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Step 28Adding a Charge Port and A/V Out
What you need:
Some type of charge plug
Some type of A/V plug with at least 3 contacts
A/V cable (home built or otherwise)
Wire (IDE cable will work)
Soldering Iron
DPST Switch
If you've got built in rechargeable batteries like me, you'll obviously need a charging port. Also, you may want to add A/V out, where you can plug your portable into a larger TV. Not necessary, but it is a very nice feature to have.
USING THE CHARGING PORT
The charging port can easily be bought at Radioshack, or found in old electronics. I'm not sure what it is called, but it is a standard plug. You'll need the plug and the port, so find some. I got mine on an old board I had laying around. It had a headphone jack in it, and a charging port. It is shown in the first picture.
The soldering for the charging port is very simple. Just solder a wire to ground and another to the middle pin of the port. You can tell which is which because the side connected to ground will also be connected to a lot of other contact points as well. The middle pin will usually be isolated. You can see this in the third picture.
WHERE TO ATTACH THE WIRES
The other side of the wires will go to the ground on the console. The positive wire, however, is a different story and will vary between people. For me, it went to the power in line on my charge protection circuit for the Li-ion batteries, but there will be more on that later.
CHARGER
For a charger, any will do. BUT ONLY IF YOU HAVE THE CHARGING CIRCUIT for the Li-ions. You CAN NOT just apply power to the batteries to charge them. Again, if you do not how to properly use Li-ion batteries, PLEASE use NiCD. Ahem. As I was saying, any charger will do as long as it supplies the correct voltage for the protection circuit and it is positive IN and negative OUT.
MAKING THE A/V OUT PORT
For the A/V out, you will need a headphone-type port with at least 3 contacts, which is the standard kind. You also need a headphone plug. You can use company-made stuff, you just have to find the pinout of it. I didn't have any suitable cables, so I made one myself. It is in picture 6.
To prepare the headphone jack, I had to cut the traces on the PCB, because one of the contacts was connected to ground. After that, the ground terminal had to be re-connected to ground. Check out picture 3.
OPTIONAL: HEADPHONE JACK
Picture 4 is if you wanted to use that port as an actual headphone jack. The right and left audio channels are connected, so you get sound in both headphones, even though the NES is mono.
Once the charging and A/V ports are set up, you'll need to add some wires. I soldered a yellow one to the video terminal, a red one to the audio contact, a black one to ground, and a green one to the charging port. See picture 5.
A/V SWITCH
If you want to switch between the internal screen and the external screen, that is fine. This means the picture and sound will be on either the PSone screen or the external screen, not both at once. Or, you could have it so the picture will show up on both screens at once. To do that, just attach the cables that were included with the PSone screen and use the official cable.
I went with option one. Why, I don't know. But I did.
You need a DPST switch, which is Double Pole, Single Throw. In English, that means there are only 2 switch positions (left or right), but it's two switches in one. You can see one in picture 7.
WIRING THE DPST SWITCH
To use this switch, first solder the audio OUT wire from the NES to one of the middle pins. Solder the video OUT wire from the NES to the other middle pin. It is important to get that right. Now, on the audio side, there are two more contacts, both on either side. Solder the audio wire from the screen (the audio in wire) to one of the outer pins. Now take the audio wire from the A/V out port and solder it to the other outer pin. What you have here is a setup that takes the audio from the NES (middle pin) and switches it to either the left outer pin or the right one. In this case, one of those is the PSone screen and the other is the A/V out.
Now you need to do the same for the video, but you MUST MAKE SURE you solder the PSone screen video wire to the SAME SIDE as the PSone screen audio wire. Same goes for the A/V out. Otherwise, you'll have video to one screen and audio to the other or vise-versa.
Make sure you make all the wires relatively long. I didn't do this, and it made things a little more difficult afterwards, so don't be greedy with the wiring. When I was done soldering, I added some hot glue and a zip tie so the wires don't come off from being bent too much.
That's it for the charging port and the A/V jack. You're getting close now! All that's left to do is make the case and mount everything! You're so close now!
Some type of charge plug
Some type of A/V plug with at least 3 contacts
A/V cable (home built or otherwise)
Wire (IDE cable will work)
Soldering Iron
DPST Switch
If you've got built in rechargeable batteries like me, you'll obviously need a charging port. Also, you may want to add A/V out, where you can plug your portable into a larger TV. Not necessary, but it is a very nice feature to have.
USING THE CHARGING PORT
The charging port can easily be bought at Radioshack, or found in old electronics. I'm not sure what it is called, but it is a standard plug. You'll need the plug and the port, so find some. I got mine on an old board I had laying around. It had a headphone jack in it, and a charging port. It is shown in the first picture.
The soldering for the charging port is very simple. Just solder a wire to ground and another to the middle pin of the port. You can tell which is which because the side connected to ground will also be connected to a lot of other contact points as well. The middle pin will usually be isolated. You can see this in the third picture.
WHERE TO ATTACH THE WIRES
The other side of the wires will go to the ground on the console. The positive wire, however, is a different story and will vary between people. For me, it went to the power in line on my charge protection circuit for the Li-ion batteries, but there will be more on that later.
CHARGER
For a charger, any will do. BUT ONLY IF YOU HAVE THE CHARGING CIRCUIT for the Li-ions. You CAN NOT just apply power to the batteries to charge them. Again, if you do not how to properly use Li-ion batteries, PLEASE use NiCD. Ahem. As I was saying, any charger will do as long as it supplies the correct voltage for the protection circuit and it is positive IN and negative OUT.
MAKING THE A/V OUT PORT
For the A/V out, you will need a headphone-type port with at least 3 contacts, which is the standard kind. You also need a headphone plug. You can use company-made stuff, you just have to find the pinout of it. I didn't have any suitable cables, so I made one myself. It is in picture 6.
To prepare the headphone jack, I had to cut the traces on the PCB, because one of the contacts was connected to ground. After that, the ground terminal had to be re-connected to ground. Check out picture 3.
OPTIONAL: HEADPHONE JACK
Picture 4 is if you wanted to use that port as an actual headphone jack. The right and left audio channels are connected, so you get sound in both headphones, even though the NES is mono.
Once the charging and A/V ports are set up, you'll need to add some wires. I soldered a yellow one to the video terminal, a red one to the audio contact, a black one to ground, and a green one to the charging port. See picture 5.
A/V SWITCH
If you want to switch between the internal screen and the external screen, that is fine. This means the picture and sound will be on either the PSone screen or the external screen, not both at once. Or, you could have it so the picture will show up on both screens at once. To do that, just attach the cables that were included with the PSone screen and use the official cable.
I went with option one. Why, I don't know. But I did.
You need a DPST switch, which is Double Pole, Single Throw. In English, that means there are only 2 switch positions (left or right), but it's two switches in one. You can see one in picture 7.
WIRING THE DPST SWITCH
To use this switch, first solder the audio OUT wire from the NES to one of the middle pins. Solder the video OUT wire from the NES to the other middle pin. It is important to get that right. Now, on the audio side, there are two more contacts, both on either side. Solder the audio wire from the screen (the audio in wire) to one of the outer pins. Now take the audio wire from the A/V out port and solder it to the other outer pin. What you have here is a setup that takes the audio from the NES (middle pin) and switches it to either the left outer pin or the right one. In this case, one of those is the PSone screen and the other is the A/V out.
Now you need to do the same for the video, but you MUST MAKE SURE you solder the PSone screen video wire to the SAME SIDE as the PSone screen audio wire. Same goes for the A/V out. Otherwise, you'll have video to one screen and audio to the other or vise-versa.
Make sure you make all the wires relatively long. I didn't do this, and it made things a little more difficult afterwards, so don't be greedy with the wiring. When I was done soldering, I added some hot glue and a zip tie so the wires don't come off from being bent too much.
That's it for the charging port and the A/V jack. You're getting close now! All that's left to do is make the case and mount everything! You're so close now!
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If they are different, then what is the headphone plug called? Or is it just a headphone plug? Thanks!
Also, next time, could you put all your questions into one post? :/