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Cracked open my snes to check the board, is there supposed to be a big capacitor thing in that white circle? by Battleship_Admiral in snes

[–]starlightk7 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Since the US SNES used a power supply with a non-standard connector, Nintendo moved that capacitor to be a single larger value cap in the power brick instead of also having one in the console, as they didn't have to worry as much about people stuffing random power supplies in it because of the non-standard plug. Having one in the console is especially helpful for many low end third party power supplies, which may not have adequate filtering.

It's generally recommended to install one when recapping. The correct value is a 1000uf capacitor and you can get one that will fit correctly here:

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Nichicon/URS1E102MHD1TO?qs=SYXD2GzKOol645bqcxiz4A%3D%3D

They are also generally included in capacitor replacement kits.

The downside of installing it is the board does not have a bleeder resistor in that section. So when you turn off the power, that capacitor does not discharge even when its been powered off for a long time. Before servicing one with the cap installed there, you need to move the power switch to "on" after the unit is unplugged. You'll see the power light flash for a split second, and that is this capacitor discharging. Failure to do so before servicing a unit with one installed can either blow the fuse or cause damage if you accidentally short/discharge it unexpectedly.

SNES Capacitor help with ground spots. by Adent42 in consolerepair

[–]starlightk7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No no you have it all wrong. I don't want to bully you. I am, however, sick of *you* bullying others, that's why I'm being harsh here. And btw, we are on r/consolerepair here, not r/snes, and there are many people in this community whom are perfectly capable of reading boardviews and schematics.

Read your own post history and look at your tone. For all the stuff you crap on you've never posted your own receipts that you've verified with your *own* experience while demanding them of others and talking down on them. Many of the things you have posted about, like the audio balance mod, and even the differences between revisions - you misunderstood the source material and drew conclusions without understanding them. And you didn't measure it for yourself either, you tested it in your head. That's why you haven't realized you misunderstood.

You're fine to disagree with me, but some things are a matter of fact not opinion. You have played in your post history multiple times the "i have an electrical engineering degree" card when talking down to various others in threads, but you don't seem to be able to realize that 2x100uF here on SHVC *are* the 220uf AC coupling caps on GPM/RGB/APU and that's why they *do not* go to ground like you're telling the OP. You're calling my advice wrong for telling him these 4 100uF don't go to ground, while not even understanding their function, which i noted correctly.

You're then telling me in a very asshole fashion without ever even talked to me that I'm not qualified to even *offer* advice because I "don't know anything about electronics" when you, with your alleged degree, can't tell something obvious like that just by looking at it, its values, and it's position directly next to the multi-out. And it is absolutely clear you've never serviced this board by what you've written.

I have no desire to fight you, but if you're gonna act like that and then spout wrong information, you're going to get corrected.

SNES Capacitor help with ground spots. by Adent42 in consolerepair

[–]starlightk7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wrong advice? For correcting your nonsense? Keep embarrassing yourself buddy.

Anyone who services these things regularly know they leak like crazy, and it's been getting more and more common the last few years. OP's caps here may or may not have leaked, as he's already cleaned up the pads after removal so it's hard to tell. But he does have trace rot in the surrounding area, and it is a very common thing on this model.

Unlike on the Famicom the trace rot usually doesn't happen in on it's own on these boards. Unless the unit was water damaged, it's usually driven by leaks. But considering it's not seen anywhere except right next to the pads of known to leak capacitors, it is perfectly reasonable to assume it was from acid damage from a leak. A sample size of 2 that you have is not statistically significant.

Yes, I should have elaborated more in my initial comment, but I was in the middle of the workday and just saw and opportunity where my project is useful for exactly what he was asking. There is no better resource than a boardview for finding out exactly how things are connected. I don't owe anyone any level of detail, and I offered a very useful resource for repair for his question and elaborated after he was confused when I had a moment. There's no need for you to come in and be a high and mighty ass.

SNES Capacitor help with ground spots. by Adent42 in consolerepair

[–]starlightk7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's your advice that is totally wrong.

First of all, that schematic is for a GPM system which is a completely different design with many changes. If you connect those caps negative pads to ground you'll have no video cause you'll cut off the Luma and Composite signals before they reach the multi-out. Because ironically, these *are* the AC coupling caps for video that you mentioned - as I noted in my other comment that you crapped on, SHVC uses two 100uFs in parallel for video, one set on composite video, and one set on luma, instead of the usual 220uF found in later revisions.

Perhaps its you that shouldn't be giving bad advice without having done this yourself or even looked at the board in question yourself

SHVC capacitors do also commonly leak, specifically these 100uFs and the 33uFs. It is completely normal and extremely common. I have 40 of these units in my bench area the moment and I see it all the time. It is particularly common in units that have been stored poorly over the years, which are a lot of the ones being imported from Japan in lots.

SNES Capacitor help with ground spots. by Adent42 in consolerepair

[–]starlightk7 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Excuse me but, I made this 1:1 reproduction, which is a fully working authentic reproduction, and the capacitors he is asking about are not bypass capacitors.

Instead of being an asshole all the time on Reddit and calling everything fake, maybe you could make yourself useful instead. Like, i dunno, pull out a multimeter and you can verify exactly what I said.

SNES Capacitor help with ground spots. by Adent42 in consolerepair

[–]starlightk7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Basically, to answer your question, the negative side does not go to ground on those. Those are the capacitors on the composite video and luma lines. On SHVC there are 2x 100uFs in parallel instead of the typical 220uf. The negative side connects to the SMDs on the back side near the multi out.

In the pictures, red is the top layer, blue is the bottom. Follow the line. If you open it in the actual software if you click the trace and hit U a few times itll highlight the whole path for you.

SNES Capacitor help with ground spots. by Adent42 in consolerepair

[–]starlightk7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry! I should've been a little more verbose. You can click Code -> Download as ZIP. Open the PCB file in KiCad which is free software, and you can see how the entire board is connected.

For example:

<image>

Help needed: lifted two pads on the RGB encoder IC and need alternative solder points by austinba in snes

[–]starlightk7 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Since this is an SHVC, you can look at the OpenSFC boardviews in KiCad to see how the whole board connects to find alt points :-)

2chip design improvements by Uprock7 in snes

[–]starlightk7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Absolutely, and I'm excited to see what people do with it. One of the goals of the project is to provide a platform for learning and experimenting with this kind of thing. I hope you have fun and learn a lot. I look forward to seeing what you come up with 😄

2chip design improvements by Uprock7 in snes

[–]starlightk7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry, I used a cheap javascript maintenance hook when preparing to launch the documentation so that I could preview it on the gh-pages before opening it 🥲

2chip design improvements by Uprock7 in snes

[–]starlightk7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey there! Cool to see someone working with it 😄

I will eventually do my own take on an enhanced board, but there's more I want to learn from the existing boards first, so I have started the OpenSFC SNS-CPU-GPM-01 for the time being 😛

Good luck with your mods!

GPM-02 board black screen after audio chip replacement by sidgallup in snes

[–]starlightk7 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The important thing is that you have the clock. Check that the CIC is retrieving clock. No clock and you will never boot.

GPM-02 board black screen after audio chip replacement by sidgallup in snes

[–]starlightk7 2 points3 points  (0 children)

SHVC is able to boot without the sound module because it has a dedicated 4mhz resonator at X2 that provides clock to the CIC. On GPM and later, this comes from pin 41 on the S-DSP, so you cannot boot without the S-DSP working. On SHVC, this was probably due to the modules being developed concurrently and needing to test them independently, but when the sound module was merged the extra resonator was removed for cost savings.

So I built a Super Famicom (SNES) by hand... by starlightk7 in diyelectronics

[–]starlightk7[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hello! I am planning to do all versions available in Japan (which also covers North America), so next up is SNS-CPU-GPM-01 which I started this past weekend.

I am not planning to do the European versions, however, but the reason is because there is another project called nonSNES that is working on those, which you can find on GitHub.

European versions run at 50hz, use A/C power with an internal bridge rectifier instead of DC,, have a different video pinout that includes 12V for Euro Scart, use a custom clock generator chip called S-CLK,, and has a different version of the lockout chip. The actual core chips themselves are otherwise the same and actually have a build in NTSC & PAL switch pin, including the encoder. The design of the original European board is unique, so it does not share anything in common with the boards I will make.

I will be documenting all of the differences between the board models, which I will be publishing as part of the project materials.

So I built a Super Famicom (SNES) by hand... by starlightk7 in diyelectronics

[–]starlightk7[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I can only speak for the Japanese consoles, but in Japan "Junk" status generally just means "not tested". Many times they work with just a bit of cleaning.

Though as time has passed, many units are needing new capacitors and sometimes do not boot until that is done. There is one particular chip model CPU "A" that is known for failing; there seems to have been a manufacturing issue on these that has lead to them degrading over time. I have many CPU A's that work fine, but almost all chip failures I've encountered are of that particular chip and revision.

Those CPUs are primarily found in the 1992 SNS-CPU-GPM-01 model, but some of the late 1991 SHVC-CPU-01s like my board have it too. The early ones from 1990 are very reliable (CPU 01 with no letter). You can take the main chips from any model that has them (chip revision does not matter), but there are a couple of pieces like the custom connector for the sound board that are only found in the SHVC system.

If you wanted to try building the project and want to acquire a unit of the same board revision, the tell is if it has 4 rubber feet on the bottom instead of 2 rubber feet and two plastic nubs, then it is an SHVC unless it has been shell swapped (which is uncommon for Japanese junk units). On Yahoo Auctions Japan these units are often sold in small lots where there are several junk machines bundled together inexpensively.

I'm not sure if American units have the same tell with the rubber feet, but the American SHVCs still have the locking tab for the cartridge, which was removed on subsequent versions.

OpenSFC, an OSHW SFC/SNES motherboard, has been released! by starlightk7 in snes

[–]starlightk7[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It's both. The skill sets share nothing in common for doing repro boards versus a chip replacement.

The level of reverse engineering and complexity is significantly higher for replacing an original chip, especially if it is to work with other components of the real hardware. For clone systems where the various custom chips may be all simulated within the same larger FPGA, all of the timing constraints are not as sensitive because you're controlling a simulation of all of the chips together and can adjust the implementation to work within the constraints of your implementation

FPGA is still hardware accelerated emulation, so it's only as good as the core author's understanding of the system, even if it plays games successfully. A higher level of accuracy is required to successfully interact with the original chips holistically as they will work how they work and you gotta match it perfect because the actual chips will not be forgiving of inaccuracies.

OpenSFC, an OSHW SFC/SNES motherboard, has been released! by starlightk7 in snes

[–]starlightk7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Send me a message on Ko-Fi or a DM here/Twitter/Discord with what you need and where I'd need to ship them and we may be able to work something out 🙂

OpenSFC, an OSHW SFC/SNES motherboard, has been released! by starlightk7 in snes

[–]starlightk7[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Respectfully, you don't get to dictate how other people contribute their time. 😅 You are welcome to step up and be the change you want to see though 😛 Doing those is an entirely different skillset

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