I'm scheduled to go over to my friend's house (who has way more and better tools than me) sometime this week. Just gotta schedule it in. Thus far though, it's worked brilliantly on everything else.
The plot thickens, ladies. Pins 11 & 16 are both sending 5v.... but the LED on the whale definitely doesn't light up. What the cock might be up w/ that? EDIT: Here's a thought -- what allegedly happens when you send sync (not composite video) through the lm1881? That doesn't explain the LED not lighting up though.
The thing that springs to mind is the ground pin, as UD doesn't say which pin he iis using and if a chip isn't grounded properly then it might still work slightly as it trys to complete the circuit through the other pins. What pinds did you use for ground? Pins 21 (Frame), 7 (Sync), 14 (Control), 3 (Audio), 13 (Red), 17 (Green), 18 (Blue) all are grounds on the RGB21 Pin socket, so you could open the Sony lead and see what are and are not connected, maybe compare the Saturn and DC ones too.
Opening up the Sony cable, the only grounds are 17, 18, and 21. The rest are blank. I'll dig up the Saturn cable if UD can't conjure up the grounds he used.
Make sure there is continuity (0 ohms) between pin 21 and the metal shield of your Playstation 21PinRGB plug. I've seen plugs where the wire wasn't even soldered to the frame, just kinda stuffed in. As I recall, I used pin 21 on the socket, but go ahead and check out your Saturn cable too, GP. -ud
The way the ground on pin 21 (the frame) works is that it's kind of "hooked" in. It didn't move when I opened it up, so it seems okay with me. Getting to the shielding might be a bit tricky though. The Saturn cable has a the grounds daisy-chained to what appears to be all the ground points of a 21-pin RGB cable. Guess the logical step is to pull a Moses and go into that whale and see what's up (w/ the ground, anwyay).
By "shield" I meant the metal band that wraps around the connector and mates with the plug on the whale (that sounded too much like a nature show). That's what pin 21 is supposed to be (connected to). Sounds like you've got a nice cable :icon_bigg Jonah, man Jonah. -ud
RGB Hospice -- his stuff rocks. Too bad he quit. Oh, man. Jesus is probably turning in his grave over that one. (-Barney). I had just woken up when I posted that. I admit, I have no life. Indeed it does! Will give that another shot when I run across the street. I should just throw my shit soldering iron away come to think of it.
Still not perfect. All leads marked Ground are now grounded, mainly daisy chained, just like my Saturn cable. The LED on the whale never lights up (no matter what position it's switched in). When it's in off mode, the picture is jumpy and doesn't work (scrolling -- bad sync?). When it's in the on position (but LED doesn't light on) I get some weird synch when a new screen loads. Once it's all loaded, it's fine. Of course, that's not really playable, but it might describe the situation a bit more.
Hmm, it's strange. You did say the cable works fine on the XRGB unit you have? If so then it's not the cable. Have you attempted at all to adjust the Hold controls on the monitor to see if it does sync when the sync switch is on (and works on the DC and Saturn?) You also just want to run the consoles through your arcade monitor which I assume has a JAMMA interface? It could be easier to ditch the box and build an interface using a JAMMA finger board and a 21pin socket with the LM1881 circuit running off the Finger board using the +5V and Gnd off that.
Hmm, that's making 0 sense to me. The whale is clearly not getting power if the LED is not on. Lemme think about this... -ud
I'm going to buy another cable just to make sure, but that's the story and I'm sticking to it. We measured like 4.9v on both the +5V leads, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that that isn't it. The thing is that there really needs to be some type of switch for hte LM1881 thing. If I run my Sigma through that, there's all types of noise and shit. I don't think there can be a single end all be all "cable".
Can you use a multimeter to verify continuity between the metal band that wraps around the plug and the ground pin(s) on the PS2 console end?. Here's the PS2 A/V Port Pinout: http://www.gamesx.com/avpinouts/psxav.htm Secondly, have you ran the Saturn very recently? Just want to make sure it still works and verify that it's not a wire come lose inside the whale. -ud
Yo We tested all the grounds from the AV Port to each pin on the 21-pin RGB. (3,7,13,17,18,21). We used the sound thingy. Loaded the Saturn up now -- played the first stage of Purikura Daisakusen w/o a hitch!
Indeed. Sound thingy rules over checking the screen every time :icon_bigg So when you say you checked pin 21, did you check via the metal band 'round the plug or did you use the wire inside the connector? I'm still not confident those are synonymous (they should be though), based on plugs I've used. Hence my suggestion for checking the connection from the metal band to the other end of the cable, which would verify that connection. -ud
I've yet to find a cable that doesn't... which makes me wonder what that thing does, specifically. We checked 21 in a couple of places. Mainly the frame, and the solder/hook point for the wire. It's a soldered now, as we needed a place to put the other pins.
Well... it works now. :-? Don't ask me. I busted out the XRGB-2 one last time and was going to fidget w/ the analogue controls on the monitor. I did the following... - Unplugged the VGA out (of the whale). - -Plugged in the 21-pin RGB into the whale's head -Noticed the LED light up -Got a slight erection -Put the VGA cable in and let Mr. Driller G run for a bit. Weird... if it blows out again I'll chalk it up to crappy cables or something. Now to finish up this GC game I'm on and start on my PS2 back log.
