A few hardware modding questions

Hi all,

I'm going to attempt a few hardware mods soon. But wanted a few questions answered first

I plan on attempting an LED swap, internal VGA/SD, and changing the color of the swirl on boot

One of my questions is are there any recommendations for what blue LED to use? One that is bright and has good power consumption compatibility like the standard LED?

Second is can people provide the best/their favorite guides/documentation for the other modifications?


For the best chance of success and longevity of the mods i'd like to go into this with the best tools/materials and best documentation

-Thanks

 

Also if available, GD/SD and network access lights would be pretty neat as well

 

There is an upcoming mod that you may be interested in. It's OzOnE's Universal HDMI mod board. It has been confirmed working on the Dreamcast and it even displays the proper 720x480p image. Most VGA monitors squish it to 640x480p. Unlike external VGA to HDMI converters, this board taps into the Dreamcast's native digital audio/video signals before they are converted to analog audio/video, meaning there is no loss in quality. The test videos he posted on YouTube look better than the DC's analog VGA output.

You may also like the digital audio TOSLINK mod if you have a sound system. A reset button would come in handy too.

 

Wow so that means an hdmi out instead of vga out? I'll definately do that instead if there were reliable documentation/tutorials

 

Yep, HDMI out. It hasn't come out yet but when it does, there should be some tutorials on it. I think it was going to come out later this year but I'm not too sure. It also works on the N64, Game Gear, and the GameCube.

 

Does anyone else know of great docs/tutorials for the mentioned hardware mods?

 

This video shows you the VGA mod if you want to do it.

 

I think i'm going with helder's SD quick solder boards, new led and wait for the hdmi mod to be finished. Can you change the bios color without changing the region?

 

You need to change the region in order to change color, be careful doing it though as if left connected to 12v you could get the black swirl of death and system is useless.

 

I'll look into a switch incase i want to use a GD. Is there docs/guides for region switch? Also is this a good led to replace the power light http://www.ebay.com/itm/381346541556?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT ? That was what i bought

 

Pretty sure it uses a 5mm led but 3mm will work fine.

 

I have a defective controller board that i can still test the brightness of with the 3mm. But i did buy 5mm in case

I'll add pictures either as i finish the mods or when they're all finished. I just have to wait for a few things to come in the mail

 

I ordered a third set of leds, this time from the US to avoid waiting a long time for shipping. But i hadn't checked the specs. I know 3.3v is recommended for the powerlight, 3.4 should be fine. But will these work properly without damage?

But i have a whole bunch of 3mm leds and a dremel coming in the mail. Could anybody elaborate where to wire any additional leds if i wanted to add more? And what my limitations would be as far as voltage or amount that can be added?

 

Try this calculator to figure values for resistors and wiring leds in series. You can use 5v or even 12v from the psu as long as you have the correct resistor for the voltage and leds.

http://ledcalc.com/

 

Well i mean for the standard resistor and fuse would that work? I want to avoid having to wait for resistors to show up in the mail

I have a set of 5mm coming from china i'm pretty certain they will work if those don't. If these are a lot of novice questions i just would rather ask them than go and fry the board(s) had I not

 

Finished the mods. It came out nice

Before


SD addon board


Installed


Reassembled. The only thing i did wrong was burn off the contact point for the black wire off after attempting to remove the blob of solder and reconnect. But nobody's perfect and its a minor inconvenience



Case mod is neat. Too bad the access led was messed up. The hole for it is neatly placed, and the led fit great

After


I think it came out great. It was worth the few hours of meticulous soldering

Thanks to bongman860 for the PAL emblem and Helder for the SD card interface and advice

 

Very cool !

 

Does anybody know if modem access lights are possible? I saw for gd access lights you solder to a pin on the bottom of the gd interface on the bottom of the mobo, i figured the modem should have a similar pin?

Also does anyone know of a custom bios with the PAL blue swirl but region free? Also also could someone link how to do the wiring of the two pins on the mobo for the bios flash?

 

I think the link83 bios gets its colour swirl from the system it's installed on ie blue for pal, red for NTSE, NTSE-J. This is a good site for installing a bios chip http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/sega-dreamcast-region-free-bios/

 

Actually the black swirl of death can be still useful. Just change the date and time as far back as the DC supports and it starts right up. Had this happen to me on one I bought off eBay. In order to fix the black swirl set your date to 01/01/1950 and reset. You will be out of the boot loop. But the black swirl can be applied with the Region Changer disc by dc-swat as well.