Dreamcast Internal Harddrive and HDMI complete!!

[segaman1977]

Just wanted to share one of my current projects. Hope you all enjoy. I will answer any questions.

First step was to cut out one side of the gdrom housing. This provided the space needed to fit a 2.5" harddrive. Once cut, I soldered my ide cable to the gdrom board instead of the dreamcast motherboard. I actually found this easier.


I did my normal mod stuff, dual bios, vga, vga switch,reset stitch, sd card. If you notice my placement of switches and sd, I prefer that spot so they can be easily accessed, but concealed by the modem. After doing my led mods, I decided to use my 320gb western digital so I could house my complete rom set. I installed a budget 12 volt pico psu($20 amazon), lined up the appropriate power rails, and soldered traditional connectors for easy disassembly if I ever need back into the case. After some wire management(very messy lol), I installed a vga to hdmi adapter, and used a short extension, which I trimmed to fit the original AC port for a clean looking face.



Put her back together, tight fit, but together. My Dream Dreamcast!

I am halfway done with another project. I have successfully connected a 1.8" zif harddrive to a DC. I have measured, and am confident that I can install it in a dreamcast using the stock power supply; there is plenty of space behind the controller ports with proper positioning. Worst case scenario, a zif drive could rest in the modem housing. When I take my vacation soon, I will do a tutorial on how to do a solderless sd card mod, an accidental discovery when looking for alternate soldering points. Thanks for all you Sega fans, keep Dreaming!!!!

[SWAT]

Good job! But many chaotic wires
Video signal doesn't have interference?
I have same PSU, it's enough for all devices? Hot?

[segaman1977]

(07.08.2016 07:23)SWAT писал(а):  Good job! But many chaotic wires
Video signal doesn't have interference?
I have same PSU, it's enough for all devices? Hot?

Temperature cool. The PSU provides 4 times the amps than the stock PSU. No interference at all, that's a benefit of using connectors instead of direct wire. They are shielded. Last night had system on for ten hours and no heating problems.

[SWAT]

That great!
You've done a lot of work. There are plans to improve (extend)?

[segaman1977]

Yes. I actually have two projects in the works. I am not very good at the piggyback bios soldering, so I spend a lot of time checking my points over and over. It will probably be two weeks before I can finish and post pictures. I am doing another internal harddrive system, but this time I have measured all the wires to fit exact to eliminate the ugly wires. I have also removed all of the headers on my VGA to HDMI board to decrease the size, but I will need to shield it. I have a bid on a broadband modem (wish me luck), which I plan on converting into an internal wireless, using the cpu heat cover as the antenna. I spent most of the day playing games off of my 1.8" zif drive. So far the speed seems acceptable. I got a slight skipping once during Dead or Alive, but I can't really tell much difference on other games. I managed to fit it safely above the controller ports. On that system, I am just going to use the stock PSU and maybe a VGA mod, only because ZIF drives max out 160GB, and they are kinda pricey for that capacity. A question for you SWAT, on my last couple SD card mods, I seem to have SD card corruption, even though I don't run any games or dreamshell on them. Is this a common thing? The brand of card seems irrelevant, and a format fixes it easily, it's just inconvenient. Thoughts? Also, I have bought so many IDE to CF adapters and never got a single one to work. Have you had any luck?

[SWAT]

(08.08.2016 09:10)segaman1977 писал(а):  A question for you SWAT, on my last couple SD card mods, I seem to have SD card corruption, even though I don't run any games or dreamshell on them. Is this a common thing? The brand of card seems irrelevant, and a format fixes it easily, it's just inconvenient. Thoughts?

I have it sometimes after writing to SD/HDD, not after reading.

(08.08.2016 09:10)segaman1977 писал(а):  Also, I have bought so many IDE to CF adapters and never got a single one to work. Have you had any luck?

IDE->CF adapter it's just wires in general, CF card has native IDE interface you can solder it directly to GD-drive port really.
Maybe you try use SD->CF adapter as CF card?

[segaman1977]

I have tried up CF cards up to 32GB and I did try two SD-CF adapters for fun. Logically, CF cards are not a financially smart way to go. I've been able to get 320GB PATA drives on ebay for $40. It makes sense for me just to stick with that. I do want to thank you SWAT for making dreamshell possible!!!

[SWAT]

CF should be used in slave mode as HDD.
On your adapter should be jumper for it. If not, it's uses as master by default.

Of course hard drive much cheaper than flash, but flash more compacted/convenient and has low power consumption.
You can try use some SATA adapter with any HDD.