hot knife through console - learning to solder?

[dgnr7982]

^rapidelectronics

[goldbricker]

Not too hot (sic) on soldering, but you should see the hilarious mod I did to my Jap N64 the other day to let it play my US games. Most people use a soldering iron to melt the tabs, but I used.... pliers. Just squeezed them off (er..). Not tooooo much damage elsewhere from slipping and carving
Just call me Conan.

And it still worked?!?

[Saurian]

You can remove them however - I use a small hacksaw to cut them away neat.

[Treble]

^rapidelectronics

Have you had problems with them? Can you elaborate?

[dgnr7982]

^rapidelectronics

Have you had problems with them? Can you elaborate?

No I was pointing out Saurian's mis-spelling he put radip instead of rapid so the URL wasn't working - I am sure they are a fine establishment!

[Treble]

Fair enough! Thanks for the info, Saur.

[charlesr]

Not too hot (sic) on soldering, but you should see the hilarious mod I did to my Jap N64 the other day to let it play my US games. Most people use a soldering iron to melt the tabs, but I used.... pliers. Just squeezed them off (er..). Not tooooo much damage elsewhere from slipping and carving
Just call me Conan.

And it still worked?!?

Yep. Just kinda twisted the plastic away from the rest of the dust guard. It was messy, and normally I like using the right tool for the job, but I was desparate to play 1080 at 60Hz. Been waiting so long for that....

[MD]

I got my Gas powered soldering iron from maplin, cost about ?15 ISTR, I'll find the part number later. Can be refilled easily by Gas Lighter Refills (the Areosol type) so quick, cheap and easy to do and a flint (to light it) which can be bought anywhere too.

Maplin are good for general bits and bobs (and there are several in London), although I remember when Tandy sold a reasonable ammount of decent electronics kit...

A set of helping hands (weird metal thing with crocodile clips and a magnifying glass) is useful to help tin wires, a clamp is also good to hold things too.

Blue LEDs take a bit more juice then Red or Orange LEDs but all things considered it's still very small and not going to affect it. Multicoloured LEDs are fun to wire in. Cyan and Purple are two fave colours of mine.

[Ted Striker]

Does anyone know where to get Tripple Throw Tripple Pole switches from? For the saturn mod.

[Saurian]

Yo Mr Striker!

You dont need them.

I'll do a diagram for the 50/60hz select and region mod on 2 DPDT switches. You put the 5v and 0v + the common point 50/60hz + one of the region jumpers on one switch.
You then link the 2nd switch to the 5v and 0v and put the correct jumpers on the other.

So you boot the machine in 60hz for USA and JPN (toggled by 2nd switch) boot in PAL and you can select UK via the 2nd switch's USA position.

[Adrock]

I was wondering if anyone could tell me where i could buy gamebit screw drivers needed to open a snes and gamecube, gonna be buying a cube soon so could be interesting.

Also modchips, im looking for a saturn modchip (gotta check my system for that) anyone know where i can get one from?

Thanks

[Ted Striker]

Hey Saur, that sounds like a good idea. I've been looking for those switches for ages, and no where sells them.

By the way, you got those Saturn mod boards yet?