Got my new NOAC yesterday/ some pics of my portable

[loup]

Looking for the pics? Scroll down

A couple of weeks ago I kinda accidentally damaged the noac I had been working with, it was just a super joy 3. I decided to go ahead and purchase another one and while looking around I found one with a few additional games (at least I don't remember seeing them on the super joy 3) including pacman and ms. pacman.

I got the new noac in yesterday, it's built into the fake n64 controller just like my old one, but the little joystick in the middle actually works, it's not an analog joystick, it's digital, but I thought that was pretty cool, I might have to save it for another project.

I did run across one small problem however, the pcb is quite a bit bigger than the one from the SJ3, somewhere in the order if 25% bigger. When I was doing my mock ups with the original board it was all fitting in my enclosure quite nicely, the bigger board won't fit in there the same way. The new noac also has a pretty large quartz crystal on it and the capaciters are physically larger as well. I rearanged the boards a little, and desoldered the quartz crystal, reattaching it with some wire so I can stick it elsewhere in the case. After doing all that I still needed to modify my case a little, but luckily it was all internal modifications so no cosmetic damage.

I poked around the forums a bit and didn't see any reference to it so I might post a couple of pictures when I get a chance. The packaging calls it the "Power Player Super Joystick with Extra RICH Accessories." One thing that I loved was that it actually came with a (poorly translated) manual with troubleshooting guide, I don't remember my SJ3 having a manual.

[akadewboy]

You probably got either

v3.5: http://gamesrr.com/showitem.cgi?Power_Player&PP35.dat

or the newest one

Evolution Special 2006 Edition : http://gamesrr.com/showitem.cgi?Power_Player&PPEVO.dat

[marshallh]

desoldered the quartz crystal, reattaching it with some wire so I can stick it elsewhere in the case.

You can try that but odds are, the thing will be severely messed up. The timing of the oscillator gets less accurate the farther the crystal is away. More than an inch or so will cause problems.
Just so you know.
Marshall

[G-force]

Yours sounds a lot like one I just recently got. The one I got has spot for a built in games chip, but since it was sold at Big-Lots there was nothin there. I'll take a pic later and you can tell me if it's similar to yours.

btw, due to the size of the board, I won't be able to use my original case either (GBO case). Instead it's gonna go have to go in a Game Gear case.

[loup]

I believe the one I got was the Evolution special 2006 edition, they were calling it something else when I bought it, something about a christmas addition, but the package looks identical.

desoldered the quartz crystal, reattaching it with some wire so I can stick it elsewhere in the case.

You can try that but odds are, the thing will be severely messed up. The timing of the oscillator gets less accurate the farther the crystal is away. More than an inch or so will cause problems.
Just so you know.
Marshall

I actually already did this (before I posted even,) it's on about a 3 inch tether now, I've tried it out since and it seems to be working fine still, but I might play around with it a bit more to make sure it's going to work


[edit]
G-force, I think I actually got it to fit my gbo case, that's what I'm using, but it definitely required some alterations to the case and pcb
[/edit]

[loup]

G-force, you said you thought you had the same thing, could you take a quick look and verify if this appears to be correct for the glop top for the controller?




Thanks

[loup]

I can confirm that my wiring diagram of the gloptop is correct, when soldering my controller onto I noticed that the maker had silkscreened the up , down, left, right connectors it had left and right opposite of how I had written them down so I followed their markings. Turns out I was right the first time. Left and right are correct on my diagram, if using the same noac as me, disregard the silkscreened markings for left and right.

[loup]

Here's where my NOAC portable is currently at.

Video works
+Controller works (used GBO controls, what a giant pain, but looks great)
+Quartz crystal has been attached to about 3 inches of wire so it can be relocated within the case. Otherwise it wouldn't fit in GBO case. (and yes, this does work)
+Modified GBO case to allow guts to fit inside
+Modified the plastic screen cover in GBO case to better show hip gear screen (removed old paint and repainted with larger dimentions)


What I need to do:
+Hook up sound
+Make video adjust board (brightness and contrast are fine, but color is a bit off, otherwise I would probably just skip this part)
+Stick everything in the case and screw it shut


My current worries:
+I have so many different pieces of this thing attached to each other with some fairly thin wire (actually used laquered magnet wire for the controller) that I'm afraid of accidentally breaking wires as I work with it.
+I'm kind of hungry.

[G-force]

Actually mine had the controller built onto the NOAC board (instead of having a separate board)
Sorry for not posting pics. I have some taken, I just don't have the card reader right now.

I'm hungry too. This gum I'm chewing is too old and ain't enough.

[loup]

I went ahead and threw everything into the case again to make sure that it would still fit. It's still pretty tight, and the wires are making it tighter, but it still all fits inside a GBO. I'm trying to decide at this point if I can make the audio circuitry fit, I really hope I can make a way for it to fit. [edit] I'm pretty sure I can get the audio circuitry will fit if I leave out the heaphone jack.[/edit]

At this point the only way to get everything to fit as-is is to sandwich my flattened noac between the screen and the screen's control board. Not pretty, but it works.

I've been working with some superglue for the last little bit and now have a headache from it, been breathing in too much of the fumes.

[loup]

Here are a few pics of my portable in progress.

Here you can see it playing some Arkanoid

for some reason the camera focused on the bit of wire in the upper, right hand corner, so it's a bit out of focus.

Here's a quick look at the guts inside

I still need to get the video adjust put somewhere in there, and I've got a few wires in place for when I get around to the audio, that probably won't happen for a little while

Notice that black thing on the left half of the case in the last picture, here's what it looks like from the back

It's like WWF wrestling or something like that, I don't like the game and didn't want to ut up a game that I actually wanted to play and stick it back there (another one where the camera focused on the background)

And this is what it looks like when stuck together, it just fits together

[cowsgoquack101]

Good job loup . Will there be a cartridge slot in the near future?

[loup]

probably not on this one, I'm planning on making another one after this in a slightly larger case that will have an actual cartridge slot. I just couldn't find a way to add a cartridge slot to the GBO case that I liked. Then I'll have one portable with built in games and another that takes cartridges.


[edit]
I just realized that I never wired in the reset switch. I could just turn it on an off to reset it, but it doesn't seem to like this much when the batteries are low (I've been using some very, very old batteries in it, it's been working supprisingly well with such dead batteries.) Luckily, I found a picture that I took of the thing that has the pinout silkscreened on it so I can solder the a lead in if I want. It will be a bit tricky though as I have already hot-glued most of it together.

[edit again]
I noticed last night that the video ground wire going to the screen had broken off but it was still working just fine. Might not be needed for this application.

[update]
It's about as finished as it's going to get for a while, video adjust is in and adjusted (makes the video MUCH nicer) still need to hook up audio and reset switch, but those can come later. I just don't want to open the case back up again, it's a pain to get everything sitting in there just right to be able to close it.

[schmellyfart]

im using a GBO for my portable and i was wondering how you wired up the GBO controls to the glop top because i stared at it for at least an hour and i cant figure it out so i was hoping someone could help me.

[loup]

You need to figure out what traces go to which control on the GBO's controller, scrape away some of the green protective layer above the traces till you get down to the copper. Then, on your gloptop, figure out which traces go to which control, and solder wires from the gloptop to the GBO controls. What you're really concerned with are up, down, left, right, a, b, select, start, and then a ground. Unfortunately, it would be very hard to give you an exact diagram of what to solder to in each case, mostly cause you would need to change where you solder to depending on how you cut the circuit board for the GBO and what NOAC you had.