Crystal Clear Audio Mod for Sega Mega Drive 2 & Genesis 2, version 1.0

[BlockABoots]

The PCB should be as far as possible from anything on the main board if you want minimal interference. Worst spot possible is the big ASIC, second worst are the VRAM chips or the single VRAM chip on later models.

I was going to place it where you remove the capacitors from....



Or is there a better location?

[BlockABoots]

Ok, have fitted the mod and all is working good, took about an hour and a half in the end to do.

This is my VA01 board which has a 60hz/50hz/LANG switch fitted....


The CCAM PCB kindly designed and made by retrogamer343...


All the CAPS and Resistors removed...


The CCAM PCB soldered in....


And its final resting place....

[AlmostOriginal]

I got the mini pcb and wired it up. One of the low pass filter capacitors was only soldered on the one side so it wasn't connected making one channel completely unfiltered throwing the balance completely off. I fixed this mistake on my own, I also pointed out a mistake in the schematic. Really before shipping these pcbs out I recommend testing each channel individually to be sure they both sound correct and balanced.

Am I happy with this product? yes. I'm glad someone took the initiative to do it right. I hope future pcbs will be tested more thoroughly so people don't get pcbs that aren't completely soldered causing the audio quality to not be correct.

Are you talking about the retrogamer343 SMD CCAM board?

BlockABoots: I placed my CCAM DIY kit there to.

[MEGADRIVE Jeroi]

I have made my small resistor circuit board which is quite small:



Here is pdf to print the actual circuit board for etching:

tiido_ccam_18.brd.pdf

Some special things in this layout versus my first one:

1. 1/8 size resistors used. The smaller ones.
2. Added 78L05 small 100mA regulator into the circuit to give independent +5 voltage and cancel some of the VDP noise. This means take 9v out of dc input of board or 7805 regulator input leg of the Sega mobo.
3. Add aluminium foil arround cableing for additional noise canceling. Good method is to seal the whole board with alufoil before installing.

Hope you like this version.

I can even sell these boards etched for DYI projects but not pre soldered ones. But it will take some time as I am in school related practice work atm and not much in electronics lab.

Going to produce: 20 boards including drilling.

Board price: $6.24+$1.3 postage = $7.50
Board type: FR4 the BEST quality.
Including: Paper thank you letter.
Shipping: Letter.

This is ideal board for your DIY project.

If you are interested gimme pm. If you arrange multiple or group purchase then postage will surely be cheaper per item.

Please note this:
Board price for me 1$+40min photoresist and etching+1min cutting+5min drilling+2h postage time used per board. Thats 1$+2h56min per board. If you calculate 10$ per hour workmanship you can guess that my price is super cheap!

[AlmostOriginal]

Are you going to sell boards?

[retrogamer343]

I have made my small resistor circuit board which is quite small:



Here is pdf to print the actual circuit board for etching:

tiido_ccam_18.brd.pdf

Some special things in this layout versus my first one:

1. 1/8 size resistors used. The smaller ones.
2. Added 78L05 small 100mA regulator into the circuit to give independent +5 voltage and cancel some of the VDP noise. This means take 9v out of dc input of board or 7805 regulator input leg of the Sega mobo.
3. Add aluminium foil arround cableing for additional noise canceling. Good method is to seal the whole board with alufoil before installing.

Hope you like this version.

I can even sell these boards etched for DYI projects but not pre soldered ones. But it will take some time as I am in school related practice work atm and not much in electronics lab.

That's a nice layout. My very first layout was just larger than a quarter with through hole components but when you make these types of boards at home in larger quantities you are always looking for ways to make the manufacturing faster. In this case one easy way is to eliminate all of those holes you have to drill. Plus smd parts are a lot cheaper. The down side is that you either have to have a ton of vias or a slightly larger board to make room for all of the traces to be on one side.

[MEGADRIVE Jeroi]

That's a nice layout. My very first layout was just larger than a quarter with through hole components but when you make these types of boards at home in larger quantities you are always looking for ways to make the manufacturing faster. In this case one easy way is to eliminate all of those holes you have to drill.

Drilling for me is not that much a problem as we have hole drilling machine in the school. It takes about 30min to drill A4 size amount the boards.

Lastly trust me, soldering trough hole components is faster manually than smd or if you're good at smd soldering then it is roughly same time which then cancels 5min drilling. Not that important thing for me. But when you go to professional smd gear then it becomes a lot faster as usually machines cant handle trough hole components that good or at all. Other ways you can wave solder trough hole components and it's a snap to do. In my case if I would solder 20pc then I would attach every component with clue to the board and then implement that in to wave solder machine and it takes minutes to wave the board. The last thing is to snap legs and saw the boards off.

But then again, if you have solder paste and injector. You can do alot injections in small time then only but your components and then use heatgun to melt the paste and voila. When doing manually I don't know which one I prefer yet, but doing with trough hole makes me think that it's more suited for every mans DYI projects.

The down side is that you either have to have a ton of vias or a slightly larger board to make room for all of the traces to be on one side.

Nope, there is so easy fix for this in pro work. 0ohm resistors. You use them as hopping points where trace needs to go under the trace. While doing layout you can see where 0ohm resistor is needed to make proper layout possible. This is the simplest way to do single side layouts

[AlmostOriginal]

MEGADRIVE Jeroi: Do you have a picture of the finished/assembled product? Do you sell board only? Do you supply components?

[retrogamer343]

Nope, there is so easy fix for this in pro work. 0ohm resistors. You use them as hopping points where trace needs to go under the trace. While doing layout you can see where 0ohm resistor is needed to make proper layout possible. This is the simplest way to do single side layouts

That's an awesome idea. I don't know why I never thought of that.

[Drakon]

That's an awesome idea. I don't know why I never thought of that.

A lot of official hardware uses 0 ohm resistors. My 32x s-video mod I removed a 0 ohm resistor to get at luma and disconnect it from a circuit that blurs it.

[MEGADRIVE Jeroi]

MEGADRIVE Jeroi: Do you have a picture of the finished/assembled product? Do you sell board only? Do you supply components?

As this board will be do it yourself, if I buy components also then it will be too expensive as you can get them locally like under few dollars. Most expensive part is soldering station.

Secondly nope atm, as my latest build ccam is my old revision with bigger resistors and such. This version is revisited version of that layout, with smaller resistors some layout changes (to shrink the size further) and adding 78l05 regulator to get rid of some vdp noise.

[retrogamer343]

A lot of official hardware uses 0 ohm resistors. My 32x s-video mod I removed a 0 ohm resistor to get at luma and disconnect it from a circuit that blurs it.

I know that 0ohm resistors are used a lot in hardware. I guess I just never really wondered why. I think I will be making A new board layout soon.

As this board will be do it yourself, if I buy components also then it will be too expensive as you can get them locally like under few dollars. Most expensive part is soldering station.

All we really have here is radio shack. They charge up to $1 a piece or more. I only use ebay and mouser unless I only need one part quickly.

[AlmostOriginal]

Could you make a "new" board?? I would like to see one.

[MEGADRIVE Jeroi]

Could you make a "new" board?? I would like to see one.

Prolly yes, for testing and for my self.

[AlmostOriginal]

Please let us know when you are done.