Gen/Saturn|Guide:Converting a RF unit into a composite cable

[fuctfuct]

There is a pin for it .. not sure what it does though hehe

[weasels]

HAHA!!!! i did it! and what a difference too! thanks all for this, especially you em, since you figured it out.

[emwearz]

Good way to test the wires fuctfuct, though to be honest it would have just been faster to try it out, plug in your three jacks, put your video to one then the other, etc. Would have been done in 20 seconds, but whatever nice method.

As for dual mono, both of my TV sets will switch the tv to 'mono mode' if only 1 audio jack is plugged in, i forget which but think it was the left stereo.

Glad to hear you got it working weasels.

[Ziggy]

There is a pin for it .. not sure what it does though hehe

Yeah, that's bizarre. Apparently you have a dual mono and stereo L pin lol. What sense does that even make?

Taking a look at the pin out, I might have to open mine up and take a look at it again. I might not actually have a stereo cable, might be dual mono plus another audio channel.

[weasels]

i think my rf was stereo. i only say thins because i has two sound wires, one worked on the left side and the other on right. so i twisted them together and soldered. whats ever weirder is one wire i had no use for. now im not too great at specifics when it comes wiring, so im not 100% sure on my statement.

[Ziggy]

OK, I just had a realization!



This isn't the pinout for the male plug, it's the pinout for the female connector on the system itself. This is why I was confused about which pins were which. And Fuct Fuct had the male plug upside down compared to the pinout diagram.

That being said, when I first did this mod to my Genesis RF adapter I saw three pins and automatically assumed one was for video and the other two for audio. I didn't even notice because on my TV, if only one audio channel is plugged in, it will play it out both speakers. Now I know I'm wrong. Looking at the pinout diagram correctly, I now know that the pins on my RF (and Fuct Fuct's) are Audio Mono, Comp Video, and 5VDC (or did we already discover this? I forget where we left off).

So my question now, is, what the hell is the 5V's for? Is it only used for the RF modulator and not needed for component cables? This is what I'm assuming.

So my 5V pin is hooked up to my left audio (white) plug. I noticed something weird. When I was switching between the audio out from the Sega CD and the audio from my composite cables, when I plugged the white one in the video actually froze! Pretty weird.

Anyways, I'm gonna have to do a little surgery on my cables and wire them up "dual mono" like Fuct did.

edit: I looked at the pinout diagram for the Saturn plug again, taking into account that it's "backwards" from the male cable, and noticed that it also had the 5V pin. So, I think it's safe to assume that it's for the RF unit and can be disgarded when making the composite cables. I mean, we already knew this, but curiosity always bothers me.

[emwearz]

Ziggy my TV also picks up 1 output and plays via both speakers, I changed over to the dual mono setup when I got a genny from JFE2, I thought the console was dodgey because it seemed to freeze up when moved, I redid my wires (I had obviously hooked up the 5V to a audio wire) and it ran perfectly.

Might give this guide an update in the next week or so.

[Ziggy]

Yeah, it might be a good idea to update the guide now that we figured out how to correctly read the pinout diagram.

edit: I've come to realize something else. The Sega CD will output stereo sound for the Genesis. I'm not sure if this is old news to people, but I sure as hell never thought that the audio out on the Sega CD would function when playing a Genesis game. But it does! I thought the Sega CD was 'dead' when playing a Genesis cart.

[jeffro11]

In regards as to why there is a 5v out... Think of the dreamcast VGA box, it takes a voltage line from the connector to power the VGA box. Sega probably stuck it there for good measure in case they needed it for god knows what... Maybe the 32x uses it (doubtful)? I have no idea!

[emwearz]

Yeah, it might be a good idea to update the guide now that we figured out how to correctly read the pinout diagram.

edit: I've come to realize something else. The Sega CD will output stereo sound for the Genesis. I'm not sure if this is old news to people, but I sure as hell never thought that the audio out on the Sega CD would function when playing a Genesis game. But it does! I thought the Sega CD was 'dead' when playing a Genesis cart.

Pretty well known benefit of the SegaCD, why a lot of people have a SegaCD just for better audio, much like many people have a 32X for its video encoder for a clear image on shitty models.