A new idea for my old weapon (Inspired by G-force!)

jperryss · Post by **jperryss** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 7:01 pm

Hi folks,
I was digging through some old boxes of stuff that were left over from when I moved, and I came across my old NES and a few games and other stuff. And it still works too!

Fast forward about two hours, I'm home and on the forum, and I see G-force's NOAC-in-a-NES-controller (again) and thought about how neat of an idea that was. Obviously a full-size NES board would never fit in a NES gamepad...but I bet it'd fit in the NES Advantage I also found (my old weapon of choice, I might add

).

I haven't cracked open a NES yet, but based on pics I've seen, it looks like the NES mobo is small enough to fit inside the Advantage (though he finished product would be thicker than the stock Advantage, especially with a cartridge slot). It could keep the standard AC and A/V outputs and obviously wouldn't need a screen. Seems like it'd be a neat project, especially for someone like me with really no portable-building experience. And there'd be virtually no investment involved, since I already have the two major components and don't need to buy another screen.

I'm sure this is a longshot, but has a 'plug and play' NES/Advantage been done before? Any thoughts? Can someone clue me in on what I'm getting myself into?

Thanks in advance!

Krepticor · Post by **Krepticor** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 8:00 pm

A Full sized NES, Noble, Damn noble

Ok here are some things I recommend
1) GET a NEW CART SLOT!, Game Genie, NOAC, Family converter, anything this will cut down A lot of space,

2) Dump the heatsinks and the RF box

3) REad Ben's Book, for more space saving tips and trick, It may work or you may have to expand the case a few inches, I hope it works out for ya!

ATOMICMAN · Post by **ATOMICMAN** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 9:10 pm

boards too big for it. but an noac would work perfectly!

Post by **Triton** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 11:34 pm

board might fit, dont have mine to look at (sold the spare open one) but im pretty sure it would take a good chunk of cutting down and about double the thickness of the advantage but i LOVE the idea, a noac would be much easier of course but not nearly as cool

jperryss · Post by **jperryss** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 5:35 pm

@Krepticor: Yep, a full-sized NES. Thanks for the recommendations!

@ATOMICMAN: Have you directly compared the two? How much bigger are we talkin' here?

@Triton: I'm expecting to NOT have enough depth in the stock Advantage to pull this off. If I can tastefully add enough depth to accommodate the NES mobo, I'll be happy. And yes, I love the idea too, and acknowledge that a NOAC would be easier. But if it was too easy, it wouldn't be any fun!

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 7:41 pm

You'll have to remove the RF section of the board, and trim down the ground of the board, but it should be able to fit after that. If you remove the expansion connector and solder on a cart connector directly to the edge connector, it might even fit in the normal height of the Advantage.

NES Advantage vs. NES mother board - beside Advantage
NES Advantage vs. NES mother board - below Advantage

I'll leave it to you to take apart your Advantage to evaluate the insides there.

Indigno · Post by **Indigno** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 9:19 pm

I'm mlooking at my advantage controller right now, and I must say, it sounds like a swell idea. Although, if you decided to add a screen later, you could add it right under the joystick, tilted sideways to go along with the alignment of the buttons. It would be a fairly small screen, but it would be great for car trips.

I think that that would be very possible, with batteries even, if you were to cut out the RF box, some of those grounds, and maybe any other plugs that wouldn't be necessary.

Either way, it's a very neat project idea.

Afternote:
For plugging it in, do you plan on putting the RF box into an external case so that you can still connect it via cable, or will you just let the RCA handle it?

ATOMICMAN · Post by **ATOMICMAN** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:30 pm

a lot of hacking and you forget the guts of the controller also and where you would hook up the cart.

Krepticor · Post by **Krepticor** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 5:56 pm

Hey I hav mine gutted right now

I see only two things that were not previously mentioned,

1) the Board will need to be shaved about a 1/4 of an inch
2) the metal plate on the back of the Advantage has a lift on one side that applies pressure to the back of the Joystick, this needs to be either removed or a new piece fo the back needs to be made

I'm thinkin about this too! it sounds just too cool!

jperryss · Post by **jperryss** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 7:34 pm

Tom, thanks for the pics, you rock! Mine is at my folks' place, I prolly won't be able to pick it up until next week. I'll really need to have it in my hands to figure out what I'm gonna do. The expansion slot will definitely be gone, not sure how I'm gonna handle the cartridge slot yet.

Indigno and Krepticor, good tips and suggestions all around. The current plan is to put the RF box in an external case, something small. I'm not entirely sure though, this could change. And knowing me, it will.

Krepticor · Post by **Krepticor** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 9:17 pm

you need to READ Ben's book, It has a way to Completely remove the RF box and use just the Composite video, you need to amplify the signal with a small circuit involving a transistor, but it isn't that painful,

Unless you are just dying to have the "authentic" *cough*crap*cough* RF output

jperryss · Post by **jperryss** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 1:17 pm

OK...looking at the book, I see that once I remove the RF box, I need a 7805 regulator for power/ground. Does anyone know the RadioShack part # to replace the stock NES power jack? I plan on using the stock NES power adaptor, so finding a jack identical to the NES stocker would make this easier.

I'll also need a 2N4401 transistor and some resistors to boost the video signal. Looks like I'm making a trip to RadioShack!

Anyway, if I'm reading this correctly:

For video, I should be able to wire up a standard RCA jack (tip to positive from the video booster, shield to NES mobo ground) and connect that to a TV like the original setup. For audio, I can tap off of the AUDIO OUT on the NES mobo, wire that to a standard RCA jack (pin), and wire the negative (shield) to the NES mobo ground.

Please let me know if I have this right.

Also, do you folks usually wire up the reset button too, or just use the on/off switch?

Thanks again for all the help!

hcmtnbiker · Post by **hcmtnbiker** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:37 pm

jperryss wrote:OK...looking at the book, I see that once I remove the RF box, I need a 7805 regulator for power/ground. Does anyone know the RadioShack part # to replace the stock NES power jack? I plan on using the stock NES power adaptor, so finding a jack identical to the NES stocker would make this easier.

I'll also need a 2N4401 transistor and some resistors to boost the video signal. Looks like I'm making a trip to RadioShack!

Anyway, if I'm reading this correctly:

For video, I should be able to wire up a standard RCA jack (tip to positive from the video booster, shield to NES mobo ground) and connect that to a TV like the original setup. For audio, I can tap off of the AUDIO OUT on the NES mobo, wire that to a standard RCA jack (pin), and wire the negative (shield) to the NES mobo ground.

Please let me know if I have this right.

Also, do you folks usually wire up the reset button too, or just use the on/off switch?

Thanks again for all the help!

1. I'm pretty sure you can use the voltage regulator found inside the RF box.
2. The power jack is a standard jack although i'm not sure what its close to an 'N' i believe. But why not use the one from the box you're ripping off? Plus any wall mount that has at least 300mA current and can go under 35v would work since the NES power regulator has something like a 35v max input.
3. The power button an reset board isnt too big I wouldnt be surprised if you could fit the whole thing in your advantage controller.

-I'm recalling all this from memory, w/o the data sheets in front of me, so you'll want to double check what i'm saying but i'm pretty sure its right.

jperryss · Post by **jperryss** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 11:40 pm

hcmtnbiker wrote:1. I'm pretty sure you can use the voltage regulator found inside the RF box.

Yep, I could've. It's a 7805. I bought a new one at RadioShack for $1.49.

2. The power jack is a standard jack although i'm not sure what its close to an 'N' i believe. But why not use the one from the box you're ripping off? Plus any wall mount that has at least 300mA current and can go under 35v would work since the NES power regulator has something like a 35v max input.

I haven't decided yet. I may use the stock one. The A/V jacks, however, are part of the RF box (literally, it's all one piece) so I'll probably buy replacements for those.

Anyway, long story short, I ended up retrieving everything tonight and got started. I pulled the NES mobo, cleaned up the cartridge connector, removed the RF box and the expansion slot, flattened the caps (including those blue cylinder ones) and wired up the video booster circuit. That's where I left off, pics are below. I'd appreciate if someone could double-check my work and let me know if I made any glaring mistakes. Please go easy on me as this is my first console-hacking project and really my first big soldering project too.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i246/ ... C00509.jpg
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i246/ ... C00510.jpg
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i246/ ... C00511.jpg

Unfortunately I won't get to work on this any more for at least a week. Next weekend hopefully I'll pick up the A/V jacks, wire up the power and test everything out. Then I'll crack open the Advantage and figure out what I'm gonna do with it.

Indigno · Post by **Indigno** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 8:06 am

You sure do use a lot of excess wire. It's bugging me, ahhhhhh