17 Reply by ScanianWolf

(26 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

So I used a tiny spare led I had laying around and I removed the status led and put the test led instead with the longer leg in the square marked hole but I got nothing.. I’m gonna try to flip all of them around!

Update:

So I got the LEDs to work now, seems like there's conflicting information online about which lead that goes with the square. I also noticed that one of the red LEDs I started to test with was broken, which made the troubleshooting even more confusing.
Anyhow I flipped the status LED and replaced the red mode-LEDs with smaller more brighter LEDs I had laying around and hurray they work.

Anyhow now I have the led cycling issue that was also discussed in this thread from 2012.

He claims that he didn't use the correct switch and that it could be the source of the problem, but I assume that since I bought this as an entire kit complete with all components that it shouldn't be that..
He also points out in the thread that he had some other problem with a broken optoisolator... But it doesn't seem to be related to the led cycling

When I hold down the mode button the cycling stops, but continues as soon as I let go. I also got the cycling to randomize by holding down the mode button.

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18 Reply by ScanianWolf

(26 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Orgia Mode wrote:

How is it receiving power? Your LEDs may actually all be backwards. I think the LED flat-side usually goes to the square via.

Hi, thank you for your quick reply!
I put the longer leg of the LED through the square hole, which is supposed to be correct right?

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19 Topic by ScanianWolf

(26 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Hi,
I just assembled my Arduinoboy that I bought from
Catskull electronics. (He states explicitly on his site that he doesn't support this product anymore so therefore I thought I'd ask the community)
Unfortunately after having uploaded/installed the Arduinoboy software to the Arduino Uno (Rev3) I get no signs of life, no blinking LEDs etc.

I tried plugging in my midi keyboard to the midi port of the Arduinoboy but still no flashing status light.

Photo of Arduinoboy PCB front
Photo of Arduinoboy PCB back
I appreciate all help!

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20 Topic by ScanianWolf

(0 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

I accidentally held the two shoulder buttons while starting the GBA cause I turned it on while holding it in one hand.
I noticed that I wasn't able to boot into the program when pushing 'Start' so I turned the GBA on and off.

Then I noticed that my last three tracks got corrupted or rather scrambled together and scattered.
They were saved onto bank 37, 38, 39 and I think I even found bits and pieces of them on bank 29 and 2A that I think were empty before this strange incident.

The last three banks (37, 38, 39) where 'highest' in the list of available banks, the rest (3A -> 7F) are empty.

Someone knows what's going on and how to potentially restore this?

Thanks

Scanian Wolf

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21 Reply by ScanianWolf

(25 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Duck wrote:

can confirm v1 definitely doesn't work with flash carts properly. Which caused me a lot of headaches transplanting power boards in and out of a modded DMG....

Same, I contacted Retrosix about this and I thought that they'd send me two replacements (V2) for two boards I purchased this summer.
However they claimed that some of the V1 boards should work properly and since I had only tried one of them they only sent me one replacement board hmm. I'm gonna contact them again cause I have another DMG build coming up and I don't want to go through the same struggle again that you've also experienced..

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22 Reply by ScanianWolf

(4 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Did you try booting while holding both L & R ?
I think holding these buttons will force Nanoloop to re-read the wavetables or something like that.. although this sounds more like a hardware issue of the cart. Tried it with other game boys?

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23 Reply by ScanianWolf

(20 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Sorry for double posting,

I actually bought two dehum capacitor kits from retrosix and installed in one of my GBAs plus performed that internal amp bypass/prosound mod that scannerboy suggested from a thread here on the forum (See Photo).

Unfortunately I can’t say that I’m very happy with the result. It could very much be my lacklustre soldering skills, but I felt that I did a rather decent job.

Maybe someone with more knowledge in electronics could tell whether the internal prosound mod could cause the noise and mess with the capacitor de-noise mod?

I’ll update this post with photos and sound recordings tomorrow.

___________________________________________

UPDATE 2020-11-15
Sorry, didn't get to do this earlier. I'm gonna upload some photos too!
The GBA without the dehum capacitor mod has its' amp bypass routed from the points from behind the PCB.
Don't think there should be any difference compared to the points next to the a and b button pads from the front side of the PCB but your knowledge may vary.

GBA w/ ProSound Mod/Amp bypass (without the dehum capacitor kit)

Booting Nanoloop 2.8.2
Extract from song

GBA w/ ProSound Mod/Amp bypass with the dehum capacitor kit
Booting Nanoloop 2.8.2
Extract from song

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24 Reply by ScanianWolf

(6 replies, posted in Collaborations)

Sounds fun! Make most of my music using Game Boy Advance and Nanoloop2, but use LSDJ too.

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25 Reply by ScanianWolf

(2 replies, posted in General Discussion)

I saw many posts about him on instagram the day he passed away.
Very sad that this talented Atari ST chiptune legend is no longer with us, rest in peace!

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26 Reply by ScanianWolf

(6 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

This is ridiculously cool!

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27 Reply by ScanianWolf

(17 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

and apparently it uses a fraction of the power compared to the IPS-screens which is super for chiptuning!

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28 Reply by ScanianWolf

(17 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Hey, I know it's not technically an IPS-screen, but it's nevertheless relevant to the subject.
I saw that bennvenn is selling a replacement screen/kit that's non destructive. In other words it doesn't require you to butcher your game boy shell or go through a lot of messy work to put it in place. His screen is slightly smaller than the original, but i think it's perfect for chiptuners that don't necessarily use their game boys to play games. I ordered one the other day and I'll give you my thoughts on it when I receive it.
The one I ordered is for the GBC, but apparently it's meant to work on four different handhelds, including the DMG.
https://bennvenn.myshopify.com/collecti … dy-to-ship

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29 Reply by ScanianWolf

(20 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Ledfyr wrote:

PriMieon: I did like this on a 32 pin GBA: soldered the positive capacitor leg to the power switch pin with a C above it and the negative to the ground pad to the right next to the switch.

I guessed which holes to use (close to the ones on the 40 pin instructions) and traced them to the power switch with a multimeter. Not 100% sure it’s correct but it reduced the noise a bit I think. If this is wrong please let me know, see it as an experiment for now smile.

Here is another method that I think seems better, haven’t tried it though. https://support.retrosix.co.uk/support/ … -gba-audio

PriMieon wrote:

Since 32 pin and 40 pin GBAs are different does anyone know what holes to use with the 32 pin board? I included a pic of the boards. Upper one of 40, lower one is 32.

Thank you for sharing this. It might be something I'm gonna have a look into
I especially found this very interesting:

RetroSix wrote:

[...]I plan to create a CleanPower board for the GBA in future, making this fix irrelevant then, but until then you will need to place a solid state capacitor (not a normal aluminium capacitor) on the VDD2 rail. Solid state capacitors have lower ESR than the aluminium capacitors and that is key to the filtering working.

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30 Reply by ScanianWolf

(25 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Knife Crimes wrote:

I can't think of anything that would connect the issues you report with LSDJ to the replacement power regulator. Maybe a coincidence? Others might know better than me.

It does seem possible that backlight LEDs would be able to draw more current from the new source and thus run a little hotter. A higher value current limiting resistor could be an option.

I happen to have the RetroSix board on order at the moment, so I'll endeavour to report back when it arrives.

I did some backtracking on my particular backlight to see if I might've installed it incorrectly and I stumbled upon a video that Nonfinite Electronics uploaded long after I had installed my backlight and he is definitely not soldering the backlight to the same points that I did.

(The video is filmed from far away so it's impossible to see which points he's using, maybe someone knows:
https://youtu.be/YO_Ed6wjwBI?t=344)

I'm using these points but without the resistor, maybe that's where my problem lies..

However I'm pretty certain that Nonfinite stated back when this  backlight was released that there would be no need for any additional resistors because they were built in.

Perhaps that someone with more expertise could clarify all this; I'd be mighty thankful cause I'm desperate to get my DMG up and running without having to wait for additional parts and lengthy shipments etc.

It should be added that the CleanPower board outputs 6V instead of 5V if I understood correctly from the previous posts.

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31 Reply by ScanianWolf

(12 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

It sounds like something that happened to an old USB-stick of mine a couple of years ago and I was unable to restore the stick. Maybe windows does something funky that kills the NAND. I'm sorry about the cart

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32 Reply by ScanianWolf

(25 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

So I thought I'd give a little update on how the RetroSix CleanPower V1.0 power regulator board worked for me.

I have an old classic backlight mod from Nonfinite Electronics (V5) that made the old original Nintendo power regulator board overheat so I installed this CleanPower board with hopes that it would fix this issue.
But unfortunately I've run into many issues with my Game Boy since the installation.

I use LSDJ (V4.9.2) on an EMS Flashcart and I can't even press play before I it freezes and I get the "Don't Panic" screen in LSDJ.
Weirdly enough when I have let the DMG idle for a while it manages to play my track, but then I notice that it has glitches that the track didn't have before, it even makes the built in speaker give off a weird humming background noise.

So the heat that was generated from the old power regulator board is gone, but now it seems like a new source of heat has appeared and is coming from just underneath the screen; which I assume is the LEDs that are heating up.

Sooo, I really don't quite know if this is such a great idea for chip musicians.

Maybe someone has a clue of what's going on?

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