{"id":239,"date":"2016-11-13T14:25:28","date_gmt":"2016-11-13T18:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.trollserver.com\/?p=239"},"modified":"2016-11-13T14:25:28","modified_gmt":"2016-11-13T18:25:28","slug":"nes-toploader-av-mod-rca-output-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.trollserver.com\/?p=239","title":{"rendered":"NES Toploader AV Mod – RCA Output – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

To jump between posts in this series, please visit the NES Mod Index<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before we can add RCA jacks to the NES, there is a little bit of electrical work to do. \u00a0By doing this first, we’ll conveniently have the things we will need later on. \u00a0This particular process has a lot of steps, but they really shouldn’t take especially long to complete.<\/p>\n

Start by cutting a piece of 4 Conductor wire that is about 15 inches long. \u00a0Then split the 4 Conductor wire and strip all of the wires at both ends. \u00a0I split one side of the wire farther than the other because the side that connects to the RCA jacks will benefit from a little bit of extra play. \u00a0The side that goes into the 4 pin connector only needs to be long enough to get them into the connector without bending anything at weird angles. \u00a0Continue by cutting 2 short pieces of wire (about 2″ each) and stripping the ends. \u00a0Next, completely disassemble the RCA jacks and separate out the ground rings. \u00a0You’ll eventually need all the parts, but for now you just need to not lose them since they aren’t involved yet. \u00a0This is what you should have at this point.<\/p>\n

\"rca_jacks06\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Using the 2 short wires, and the black wire of the 4 conductor wire (from the end where you split it further) bend all three wires through the little hole in the tab of one of the RCA jack ground rings. \u00a0Then do the same thing with the loose end of each short wire and the two remaining ground rings. \u00a0The result of all this bending of wire should look like this when you are done.<\/p>\n

\"rca_jacks07\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If what you’ve created looks like what you see in the picture above then it’s time to solder it together. \u00a0When that’s done, the more permanent version will look like this.<\/p>\n

\"rca_jacks08\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Next we need to build the 4 Pin Connector that will hook the RCA Jacks to the output side of the circuit we built. \u00a0The connectors are quite small and lining them up to solder them is a little bit of a pain but the trickiest part here is to make absolutely sure your pins are in the correct order. \u00a0To assist in this, here is a labeled version of the circuit board we built. \u00a0Note that the output is on the lower left and the input is on the upper right. \u00a0Also note that the input and output color order are the opposite of each other. \u00a0If you\u00a0mark each connector with a smudge of black where the ground pin is then each wire you connect to the board will only go on the correct connector where the black wire lines up with the black smudge. \u00a0I also usually write “IN” and “OUT” on the board and the connectors with a marker just so it’s super clear.<\/p>\n

\"rca_jacks09\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The 4 pin connectors are a bit tricky to assemble, and you need to make sure you are doing it correctly. \u00a0I’ve personally assembled them backwards and then been surprised at myself. \u00a0“How the heck did I do that?” \u00a0The answer is that there are a lot of spacial reasoning problems involved and you only need to get one of them out of whack to end up with something wrong. \u00a0To help keep you from doing something wrong like I have in the past, I have a list of pointers that might help you.<\/p>\n