Best Place to Purchase Best A/V mod?

[Best Place to Purchase Best A/V mod?]

1 hour ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

I use 24awg stranded to the output jacks on the wiring I use. I buy in 10ribbon strands of like 10ft at a time and then cut them into 12inch strips to actually use for service work.

Oh, that's cool - so you basically buy ribbon cable and then split it up as needed? I like that... it would keep bundles of wire neat as you can just keep them connected. Often times I've noticed that "Dupont" jumper cables come this way and it can be pretty handy.

[Best Place to Purchase Best A/V mod?]

3 minutes ago, Dopy25 said:

Never would have thought about that. Mine go in the trash. Kinda feel dumb now.

 

So old ethernet cables work great for internal mods?

I've definitely used salvaged phone/ethernet cable for stuff. It is solid core, though. It's a little thin to use as hookup wire, at least on a breadboard (CAT6 is 23 or 24, CAT5 is 24). Phone wire is often the usual 22 gauge solid core that makes good hookup wire. The cheap very flexible telephone wire and the handset wire is stranded and can be very thin... not sure of the gauge. The downside is none of the salvaged wire is pre-tinned. My go-to is a box full of little spools just like what you purchased. I like that I can choose whatever color I want based on what makes sense, rather than what I happen to have on hand. 

[Best Place to Purchase Best A/V mod?]

35 minutes ago, Dopy25 said:

I think I do well with soldering but I guess I'm not sure what I'm talking about with core on the wire. It was literally solid copper wire. It came with the av mod I bought on ebay for my 2600 but was extra. The wire is very sturdy and didn't have much give in it so it broke off at the top when I went to bend it into place. I bought some pretty flexible wire and although it may seem brittle I don't think it will snap like the other.

 

Edit:

 

This is the wire I bought:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KQ2LHFI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_CABT4MARCTS3FXPK1ZCF?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

@-^CrossBow^-'s advice trumps mine, me having done a single mod  For what it's worth, I used wire wrap wire (very thin - sold as 30 gauge but it was cheap Chinese stuff so I think it's more like 31 or 32). Very flexible pre-tinned solid core. But that was only for the signal wires. Like @-^CrossBow^-, I mainly use that for fixing traces - but it seemed adequate in this case since it should only bend once (famous last words). For the external connections I just used my standard 22 gauge hookup wire - the stranded variety. To be honest, it's a little thick and only barely passes through the UAV board... but there is a ton of room in the 7800, even with the RF shield back in place, so I wasn't worried about big service loops. I also know all my crimp connectors work well with that gauge, and I wanted to have quick connects on everything. (Didn't I say it would only bend once? Then why did I use quick connects?)

 

The stranded stuff you bought shouldn't snap... I think you'll be fine.

[Best Place to Purchase Best A/V mod?]

On 4/29/2021 at 6:48 PM, Dopy25 said:

It came! Now for installation (after work).

You have had a whole weekend now, how'd it go? 😁

[Best Place to Purchase Best A/V mod?]

23 hours ago, darryl1970 said:

Intriguing!

He had me looking too!

 

[Best Place to Purchase Best A/V mod?]

1 hour ago, Dopy25 said:

@RayTariThat is pretty sweet. I guess the expansion port isn't used for anything in retail. I was holding out hope for some sort of homebrew expansion or something. haha. Did you remove it? I have the same model with the hole for the expansion port so this may be a possibility for me. I also like your UAV mount. Thanks for the links!

My unit must be from once they decided they weren't going to ever ship an expansion. It has no connector mounted on the board, but the board has the empty footprint for the connector. They must have changed the case in a later run to fill the hole. That gave me plenty of room. If I mod my second 7800 I'll have to decide on another method... I had a sentimental attachment to this one because it is the one from when I was a kid. I probably won't shy away from drilling into the second one

[Best Place to Purchase Best A/V mod?]

2 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

If you have a large enough section of it (I do), you could shrink tube the whole UAV to thicken it up and if it did come loose, it wouldn't likely short against anything inside.

That's a great idea. I had some Kapton tape on there, but it was a mess. If I go back in, I'll shrink wrap it and maybe print out slightly larger slots for the mount. The print only takes about an hour.

[Best Place to Purchase Best A/V mod?]

6 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

Very cool design! The only issue here is that you wanted to keep the RF modulator in place and to still be used correct? Well, the holes you use to snap that UAV bracket into place are now covering the access holes needed to adjust the RF modulator in the future. So you would have to remove your bracket in this case. 

Yes, that is true! However, it is very easy to snap it in and out of place, and I wired everything such that you can pivot the whole thing toward the front of the console without stressing any wires. In fact, that is how I wired it up - with the top of the bracket laid down on the Maria chip... the little blue hookup wires are all like a "hinge". I also was careful to leave room for the RF shield. My only concern is that the UAV becomes loose, but I must not be too concerned because I didn't add a zip tie

[Best Place to Purchase Best A/V mod?]

8 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Thank you for that.  Not wanting to drill the usually-brittle plastic in most 7800s to install RCA jacks has kept me from wanting to tackle this; now it's a much more realistic proposition.  Appreciate the pointer!

I was lucky enough to have an old console with a hole in the case where the expansion port should be. This let me design a snap-in 3D print where I could mount an S-Video and 4-pole 3.5mm jack for composite plus audio. 

 

In case anyone else has this hole, I put the files up on Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4819760

 

I also did not want to remove my original RF module (it still works, after all...) so I made a 3d printed bracket that holds the UAV in place using the little holes on either side of the sheetmetal RF cover:

I guess it is hard to see with all the black in the picture, but the UAV board snaps into the bracket, and the bracket snaps onto the RF shield. Here is the Thingiverse project: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4833856

 

By the way, I want to thank @-^CrossBow^- for his videos and PDFs... This really was a Lego project instead of a mini R&D project thanks to his generous contributions to the community. And of course thank you to @Bryan for the UAV, which really makes an incredible difference. If I ever run into you guys, drinks are on me!