0201 components might be a bit overboard but at least it keeps things neat. Small though... Based on this prototype I made a revision with a usb C connector. This prototype has a wrong usb footprint. I also decided not to use Vcc from the STIC but tap into the neighbouring 5V from the ROM chip. This will also be in the revision. Furthermore I gave a bit more space for the STIC legs by opening the plated holes a bit wider. I'll also get rid of that "huge" tantalum cap but this was the only one I had. A size smaller would be more nice. I now need to setup the microcontroller so windows sees it as a device and I can upload code to the ice40 fpga through usb. I didn't have a programmer for the PIC so I am currently waiting on that to arrive. We'll see what happens 🙂

For now it is on hold. NOT scrapped, but on hold. I've been dealing with some health related issues for the past couple of months, and am slowly getting back up to where I should be. Hopefully I'll be able to pick this up again as soon as I feel 100% better. Not giving up on it 🙂

In the mean time all components to build a prototype are in. NTSC code is done. As soon as I have a couple of prototypes build I will inplement auto region detection. This will take some time... next week all new window frames and doors get installed here... work in between all of this and the mrs pushing me to finish up some long overdue woodworking projects will probably cost me my weekends until the holidays...

Just a quick update for people following along. - Had a batch of test pcb's made. They are on their way. - Ordered all components to build several test boards. - Obtained a second Pal Intellivision. - Ordered a 3.579545 Mhz Xtal. Still looking for an AY-3-8900-1 stic. Pcb's were kinda pricy considering 4 layers with 0.2 via's and 0.09 trace width. I'm taking a shot at handsoldering the 132 bga fpga and the 0201 components. We'll see how that goes... When I have a working prototype I'll be able to switch easily between pal and ntsc machine to develop code for the latter. I'd prefer auto region detection instead of bridging a jumper for one or the other.

So I did a bit more digging and found that the 5V line was still connected to Vcc on the STIC, instead of the 5.65V. I did this in the early stages of testing a replacement power supply and forgot about it... wired power up as it should be and the mod functions perfectly. I guess the STIC really wants that 5.65V for some reason. Without it sync timing was way off. I attached a picture of what sync looks like now. I made sure it is according to PAL spec and glitchless. . I'd be very interested in trying to adjust the code a bit so this works on an NTSC console. Should be easy enough. I might scout ebay a bit until I find what I'm looking for.

And... to catch up on this again... I returned to this mod after forgetting about it for like a year and a half... You know... life and all that. I now have a regenerated sync signal for a PAL Intv without any glitches. The problem I'm having at this point is that the OSSC is not locking on to the sync signal, where it would perfectly fine about a year ago. What I can see on my scope is a jitter in edges of about 2 to 5 pixels... I assume that is where my problems come from. It might be my test console that has been abused so much these past years that it needs replacing... We'll see, but I'm happy with the sequential logic for the new sync signal. I guess the next move would be to try and get a new (NTSC?) Intellivision and pick it up from there...

So... decided to pick this up again. After testing the console (I know... it looks like it's on life support, which it probably is) this is the result. This psu appears to be doing what it's supposed to do. Works together also with an fpga based rgb solution I have in the works. For now I rigged up a traco switching regulator in there. I might end up with a regular voltage regulator. Next up I will remove the transformer and wire everything up. From there on I'll continue soldering a prototype of the rgb mod, after which it is on to some thorough testing.

Finally a last pic through the ossc on my 55" oled after toying around a bit with the ossc's settings. Current part shortage makes prototyping this mod difficult right now. While parts are on hold I'll tackle automatic region detection and a linedoubler for this one.

Alright... received the ossc. Did nothing but simply plug stuff in with this result. I have to get familiar with this scaler first but I assume this result is good. Never mind compression and artifacts caused by my phone.

I was thinking about just leaving vsync in its place, and have serration pulses "where ever" they would end up following hsync but when I found about equlization timings for PAL video it did not make any sense according to what I was seeing on my scope. Equalization and serration intervals before, during and after Vsync on the Intellivision is not 160ms as it appearently should be. So yeah... it was either leave Vsync be and inject hsync pulses, or try a bit more effort and get timings dialed in. I did not make narrow pulses, but that could be done rather easy if needed. Just curious to see how the ossc will handle this. In the end it's all hobby and about learning things :-) Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-N960F met Tapatalk

We're about a year on now and I decided to take this design a bit further a couple of weeks ago. I used an ICE40 HXK8 board to inject missing equalization and serration pulses and store colors. For now I still have glitches in my sync signal. I found the position of Vsync to be in a weird spot if I wanted to stick to PAL standards so I also had to move that a bit which created said glitches. We'll see how disruptive they are. The sync signal on the image attached gives me a nice image on my Framemeister. That said... Framemeister takes about anything I throw at it so I am waiting on an OSSC to test what that will do. Goal is to get this on thesame footprint als the mod posted above here. Eventually I'll also purchase an NTSC model to make this compatible. Still very much a work in progress ? Sync taken before attenuation.

No updates yet. I shifted my focus towards a mini fpga based rgb prototype first. As soon as I have that working I should be able to finish this quickly. Just don't want to be fighting two battles at once Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-N960F met Tapatalk

Pcb's arrived. The dac25-16 fits now. I am waiting for voltage regulators from the far east now to complete a test board. Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-N960F met Tapatalk

Just as an FYI... I was able to work on this a bit more over the holidays. I got rid of the 2 switching regulators and swapped those out for linear ones. With the traco's I just didn't like the switching noise I had. It was all over the place. The DAC25-16 has some on it's own, but those tracopowers generate extra noise both at different frequencies it seems. So I thought to get rid of them and use 2 SMD regulators. I tweaked some other things (especially the wrong footprint of the DAC25-16) and am awaiting boards now for a prototype. Will keep you all posted ?

Exactely this. I've been remodeling a room on and off for the past half which is a huge timesink. (Doing all the furniture myself which takes loads of time). Every time I want to get back to electronics something else comes up. On the horizon are a new kitchen and an expansion of my tool shed... That's why I decided to dedicate at least one out of two holiday weeks on electronics again. Gotta get it done Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-N960F met Tapatalk

Not really, but no worries... Christmas holidays are coming and I will be back at it again then. I have not forgotten it and to be honost I really need to close down this project. It will require a new batch of pcb's since the datasheet of the ac/dc converter did not match up with real world dimensions and the holes I created are off because of that. I hate it when that happens. What good is a data sheet if dimensions are off by 2mm... Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-N960F met Tapatalk

My rgb mod was only a prototype. It works on my setup but instead of completing it I went on and changed the design from two pld's to an fpga. Formfactor remains thesame. I am in the process of writing code but things got interrupted by some house remoddeling. Feels like something to complete around the holidays. I have some more free time then. I also still have the replacement power supply for the intv 1 to complete... so many projects... Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-N960F met Tapatalk

Well... It is the beginning of August and still no dice on the power converter. It is in stock now, but there are some other components in my order that will be in stock next week so assume Mouser is holding off their shipment until all backordered items are in. Hopefully I'll receive the DAC25-16 this month and I can start testing and improving. I re-arranged some components and added a screw terminal for the AC input. Still in doubt whether to go with the pain of switching noise from those 5V and 12V regulators (I don't like it and I'd like to filter this out as much as I can. Needs circuitry added to this pcb though), or with the added heat from some LDO regulators. Anyways... I'm still on this. Haven't forgotten about it ?