Back around 2016 a Kickstarter popped up to add HDMI to the old N64 of the 90’s; the UltraHDMI. The N64s anlage video output was known for its muddy image that made playing on a modern HDTV… painful. No upscaler could save it. The N64s issue is its internal blur filter that is applied before output. something that smoothed things out on old CRTs but smears what could have been a clean image today. The UltraHDMI’s solution was to pull video signal directly from the GPU via a new ribbon cable soldered to its legs resulting in the cleanest picture and N64 could produce. But pre-orders were limited and rare. After a few batches its creators disappeared, never to return. Years later a group of modern banded together and formed PixelFX and revealed their own HDMI solution for the N64; The PixelFX-N64Digital. The first batch sold out within seconds. The global chip shortage caused delays for the seconds batch. But those of us who were patient were lucky enough to score one! The urge to install it now is strong, but we are on call to be induced now, so my N64 upgrade will have to wait for the twins to be born. So much to be excited about this month!
I’ve been building PCs as a side gig for years now. Occasionally someone will ask me to build them something custom which gives me the opportunity to make something more unique. Except for when completely separate people want the same thing. One of my former managers wanted me to build a PC for his daughter. I went over spec options and when it came to aesthetics the requirement was everything that could be pink, needed to be pink. She likes pink. And so it was. Shortly after another coworker coworker requested a build for her daughter – also Pink. Now I can say I’ve done two all pink PC builds. How unexpected.
Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 released on Netflix back in April 2020 and we finally got the time to sit down and watch. A solid CG show for fans of the old Ghost in the Shell Anime. The iconic Tachikoma mech was a favorite of mine. A Tachikoma style multiped tank was actually one of the first things I ever 3D modeled back in high school. SAC_2045 introduces a new take on the old blue mech, and I couldn’t help making a 3D model of my own as a comparison of how my 3D skills have grown. The paint job was quick and rough. I’ll probably revise this at some point in the future.
My sisters-in-law’s boyfriend has provided me with yest another project. Two Xbox 360s that are unable to open the disc treys. Normally all this entails is a simple replacement of the drive belt to resolve, and for the first one this was the case. The second Xbox was originally a referb from Game stop and where as it has identical symptoms, it had a much more interesting issue.
First some history: The Xbox 360 launched in late 2005 and was plagued with the infamous red ring of death. This was caused by overheating of insufficient cooling, resulting in the chip slowly de-soldering itself from the board. Microsoft was forced to extend coverage to all effected consoles for three years and replace them with their own refurbished units. But the design largely remained the same. Microsoft usually just reflowed the solder and shipped them back out only to inevitably meet the same fate. By the end of the 360s life span roughly every 2/3 Xbox 360s would have failed (not counting the later slim model).
So how did GameStop differ in their refurbishment of this self-baking console? They added in a splice that steals power from the optical drive to double the output of the cooling fans! Upon first powering this unit up the fans were noticeably lauder than the first. Looking inside revealed why. This splice didn’t have a resistor of any kind to limit the power robed from the optical drive and by this point, the optical drive didn’t have enough power to function. Removing this modification restored power to the optical drive and decreased the decibel rating considerably.
So, can anything really be done to prevent the red ring of death in these old Xbox 360s? In my experience, not really. Back in the day I acquired a red ringed 360 elite for $20 at a flea market. The seller didn’t know about Microsoft’s extended warranty. I shipped it off and got my referb back. I promptly modified it with better rear fans and a side intake fan for improved air flow. It was louder but I figured it was worth it for the significant improvement to airflow. But alas, it red ringed two more times before I gave up and sold it on eBay for a few hundred. I was tired of having to put the guts back in the original shell and carefully re-apply the tamper stickers. I do miss that old box, but it was a ticking time bomb and the Xbox 360 slim my wife later bought was a vastly superior design.
My retro console collection has grown beyond my entertainment centers capacity. My cats shall lay upon my NES no longer! It was time to build them a proper home. I started this project in October 2020 but due to my lack of a garage progress was dependent on weather – which has been sh1t. I started with a 3D model before moving on to a prototype made to scrap particle board from work to fine tune my measurements. Wood is expensive during the pandemic and I can afford no errors. Next, I took a router to the sides and cut out trenches for the drawer slides to slot into as well as extra clearance for cartridges. Soft close hinges hold the top which is adorned with crown molding. Stained in dark cherry and clear coated 6 times with a water-based polyurethane mixed with linseed oil. Normally I prefer oil-based poly for a smother finish but since its winter and I have no garage I didn’t want to stink up the apartment with toxic fumes. I made some cable management arms to keep cables separated from the other layers when in motion. The rear houses all the cables and HDMI adapters. They feed up to an 8 port HDMI hub that then outputs through a marcel Mclasic. One HDMI & one power cable for the whole cabinet.
But with the collection continuing to grow, I may need to build another…
I never had the original Xbox growing up as a kid, but nearly everyone of my friends had one. Countless hours spent playing Halo multiplayer from dawn to dusk. My wife and I were feeling nostalgic so we began to keep an open eye. A few weeks later a coworker mentioned he had an old Xbox that had been in storage for years and asked if I might want it. After an evaluation it was clear this would need some TLC. Cosmetically it was near flawless, but the original 8GB hard drive failed diagnostics and between the worn bearings in the fans and the drive, it sounded like a chain saw in a wind tunnel. You can’t simply swap the hard drive without at least softmoding the system to zero out the drive lock, so I figured I’d go full ham while I was at it:
Replaced the IDE 40wire cable with 80wire cable to double the bandwidth, added an IDE to SATA adapter, and slapped in a 250GB SSD. Loaded a bunch of games to the drive via FTP to avoid load times of the DVD drive. Also replaced rear 70mm stock fan with a silent Nexus and replaced the small rev1.0 heatsink/fan with the larger 1.1+ rev passive heatsink and fresh thermal compound. She’s now dead silent, 20ºC cooler, and lightning fast.
FINALY got the parts to finish off my Japanese Spice Orange Game Cube from Osaka. The front panel and Pow button was painted satin black. I installed a GC loader in place of the optical drive. A 3D printed mount sits atop for easy access to the SD card containing the games. They load instantly compared to the original optical drive. Also added a region switch for US/JP games (mostly just for memory card management). A CARBY HDMI adapter outputs native 480p to be up scaled to 1080p & add anti-aliasing by the Marseille MClassic adapter.
The worn joysticks were replaced with new stiff ones (took forever to get from China). The buttons were replaced with black buttons and the analog/C sticks were replaced by Xbox One sticks.
My sister-in-law’s BF had three game cubes laying around that couldn’t read discs. Made the deal that if I restored them for him, I could keep one. The controller for the original DOL-001 had a bad trigger. I ended up having to replace the board from a spare and installed new joyboxes to address the drift. All inputs work + some cosmetic upgrades (It has larger XboxOne concave sticks now)
Both Silver DOL-101 cubes read disks now after adjusting the potentiometers. I had to adjust the resistance to 210Ω for one, but the other had to go down to 160Ω. 150Ω is the cut off so the lasers remaining life will be short. Maybe has two years of solid service before the optical drive goes.
Its amazing how when you do something major once, onlookers suddenly consider you an expert. My dads Porsche 986 has suspension worn to the point that the wheels can’t be aligned and its eating tires as a result. I rebuilt the Cobalt’s suspension, why not a Porsche? But where as the components are similar in practice these are two different animals, and Porsche requires many proprietary tools. They don’t want end users to be able to repair them. But that’s where the internet once again comes to the rescue!
I started in the front and as I finished up the second side, I hit a road block. Removing the caliper bolts took far more force than normal. When reinstalling I realized why. Who ever last changed the pads has stripped the threads in the knuckle and covered it up by filling the hold with panel adhesive and welded the other side… The project went on hold while I awaited a replacement wheel knuckle to arrive from a junkyard via eBay. After that everything went smoothly. We will be doing the same to my dad’s Celica in the near future.
Found an old PSX revB at the Goodwil. Didn’t need to much work, just a thorough internal/external cleaning and a slight adjustment to the potentiometer and she’s reading discs with no issue. My wife grew up with a PS1, so this scratched a nostalgia itch.
