Extended Famicom to NES converter.

Started by muramasa, September 19, 2017, 11:35:23 am

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muramasa

First post here on Famicom world but figured it was something people here would be interested in. My extended Famicom to NES converter. I mainly made it for the purpose of using a FDS Ram adapter with a Toaster NES. Since the converters sticks out the front and can't be seated down a blinking light win or perfect pins are needed. It also doesn't look good being used with RF as the output, but looks amazing with even just composite.

It does have the expanded famicom audio hooked up though. So if your NES is enabled for expansion audio it will come through which is particularly important for the FDS.

I'm planning to make a small batch of them that I will bring to PRGE with me as well as put up on my website. I would like to find out how much interest there is to see if I should make more than that

Shout out to skyway1985 and tt for help troubleshooting problems with this. Probably would have stayed on the backburner forever if it wasn't for them.

This is the kind of thing being on my email list helps with. When they are available an email will go out to my email list or you can check my store at www.muramasaentertainment.com. I will also try to get back to this thread as well.

And of course some pictures


   


   


   


   


   

UglyJoe

Any ideas on a price range?  I am interested, but it would depend on price.

muramasa

Great question. I intended to originally put that in the post. Right now I'm planning on around $30.

UglyJoe


Jedi Master Baiter

My NES was set up (not by me) for expansion sound for the Power Pak. But I think I remember someone stating that the pins for the Power Pak were different. :-\ Can anyone confirm? ???

If I could use this on my NES to play games with expansion sound I'd be interested.

P

I'm also interested, I'd like to use it with a PAL NES. $30 sounds good for a quality adapter.

So it does expansion audio but what about the other pins? Many cart adapters bridge Famicom pins 48 and 49 (required for games that maps VRAM to the cartridge) instead of connecting them to their corresponding NES pins, does this adapter connect them correctly?

skyway1985

It works fine with the basic sound resistor mod, and also boots the N8 fine. I've had first hand experience with an early proto i was using for testing. it's an awesome piece.
If you need help procuring rare dev equipment and protos, don't hesitate to ask! "I'm teh FdS Masta!"

muramasa

Quote from: Jedi QuestMaster on September 19, 2017, 10:08:10 pm
My NES was set up (not by me) for expansion sound for the Power Pak. But I think I remember someone stating that the pins for the Power Pak were different. :-\ Can anyone confirm? ???

If I could use this on my NES to play games with expansion sound I'd be interested.


I connected the audio to pins 51 and 54 on the NES side. Generally on the Frontloader the audio mod is done on pin 54 and on the top loader it's done on pin 51. Which should cover the vast majority of users on the audio side. (also note I plan to do a top loader version at some point since it obviously doesn't need to be as tall as this one)

Quote from: P on September 20, 2017, 04:33:25 am
So it does expansion audio but what about the other pins? Many cart adapters bridge Famicom pins 48 and 49 (required for games that maps VRAM to the cartridge) instead of connecting them to their corresponding NES pins, does this adapter connect them correctly?


I did connect pins 48 and 49 properly. In fact when I first started with adapters I couldn't figure out for the life of me why they hooked up the pins that way on other adapters. It makes sense to connect them straight through and let the cartridge deal with if they should be connected together or not.

Jedi Master Baiter


P

QuoteI did connect pins 48 and 49 properly. In fact when I first started with adapters I couldn't figure out for the life of me why they hooked up the pins that way on other adapters. It makes sense to connect them straight through and let the cartridge deal with if they should be connected together or not.

Yeah it's not like it's something that will save money or anything, it doesn't really make sense. I guess someone started doing it for some reason and then others just followed the same design.

OK this sounds like a great adapter. Sign me up!

L___E___T

 



Same here - I don't really use my NES but look at that product design and attention to detail.  If you can stick to $30 you got an order from me for sure.

Checked out the website too - really like what you are doing there, and everything looks top quality to me (though admittedly I am new to electronics) :bub:
My for Sale / Trade thread
http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=9423.msg133828#msg133828
大事なのは、オチに至るまでの積み重ねなのです。

theoakwoody

I'm down.  Count me in. I've always wanted one of those honeybee adapters.  Thanks for working on this.

muramasa


theoakwoody

Quote from: muramasa on November 29, 2017, 09:39:12 pm
Available now on my site! HERE  ;D


Why does it say on your website that it doesn't work with the N8?  Are you just saying that you can't guarantee that it will work or that you've tested it with the n8 and it absolutely will not work because of some hardware conflict?

muramasa

Quote from: theoakwoody on December 08, 2017, 03:28:45 am
Why does it say on your website that it doesn't work with the N8?  Are you just saying that you can't guarantee that it will work or that you've tested it with the n8 and it absolutely will not work because of some hardware conflict?


I had someone test it with the n8 and it didn't work. It was the only cartridge we couldn't get to work with it. Unfortunately I don't own a n8 so couldn't test further than that.