SCART RetroBox using GBS 8220

[Phipscube]

Hi folks, here's something i've been tinkering with the last few months of spare hack time

I got an old DVB-T Receiver for free and was nearly going to throw it away after numerous attempts to give it to someone who might get some use out of it, then it struck me that the casing made an ideal shape to house my GBS 8220, SLG3000 and Sync Strike!

So here's what I did: -

This is the box. Quite a standard looking Phillips thing: -

Original gubbins comes out: -

This is what I want to put in: -

But they need a bit of hackery to fit!

Took the switch off the sync strike and hard set to power from PSU with a wire jumper

Wired in the RGBS cable to the sync strike. And took off the VGA connector.

And it plugs into the GBS. I've also taken off various connectors that wont be used on the GBS too -

Wired up a jump power lead from the GBS to the SS: -

Put a faceplate on the SLG: -

Took off the VGA connectors. I'll wire these to ports together.

All wired up pin to pin and showing a rough place the SLG will sit.

Here i've wired in the Audio ports to the SS, and took some power wires from the GBS ready to switch up.

A rough idea were i'm at now.

I want the 4 buttons to be discreet. I had the idea to have them poke out of the original grill holes. I had to enlarge them a little though.

here are the wires for the buttons

and the buttons

I also need an LED

Wired to the original SMD LED space (I took the original off)

Here is the power connector and switch (with unit on showing LED lit)

I painted the case Satin Black

And then went mental with a glue gun!

Some rubber feet underneath: -

The back now looks like this: -

The buttons to access menus

finished unit from the front (I want a sticker for it, but not sure what to put on it yet)

And running with my RGB modded CD32

( https://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?p=268275#post268275 )

Thanks for looking!

 

[fitzsteve]

Your awesome mods always amaze me mate, great work

 

[keropi]

very nice hackery! kudos!!!!

 

[Phipscube]

hehe, Thanks again guys, I have basically spammed the last 2 months of hacks in one go!

 

[DonAmiga]

Great Stuff its always great when you can find a new use for something lying around

 

[cosmicfrog]

Nice one Lez, as usual your attention to detail and soldering skills leave me

had to google what a Sync Strike was though so cheers for that as well

 

[Phipscube]

Thanks Don, yeah I was so close to chucking it out. I have kept the old circuit board incase any connectors come in handy (SCART ones for example)

Cheers Cosmic mate! Aye, the sync strike is awesome for inputting consoles that only have composite video for sync. it converts it to true composite sync ready to pass to the GBS. So now I can plug any old retro console in, and it will work. Consoles that already have true CSync (Neo Geo for example) have the signal simply passed through.

All in all the bits for this run to around 100 Euro. Still alot cheaper than an XRGB.

 

[johnim]

very nice les

will the miggy work with rgb to scart plugged in with this too

 

[Phipscube]

Thanks John, aye anything that has RGB SCART out should work. Not tested the miggys yet though as they have VGA out via Indi. I'll try plugging one in and see what happens

It works with my Neo Geo AES, and the CD32. I changed the sync pin on Neo to compvid to check it still works and it did, so that verified the sync strike function. I plan to get a PC Engine soon and that deffo only has Compvid for Sync, no CSync. So that will be a good test.

 

[mfilos]

OUTSTANDING bit of modding as always my friend!!!

I love the elegancy of your work man, that I tend to copy at times! Keep up the excellent work.
Btw, how are the SLG series? Nice results on VGA output?

 

[Phipscube]

Cheers Marios mate

Yeah, the SLG makes all the difference. Its the closest you'll get to CRT emulation for now. I've just ordered the SLG SCART too. The best res to run the SLG3000 to make the lines look authentic is 640x480. it doesn't work for whatever reason at 800x600 and at 1024x768 the lines look too thin. The SLG3000 is a bit pricey and I do wonder if a newer GBS will appear with scanlines built in, that would be great!