Replacing the DC PSU

You can get a 2A plug like the one I used for less than £10 & there is no brick.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/371104243298

In my opinion the less heat inside the DC the better & putting a pico & the plug inside makes replacing the original PSU a bit redundant.

When I get the brick plug, I can hide the brick since it has a long wire, so it's no big deal. (For me at least, also the brick is small it's not like an XB360/1 power brick)

 

when your finished with the testing of this could you post updated pics and pinouts please so its easier to set this straight up thanks

 

Will do. (Will get the images taken & stuff later today)

 

thanks

 

2-3 days now I am messing with the noise issue. The stock fan is crap and I've been trying alternatives.

Sadly the max you can install in the exhaust area is a 35x35mm fan. I've built that NE555 circuit to fool the DC into thinking there is a fan with plenty of rpm running, I've used pwm modules and silent fans , I've managed to almost eliminate the extra heat from the psu and the dc but the damned noise is just too much for my taste.

The exhaust fan is to blame (or rather it's position), even a silent fan behind the case grills makes noise. I've built a small wind tunnel to the grills, it helped lots but I don't like it.

So I've decided to go a different way - since the DC is already non-standard .
I will replace the stock psu with a 60W PicoPSU , cut the metal shield and replace the stock cpu/gpu heatsinks with custom big ones (I'll still leave just enough shield so that the USB board can be fixed with 2 screws) and install a different kind of exhaust fan, most likely in another place.
My goal is to leave the exterior of the console as stock as possible (other than the usb port and maybe a new exhaust place).

I will post images as the work progresses, I have some parts on order atm

 

I'm pretty sure this is the correct connector and sockets to fit over the pins coming off of the dreamcasts board:
http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=09-50-7061
http://www.mouser.com/Search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=08-50-0106

 

My Dreamcast with the GDemu in is already very different inside.

Obviously I have the GDemu in it but I have also cut the internal heat shelid and fitted to heatsinks(with 12v small fans attached) to the 2 chips on the motherboard.

It keeps really cool, obviously running a stock psu which puts out a bit of heat so replacing this aswell will be great.

Best thing of all though is it looks like a standard Dreamcast from the outside

 

Liquid cooled dreamcast..... Just sayin

 

We could do a liquid nitrogen cooled DC, that'd settle heat problems quite fast. Though there might be cold problems then, and you need to refill.

 

If u want to go all in... I say peltier

 

Hey! Maybe you could power a small fan with the Pelletier, which would cool it and reduce its power. A kind of feedback loop so you'd get a fan that only turns on when it needs to!

 

it was just a BS throw out because ppl were talking about water cooling lol... na my friends wedding just happened.. and I started my new job this week.. supposed to be getting up with the guy with the vacuum kit. so far plan looks like removing the 30x30mm fan installing a Full cover plaster shield to create a Tunnel from the fan vent to the power supply then to the rear vent or in reverse... and a 3pin 12volt fan. I figured if most of the heating issues is being cause by the 12volt rail no longer being used... wire the power and ground pin to the DC PSU and the control wire to the DC fan control wire so it will boot without the 30x30m by doing that should lower the Fan noise and disperse the heat very well.

 

^ you need to take account that the DC has a minimum expectation in the RPM signal it receives, else it shuts down after the boot animation. Low RPM silent fans are no good, none of the ones I tested worked. Noisy high-rpm ones work fine. The solution is to use that NE555 pulse generator circuit to trick the DC, then you can install whatever fan you want

 

here is a sneak peak of what I am trying to do , using a gpu heatsink from a dead X360:



I had to bend the heatpipe to make room to make the corner the cut on the heatsink since some caps were in the way. I think I'll loop the heatpipe and place it over the usb-controller, where the gdrom lens/motor was.
Ofcourse I will remove most of the original upper metal mobo shield , I'll only leave enough shield so that the screw near the ports that holds the gdrom can still be used. I'll have to modify the usb-controller shell as well (it's the metal shell that hold the original gdrom pcb) so that it won't conflict with the heatsink.
Currently waiting on some 0.5mm copper shims , the gpu is shorter than the cpu ~0.6mm, so I don't want to just use lots of thermal glue ... I'll glue the copper shims on the gpu making it almost the same height as the cpu and then fix the heatsink permanently.

I really hope that this along with the 60W PicoPSU in the background and some better/quieter ventilation will work just fine and result in a quieter/cooler dc...

 

cool looks pretty sweet cant wait to see it finished

 

did some cutting today so I checked if everything fits together:









Everything turned out OK , had to modify the gdrom pcb shell and not use the it's lower shield - else I would have to trim the heatsink. There is enough clearing between the heatsink/usb-controller, I might add a layer of insulation though , still undecided on this...
I'll do some work on the picoPSU next but I won't be able to further the project until the copper shims arrive and the heatsink gets fixed on the cpu/gpu.

I am also unsure if I also use the thermal conductive glue on the ram chips as well, the heatsink is enough to cover them as well... maybe it's a good idea to glue them too, just to take some stress from the bga connections on the cpu/gpu that will now carry the heatsink weight (~140gr)

 

I messed about with several large heatsinks (including the one you have used ^^) but the 2 chips are different heights so I'm not sure how you're going to use it effectively?

I had to use 2 smaller heatsinks next to each other because of the height difference of the chips.

 

^ this is where the copper shim will be used: it will raise the gpu ~0.6mm and make it the same level with the cpu - the shim is a copper piece that is 0.5mm thick



so this copper surface gets glued on the gpu (raising it's height) and then you get to install the unified heatsink.

 

I bought a few of those molex connectors that I posted a link to above and they fit pretty well.
http://imgur.com/q1IaiMT
http://imgur.com/f8TyNBF

Not sure if you can see in the pics that the pitch is off a hair, but they are still making good contact with the pins.

 

^ I need to find something similar locally so I won't have to wait 2-3 weeks for a connector to arrive