SNES Modding

[Tripitaka]

Right I have a US snes, I have the bits I need to mod it, I have good instructions courtesy of mmmonkey, now if only I could pluck up the courage to take the damn thing apart. What I?m wondering is, how hard is it? I?m particularly worried about lifting the legs on the chips. Is it easy to fry the chip with the soldering iron?

[chaoticjelly]

I'll do it if you want.

If your new to this chip leg lifting business, its fairly easy to break the leg off, depends how experienced/skillful you are with the iron.. having a steady hand helps too.

[Tripitaka]

Err thanks but tbh I find the idea of sending of my beloved new toy to a stranger a bit worrying and if you fu**ed it (no matter how much I knew it was unfair) I would probably be a bit pissed with you. But for future reference, in case I change my mind; How much would you charge?

[chojin]

I have a US Snes, which I removed the tabs to enble JAP games to play, I thought that was the only mod needing to be done on it?

what are you planning on modding it to do?

[Tripitaka]

Well I have a few uk games a friend passed me, so I was going to do the whole 50/60 Hz switch and security lock out chip mod thing as well, so I could play just about any game on it. Check out



http://mmmonkey.co.uk/console/index.htm



For more info if you?re interested.

[chojin]

oh I get ya.. no PAL games in my collection

thanks for the link though, some interesting stuff on there

[Tripitaka]

Just a thought, but does anyone know if I could take the tabs out and use a UK universal adapter to play UK games?

[halfacandan]

Right I have a US snes, I have the bits I need to mod it, I have good instructions courtesy of mmmonkey, now if only I could pluck up the courage to take the damn thing apart. What I?m wondering is, how hard is it? I?m particularly worried about lifting the legs on the chips. Is it easy to fry the chip with the soldering iron?

I just did the mod a few hours ago. I'd been meaning to for a while but was a bit too scared to lift the chip legs. They aren't so bad though. The hardest one is deffinately the lock-out chip's leg as there isn't much purchase to lift the leg with. I used a pin (coming from the side) and heated the leg from the top. I didn't have any solder on the iron's tip in case it got between the chip legs. So long as you go slowly, do it in a well lit room, don't apply too much pressure to the legs and try not to hold the iron on the legs for too long at a time, you should be fine.

I also sucessfully used a 1k5 resistor (instead of the 2k2 that mmmonkey used).

Hope this helps
Dan

[Madjock]

Nice guide, I'm going to attempt the 60hz mod, as i'm sick of Mario with those borders. Anyone know if I need the '2.2K Ohm resistor' if I'm only having one switch?

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

Nice guide, I'm going to attempt the 60hz mod, as i'm sick of Mario with those borders. Anyone know if I need the '2.2K Ohm resistor' if I'm only having one switch?

You need the resistor with the 50/60Hz switch. You don't really need a switch for the region for most games. Even with a switch there are a few titles that won't work properly. Most notably Super Mario RPG.

[randombs]

i did a few uk snes's way back when, and they do pal50/60, but if you do the same thing to a us snes, does it do pal50? i'd have thought that, seeing as it's ntsc, it'd do some freaky ntsc 50hz thingy? do tell guys, do tell

[Tripitaka]

Cheers guys I think I may do it sometime next week if I get time I?ll let you know how it goes if I?m not to chicken.

You need the resistor with the 50/60Hz switch. You don't really need a switch for the region for most games. Even with a switch there are a few titles that won't work properly. Most notably Super Mario RPG.

Not sure about this, I thought the switch was to flick it back to the default position so you could at least play domestic games, do you mean you couldn?t play an import Mario RPG but you could a domestic one, just checking.



Anybody any ideas on the converter thing, I would really rather not take a soldering iron to it if it can be helped.

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

Not sure about this, I thought the switch was to flick it back to the default position so you could at least play domestic games, do you mean you couldn?t play an import Mario RPG but you could a domestic one, just checking.

It doesn't matter how you do it, as soon as you lift pin 4 on the lockout, the game won't run properly.

I'm pretty sure Hoshi No Kirby 3 has the same problem.

[Tripitaka]

i did a few uk snes's way back when, and they do pal50/60, but if you do the same thing to a us snes, does it do pal50? i'd have thought that, seeing as it's ntsc, it'd do some freaky ntsc 50hz thingy? do tell guys, do tell

Yeah I think it works I?m no expert on any level but from what I?ve read it works fine and allows you to play PAL only games on an NTSC system.

[Tripitaka]

It doesn't matter how you do it, as soon as you lift pin 4 on the lockout, the game won't run properly.

I'm pretty sure Hoshi No Kirby 3 has the same problem.

Hmm that sucks, I may not bother then as I kinda fancy Mario RPG.



Cheers for the heads up.