Building a consolized game gear (Warning PIc Heavy)

I have been working on this off and on since the beginning of the year. I just wan't happy with the rgb board out there(ugly borders bluh), so I just haven't been trying to get this project finished. All this was probably going to continue except I found and just recently ordered mcwill's vga board(no borders yay). Here is some pictures of where I am at currently.
I started this project by buying a broken game gear for 10 dollars and replacing all of it's caps, after which it worked like a dream.
I removed the lcd, buttons and backlight then wired a dsub 9 pin connector so I could use a master system controller(actually tested my controller setup before removing the lcd). The master system controller had to have it wire replace with that of a genesis controller as pin 5 and 7 weren't hooked up to the female dsub 9 pin connector. It was a very simple task to replace the lead on the master system controller with that of a genesis.; Just match the colored wires to their respective locations. Then inside the master system controller I wired pin 5 of dsub connector to start and left 7 not connected. On the dsub connector I wired to the console I just bridged pins 5 and 7 incase I forgot which pin I used for start if I decide to make another controller. I extended the power led and replaced it with a uv 3mm led as it looks nice.

When it came to the case I started by filling in the holes for the buttons and contours of the screen with a bondo and sanded it down so It looked smooth and then followed up with some steel wool untill it felt like glass, after which I sprayed 8 super light coats of matte black spray paint.(pro tip never exceed an 8th of an inch with bondo or it will crack, if its deeper than that, fill with fiberglass and then add a light coat of bondo on top)


Edit:
Here's a reference for anyone who wants to wire a master system controller to the game gear. You can solder to the test points just as I did, and here's what each point goes to:
m16 = start
m15 = 2
m14 = 1
m13 = right
m12 = left
m11 = down
m10 = up
}
Also just a heads up I won't make the cartridge port vertical as its a pain and I like the pc engine loading style.
to be continued......

 

very nice start on it. I have a few game gear systems with bad screens that I have thought about doing something like that with at some point. Will keep an eye on this

 

Nice. I consolized a Game Gear a few months back, but I didn't do much with the case aside from add a joystick in and RGB out. Perhaps your work will inspire me to revisit that project!

 

That is sweet, love how the case looks. Dome you plan to have some sega vinyls printed up,for the case?

 

Were you able to purchase McWill board without the LCD? If yes, how much saving can be had?

 

I don't think the card slot even would work well vertically, iirc it doesn't use a card edge connector, more like large tension contacts.

How bout you meet us half way and make it like the NES, eh

 

Haven't thought about it. I might though in the future, as I haven't even worked on the side with the cart slot. The side of the case that had the screen will be facing down with little rubber feet on it so I will have to see how good a sega logo will look on the top.

75 euros without lcd, 95 euros with the lcd and shipping is 15 euros and 35 euros for international. DHL is always expensive, but he does include a tracking number.

Now I can't do that with out wiring up a blinking red light.

 

Could you share the pinout of the 9-pin DSUB? I tried adding a Genesis controller port to my Game Gear many years ago, but could never get it working right. I forgot all about it until I saw this thread! Good work!

 

After soldering to the test points I listed, I wried exactly the same as an sms port, Here is where I got the pinout for it, the male connector is in the top right corner.

 

Were you looking to use a Genesis controller with it (since you mentioned Genesis) or use a Master System controller and add a start button? To use a Genesis controller with it, you'll need to modify the controller. I modded mine by disconnecting the select pin wire inside the controller and soldering it to the signal pin for the start button. Inside the Game Gear, I ran the wire from pin 7 to the start button. Other than that, I followed the Genesis pinout.

What sort of issues were you experiencing?

 

I was trying to use a Genesis controller to take advantage of the Start button and the bigger size. To be honest, it was a long time ago and there's always a chance I wired it wrong. I vaguely remember that some buttons worked and others didn't though. I'll give it another try and use an SMS controller.

@takeshi385 - Thanks for linking to the pinout.

 

If you need any help on the project, this guy made a nice professional job consolizing a Game Gear: http://www.lcv.ne.jp/~mgs1987/sega/gg2.html

 

wow! I wonder how long that took. its awesome, but not sure worth all that effort.

 

I'm about done just waiting for my vga board to come in the mail. After it' s installed I'll figure out what I want to do with the top half of the case. Also that guy's is old news as (2011 or so). Back when I knew nothing about modding game gears he would never respond to emails. I appreciate the thought though.

 

i would fcking pay you all of my monies if you could build me one like that

 

Update I'm taking another hiatus from this project after frying my mcwill board. Long story short It was acting funny I tried to resolve the issue and ended up creating short and killing the board. the Mcwill mod is an intermediate mod as it require the removal and replacement of many smd components.

 

Shit-really sorry to hear this. Thaf mod isnt cheap by any means. You could try the Tim Worthington mod, especially since your not connecting a screen. It's quite a bit less than Mcwill's board, as well. I used it for my consolized gg and it works great. You just have to be sure to recap the gg that you put it in.

 

+1 I actually *highly* recommend Tim's board over McWills for a consolized system. GG games without borders (I've player both ways) are no dice- the pixels are just too big and the scaling never looks quite right. With borders on a 10" or bigger display looks great, PLUS you will have your S-Video and Composite video options which the McWill doesn't have.

If you want help with repairing your McWill board I could take a look at it for you as I do SMD work very often (and have 12+ years technician/soldering experience). I'd also consider buying it off you to try and repair it myself if you want.

Once you get the mod going again, you may be interested in adding the (recently possible) 3D goggles and Light Phaser hacks for SMS games!
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?29903-World-s-First-Light-Phaser-on-Game-Gear
http://www.smspower.org/forums/15415-AddingLightPhaser3DSupportToGameGear

Great work you are doing, I really love what you've done with the case (best I've seen yet!)

-Segasonicfan

 

You do know McWill board has multiple video modes? The default for both LCD and VGA are full screen but if you changed modes, you can get different size in addition to enabling or disabling scanlines. One of the mode in both LCD and VGA keeps the GG pixels square with no uneven scaling.

 

OK, well good to know. I thought the extra video modes only worked on the internal LCD. Still, It is really nice to have the composite video and S-video options of Viletim's board. Playing upscanned GG just isn't the same and it seems strange to use this board for a Game Gear with no internal LCD unless you have a dedicated 15khz RGB display.

-Segasonicfan