custom cable making, what wires?

Going to start converting some of my older consoles to hook up to RGB monitors. Some like Genesis already have something convenient but not all has RGB cable available like Turbo Duo.

I looked around for cables, some cables like ethernet has enough wires but they are typically unshielded and may pick up interference. So what cables do you use for building custom video cable? For most part I would need 8 (RGB, csync, L+R, 5v, and ground) The cost for shielded cable seems rather high, I've found one source of 9 wires cable hitting $5/ft (almost $16/meter)

I wanted to get consoles: Turbo Duo, SNES (older one has RGB on port, SNES2 needs "fix"), Genesis with CD and 32X, NES (eventually, RGB upgrade isn't cheap), Intellivision (RGB mod exists but not currently available for sale), and Atari 2600 (if those whiz ever get around, it seems there was progress many years ago but shelfed due to lack of interest)

 

Easiest way is to go to an electrical supplies store, the places electricians go to buy bulk reels of data, phone and mains wire. I'm sure you'll find what you need, I myself have been wanting to make my own cables but haven't got around to it yet.

Here is some on aliexpress, bit expensive though.. http://www.aliexpress.com/item/free...shielded-cable-s-video-cable/32350247747.html

EDIT: This should do pretty much anything (RGB+L/R Audio)

: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/shielded...23?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item27faa0e177

 

I actually use cat5e network cables for my soldering work. I've only made a cable twice before and I didn't get crosstalk.

As for RGB mods, the 2600 can't be modded for RGB. It's either Composite video or S-Video on that. You will have to emulate pretty much the entire console just to get RGB as it isn't natively produced.

The NES actually has two RGB mods. The old crappy and expensive method uses a Play-Choice 10 PPU and it has problems with many games ranging from wrong colors to the game not even running. This can cost upwards of USD $200 just for the PPU chip. The new and much better method is the NESRGB board. The NESRGB board uses the original NES PPU and extra circuitry to generate RGB. This method cost about USD $70.

Also, if you want to skip analog all together, you could go with OzOnE's HDMI mod board if the system has access to it's digital AV signals.

 

I just buy VGA cables and cut the end off of one side, myself. I don't run audio down the cable. If I need audio from the multiout, I cut the 3.5mm end off a 3.5mm to female RCA adapter and run it inside the multiout. Using VGA cables is a really cheap option, and the RGB lines are coax. I leave the HD15 end intact and connect it to a VGA switch.

For the Atari 2600, you can use Tim Worthington's 2600RGB.

 

I never thought about using VGA cables before. I have some lying around so I think I will use those.

Tim has a 2600RGB board? I've never seen it on his site before... where can I get it?

EDIT: Nevermind, this board is quite new and will be released after today!

 

If you wanna do a serious custom job, go here and get bulk RGB cable, bulk unbalanced audio cable, and since you said 5v and ground, another 2 wires for that and any necessary terminations along with some techFlex sleeving and make your snake. Also, they will make custom snakes for very reasonable prices using whatever supplies they carry. You can have them give you the length you want unterminated if you want to solder/crimp your own on there, especially for the system side.

If you wanna go a little more hackish but still be able to get a great result, get something like this in a longer length than you need, unscrew or cut off the connectors and terminate that as you see fit.

 

When I made cables for a company consolizing Neo Geo boards we bought 3rd party Wii cables and cannibalized them. One end would get a DIN connector and the other would be left alone. Used a connector to hold the DIN connector in place, heat shrinked it in place, pulled a rubber cover up over and bam, Neo Geo cables.

 

100 meter? 15 years ago I bought a spool of 500 feet 20-conductor ribbon cables for various uses. I still have more than half left. It would take me a long time to go through 100m.

Maybe I could get away with that. Then again, maybe when I have about 15 systems hooked to one TV, all those cables would be throwing lots of noises and unshielded cable can get the interference.

Not the whole system, just the TIA chip. Tim has already created a RGB capable TIA chip (just found out today) and unlike original TIA that outputs only color plus 4 luma binary to be combined into composite, the new TIA can do RGB. http://etim.net.au/2600rgb/

VGA cable would work well for most uses. And they are usually cheap. In bulk I could probably get about 10 cables (5 feet) shipped for about $20. The only concern is it may have only at most 6 wires (RGB+HV and ground) which would mean running audio separately.

 

Cables - controller cables, ones from Playstation are usually good to use as have usually 8 or 9 wires inside, and the cable is shielded too.

Intellivision - the only RGB mod I was aware of actually only worked for some Greek consoles, not any others, so was no use. You can however get an RGB native one from France however expect to pay a fair bit for one. You can also get French Colecovision consoles RGB and Atari 7800 consoles RGB from France (I have one of each, used in my previous system).

 

There were RGB kit for Intellivision on Atariage forum. It is not composhit to RGB upscaler but it taps directly into one of the chip to read data and generate RGB output.

Currently not available.

 

That was the Greek one, as had the chip you refer to. It was originally claimed to work on any PAL Intellivison, however on closer inspection the only systems that had the chip was one version of the Greek one. French systems were SCART (ie "Peritan") and native RGB.

 

HDMI cables!! There are some USA sellers on eBay with some 3' (0.9 meter) for 99 cents each, and depending on which spec it can have as many as 19 or wires. Enough that I can ground extra wires.