[LazyEpic]

In school now but don’t think the audio circuit has an amp, but you should be able to just increase the audio on your TV or use an external amp. However give me to later today and I can check what levels the audio board can handle but should be fairly easy to amp the sound.

[LazyEpic]

Not 100% sure but you should be able to use the scart input for sound and according to the newsletter the audio-jack will double as a audio input for the 1.6 version and since it’s directly tied to the audio of the scart you should just be able to connect an audio in there to get sound but then you have to make sure you haven’t connected anything to the scart input to avoid problems.
I think the 1.6 version will have a switch just to make sure you don’t damage anything connected to scart when you use the audio-jack as input, as the audio signal gets routed directly in to the audio circuit then straight in to the HDMI chip you should be able to have audio on all inputs without much (or perhaps any) changes to the code, but haven’t gotten my audio board yet so can’t test it yet.

What you need is either a RCA to scart (most 4th to 6th gen consoles came with one of there as standard in the PAL regions) and they should be easy to find online, or an RCA to 3.5mm.

[LazyEpic]

The hq filter works like a charm with Metal Gear solid on PSX, almost completely negates the dithering without any noticeable negative effects. This is wonderful, thank you so much 🙂

EDIT:
Now still images doesn’t really do it justice compared to when in motion but don’t have a hdmi capture device and recording with the phone isn’t ideal but still, scan lines at auto, without them it looks clean but not “old school” 😛

Snake – no filter

Snake – hq filter

[LazyEpic]

For passive 3D (most TVs) it would have to draw one frame on half the screen first then the other frame on the rest of the screen, would only be the vertical mode 3D and frame rate would be half but technically might be possible. Not sure how the timings would interact to though, but if you managed to get the signal to be accepted the TV then does the heavy lifting of “making it 3D”.

[LazyEpic]

This might be too much work but a test-suite that can just iterate through possible resolutions etc, doesn’t have to be fast and can just be a grey test pattern with settings used in text. Would help a lot with tuning to specific TV set and make it much simpler to build a DB over signal compatibility even if you have to sit there and manually make not of which resolutions etc display correctly etc.

So I’m not talking automated system, just a slow constant change of output that the user can watch.

[LazyEpic]

I’m by no means an expert but I’ll give it a shoot answering.

The reason your NES zapper works and not your PSX gun is that they work in different ways, my guess is that your TV does some re-modulation of the signal to give you the higher resolution and that messes with the PSX gun that needs very specific timings etc.

The NES zapper and duck hunt works by basically turning the screen black for a frame then a frame that’s mostly black but lights the position of the duck, the zapper is “stupid” in the fact that it doesn’t really care where you point it, it just looks for a light. If you shine a light in to the zapper you basically hit every time no matter where you point it.

The OSX gun is a bit more complex, the yellow connector is just a tap on your composite signal and that’s because PlayStation uses sync on composite, meaning the gun listens to the sync to get the H-sync which is much faster than V-sync and therefor more accurate.
Add to that that you actually calibrate the gun, probably to calibrate the sync to your specific TV since not all CRT screens are created equal due to the more fast paced syncing.
The TV then as I understand it (might be wrong) draw one black frame and run a dot over it, the gun registers the dot and figures out with the help of the sync where exactly you are pointing your gun, therefor just shining a light in the GunCon will make the gun think you are just shooting the left most corner.

So my guess earlier about your TV doing some fancy thing to give you that nice resolution also messes with the H-sync meaning your gun might not work or work sporadically while the duck zapper being much simpler works just fine, as to what OSSC can do to help, honestly don’t know depends on how your TV behaves with different signals and going analog to digital to analog will probably, sad to say, only make matters worse.

[LazyEpic]

Well it’s simple, the console obeys the game meaning if you use a NTSC game on a PAL system (with chip) you get NTSC standard out, that’s why if you only use composite most old TV’s gave you black and white picture due to not correctly handling the standard. If you use RGB, which you should you get color as it’s covered in the standard. The RGB signal will be 60hz using a NTSC game and it will play exactly as it would on a NTSC console, also PAL used more lines which in the case of OSSC can be a problem.

For ex. I have a PAL PSX system chiped with an arduino;

When I play metal slug X I get 60hz or 59-60hz in 263p meaning when using OSSC with lineX2 I get 60FPS 526p out which is no problem for the TV.

If I play my PAL version of Battle Arena Toshinden 4 I get 50hz or 49-50hz but also a resolution of 314p, this game does not play well with the OSSC hdmi output, the OSSC sees it no problem but the output is outside standard tolerance for my Sony TV as it’s either 628p with lineX2 or 314p using pass-through, have to try and fix that someday.

Same goes for interlaced material so you can get either system, PAL games will get you a higher resolution and more graphic fidelity at the cost of frame rate, but for some games that will preferable while others you prefer the speed at a loss of some picture quality.

So take what ever is cheapest and go with that, some PS1, PSX, PSone units are said to be better than others but honestly the difference it minimal.

[LazyEpic]

I am considering using a soldering pen and hot air gun instead of using a soldering iron considering the size of these components and number of pins on the ICs etc. Any advice on which one I should buy – this will be the first kind of project dealing with these sized chips so far!

It’s not hard, soldering pen and hot air will work well, for hot air station a normal Chinese hakko clone like 858D+ will work (that’s what I use, cost me about $35), when it comes to soldering pen/iron you will do yourself a huge favor if you get a brand one right of the bat, Weller, Ersa, genuine Hakko or JBC. Depending on where you’re located availability of certain brands varies, if you’re in the EU then I recommend getting a Ersa straight from their online shop, good quality for fair price.

I use the Ersa i-con Nano, the pico is a little less but it’s also not grounded which you should always have when working on electronics, but any of the above mentioned brands are good.
i-con nano is listed as 80W with the pen but station is specced as 68W, it’s a very handy pen-style iron and haven’t found anything that it can’t handle when it comes to electronics, it’s easy to handle and you can switch both tips and pens meaning once you get a station you’re set.

Overall you need some magnification and a good light to check your joints but other than that doing 0603 isn’t that much harder then regular soldering, a decent lead-based thin solder wire will do or use paste, as for the chips simple drag soldering works just fine, paste will make it easier to connect the ground plate below.
Heat gun works for chips as well but honestly I did both on my board (since I had to redo a lot due to getting the wrong chip etc) and hand soldering the chips is actually faster in general but if you have to remove or redo them an hot air gun will make it much easier.

So if you have some soldering experience and decent equipment this board isn’t really that hard, just go slow and methodically, look at the layout before and check values, do that and you shouldn’t really run in to much problems.

EDIT:
And FLUX! you can never have to much flux, a good flux will help a lot rosin or resin doesn’t matter, a no clean one will well reduce your need to clean it. If you think you have enough flux then add some more!

[LazyEpic]

Ah yeah =D just got mine up and running a few days ago 😛

[LazyEpic]

That seems like a round about way to do it? Have you tried just trying to sync your remote to the OSSC?
Just hold down Button 1 (the one closest to the LCD) on your OSSC as you turn on the power, you LCD will then give you instructions on which button to press, I synced my Yamaha receiver remote without any problems.

EDIT:
Also you can try the automated programming for brands etc of the remote, the OSSC uses NEC standard AFAIK
http://codesforuniversalremotes.com/program-chunghop-universal-remote-control/

[LazyEpic]

Great success! removed the CE10 chip and put in a CE15, flashed the latest firmware and now it works as it should without any issues (more than normal).

Just waiting for the sound PCB from OSHpark and this build is done! =D

[LazyEpic]

@zugspitzjockl yeah thinking about going that way as well but yeah I’ve redone more or less the entire board 2 times so it’s an issue, really to make it worthwhile to order from mouser I might as well get the parts for the audio board but if it FUBAR in total that’s almost $300 dollars down the drain and as a student that really a big chunk of my economy :/

[LazyEpic]

@BuckoA51 Ah :/ well sucks that it will take some time but only way to get them faster would be from mouser that has them in stock but since I wouldn’t order anything else from them each chip would be about $50 (with shipping and tax) which is a bit hefty since I just ordered a USB blaster from them before we realized it was the wrong chip to trouble shoot it.
You have no idea of a time frame for you getting the them again?

[LazyEpic]

@BuckoA51 No problem, it happens just glad we caught it 🙂 Just hope it doesn’t set you back and that there was only a few wrong chips.

[LazyEpic]

Also reseated everything today and checked the connections from before, nothing wrong from what I could tell. I got the same Cyclone version EP4CE10E22C8N and not the CE15 version that is listed in the kit.. The wrong chip has been sent out right? …. wish I read that post before I reseated everything.

EDIT:
I don’t get any light on my however

EDIT2:
Checked the pinout, seems they are different on the CE10 vs the CE15 version

PIN    CE15          CE10
1      VCCD_PLL3      IO (B1)
2      GNDA3          IO (B1)
3      VCCA3          IO (B1)
61     IO (B4)        VCCINT

The most obvious ones
https://www.altera.com/content/dam/altera-www/global/en_US/pdfs/literature/dp/cyclone-iv/ep4ce10.pdf

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