COMING SOON: Dreamcast Lugable! (HELP! Disk's won't read!)

hack124x768 · Post by **hack124x768** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 4:11 am

Current status: (08/18/07) The back is epoxied on. There is power internal power and an external a/v signal going to the screen. The Gamecube PSU is in place, with a car cigarette lighter plug to power it. The system boots. No batteries yet. Disks not reading, likely due to a bad 12 volt rail, see last post

Coming soon in the sense that I am holding a half done version right now. I Epoxied the back end of a ps1 to a dreamcast, and now have a screen attached to it. I'll do the screen wiring tomorrow (it's 3am, I need soul calibur and maybe some sleep). I also have a GC PSU I will be hacking in (God, it drop right in place so nicely, a few soldered wires and it will live!) along with a bunch of NI-MH AA cells to fill the space left by using a smaller PSU.

Now for the help part:
Does anyone know the average and max draw that is put on the 12, 5, and 3.3 volt rails (combined or separate, doesn't matter to me)? I figure with a 27 watt DC and 26.6 watts of battery (thats 10 AA 2600mah cells), that's about 1 hour of run time, but with a more efficient PSU (Stepping down 12 volts dc instead of rectifying 120 volts AC), will the wattage actually be lower?

I have also yet to find the draw of a PS1 screen, but that could probably be better left to google.

Thanks guys!

(Yes, I will post pictures tomorrow)

hack124x768 · Post by **hack124x768** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 6:21 pm

Anyone got a spare 8 volt regulator?

khaag · Post by **khaag** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 7:40 pm

I've got a spare 7808 lying around here. 5 bucks shipped?

hack124x768 · Post by **hack124x768** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 5:04 am

$5 seems a bit much. If you had 2 or 3, maybe. Thanks for the offer though.

dudex77 · Post by **dudex77** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 6:30 am

I say epoxy a bit more so it becomes seamless in the end. Also It would be quite epic if you got rid of the playstation logo and put in a SEGA one.

Post by **CronoTriggerfan** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 9:43 am

hack124x768 wrote:$5 seems a bit much. If you had 2 or 3, maybe. Thanks for the offer though.

That's actually a bit below average; good luck finding it any cheaper!

CTFan

hack124x768 · Post by **hack124x768** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 1:49 pm

CronoTriggerfan wrote:
hack124x768 wrote:$5 seems a bit much. If you had 2 or 3, maybe. Thanks for the offer though.
That's actually a bit below average; good luck finding it any cheaper!

CTFan

Well, I'll see what I can find and then let you know. Too bad radio shack has become so wussy lately.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 1:53 pm

Does no one like bic's site anymore? Make a 7808 out of a 7805

hack124x768 · Post by **hack124x768** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 3:30 pm

vskid wrote:Does no one like bic's site anymore? Make a 7808 out of a 7805

THANK YOU!!! I have several 7805s laying around.

hack124x768 · Post by **hack124x768** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 4:24 pm

I now have the screen powered internally and the gamecube power supply in operation. I'm having a bit of trouble with disk read errors at the moment, but that shouldn't be too hard to fix. I'll be adding batteries sometime with week.

EDIT: Ok, so the disk read errors seem to be related to the laser carriage not moving at all. Any suggestions as to why?

-=FamilyGuy=- · Post by **-=FamilyGuy=-** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 1:38 pm

hack124x768 wrote:I now have the screen powered internally and the gamecube power supply in operation. I'm having a bit of trouble with disk read errors at the moment, but that shouldn't be too hard to fix. I'll be adding batteries sometime with week.

EDIT: Ok, so the disk read errors seem to be related to the laser carriage not moving at all. Any suggestions as to why?

1st thing to lok at is: Is it conected ? Look at the ribon and the 2 little plug/socket on the gd-rom board to see if everythig is connected correctly.

2de thing would be to push the laser as close as possible to the inner ring, then to boot the console and see if it moves.

3rd would be to check if there is a part missing in the mecanism inside the black plastic enclosure.

4th would be to kick it with power and strengh then buy a new one (I actually got a spare one if you end up being forced to buy another.).

I hope you'll fix your problem.

-=FamilyGuy=-

hack124x768 · Post by **hack124x768** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 4:45 pm

Ok, the laser carridge does move, but only at certain times and when in certain places (havn't figured out specifics yet). I believe it to be the motherboard now, as I have another rev.1 DC that I pulled the gdrom drive from and tried in this one. No luck. Could the draw be too much on the GC power supply? If anyone has numbers for the outputs of the GC PCU and draw of the DC that would be nice.

hack124x768 · Post by **hack124x768** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 1:31 am

I did some more poking around and found something out. My 12 line is only putting out out around 5 volts. I think I fried it when I (stupidly) ran the regulator for the ps1 screen off of it. So, new question, anyone know how to fix a GC PSU that has a bad 12 rail?

-=FamilyGuy=- · Post by **-=FamilyGuy=-** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 4:17 pm

hack124x768 wrote:I did some more poking around and found something out. My 12 line is only putting out out around 5 volts. I think I fried it when I (stupidly) ran the regulator for the ps1 screen off of it. So, new question, anyone know how to fix a GC PSU that has a bad 12 rail?

Just to be sure: You took the tension mesure in parrallel ? Because if you mesure the tension in serial, it won't display the right number: to mesure the tension of the 12v line, simply put the + of your voltage-meter to the 12v pin of the GC psu and the - to the ground of the psu.

You might already know it, just in case.

But I actually thinks the gd-rom uses 3.3v as written on the gd-rom's case ... And as I tested, a low-curent (not low-tension btw) 12v rail would make the dc boot/reboot/re-reboot over and over again, without displaying anything.

I hope you'll find and fix the problem.

hack124x768 · Post by **hack124x768** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 10:18 pm

-=FamilyGuy=- wrote: Just to be sure: You took the tension mesure in parrallel ? Because if you mesure the tension in serial, it won't display the right number: to mesure the tension of the 12v line, simply put the + of your voltage-meter to the 12v pin of the GC psu and the - to the ground of the psu.

You might already know it, just in case.

But I actually thinks the gd-rom uses 3.3v as written on the gd-rom's case ... And as I tested, a low-curent (not low-tension btw) 12v rail would make the dc boot/reboot/re-reboot over and over again, without displaying anything.

I hope you'll find and fix the problem.

I measured the voltage from the ground to the 12 spike on the motherboard. I heard somewhere (boy that sounds scientific...) that the actual laser is powered by 12 volts, and seeing as the laser does not light up, thats what I think too. I'm going to desolder the GC PSU and try the original one, and if it works, replace it with the PSU from another GC a friend is giving me.