Thread cleaned up.
I was really enjoying it so hope you decided to reverse your decision.
Sega Mega-Tech Restoration
- Thread starter mourix
- Start date
I was really enjoying it so hope you decided to reverse your decision.
Flyback2021
Active member
@mourix you know where I stand on this, always enjoyed any conversations we have had and love the dedication and excitement for open sourcing and sharing as much info as possible, It's great for the community as a whole and helps to better and improve awareness and scope and maybe even encourage others to have a go.... actually as you know it was your MS8 wiki entries that encouraged me to do my MS9 cap kit wiki entries
Nice one Oll, I was gonna say something too but I held my tongue.....
I'm blown away by the cleaned thread and all the nice support. Thanks so much, Mr20to5, Flyback2021, david656, tin, Adamski and Alpha1. I have reconsidered
So for the next updates to come here... the following stuff is heading my way right now:
To be continued...
So for the next updates to come here... the following stuff is heading my way right now:
- My game PCBs from JLCPCB.
- Cap kit from Mouser.
- EPROMS from AliExpress.
- IL buttons with Cherry switches from Smallcab.
- My reproduction CPO print from Drukland (local print shop).
- Back panel precut from laminated particle board from Gamma (local hardware store).
To be continued...
Last edited:
Flyback2021
Active member
Great stuff ! Looking forward to the rest of the restoratio.
If you need a donor Megatech cart for the project at some point I can offer you one.
If you need a donor Megatech cart for the project at some point I can offer you one.
welcome back!I'm blown away by the cleaned thread and all the nice support. Thanks so much, Mr20to5, Flyback2021, david656, tin, Adamski and Alpha1. I have reconsidered
So for the next updates to come here... the following stuff is heading my way right now:
I've also been to a local retro game convention on Saturday and bought a handful of Sega Master system games for experimentation later.
- My game PCBs from JLCPCB.
- Cap kit from Mouser.
- EPROMS from AliExpress.
- IL buttons with Cherry switches from Smallcab.
- My reproduction CPO print from Drukland (local print shop).
- Back panel precut from laminated particle board from Gamma (local hardware store).
To be continued...
ha honestly can't wait to see more about this!
Thanks everyone!
Thank you. The only one I'm really after is Sonic The Hedgehog 2. It's the last game to come out on Mega-Tech and has a new circuit board revision that's also used on Megaplay carts. So that would be a cool addition to the project. Unfortunately it's silly expensive, so if anyone can give me a good deal...
Flyback2021
Active member
Will double check, found some more
games yesterday.
Here's the list of official games I have for my own Mega-Tech:
- World Championship Soccer
- Great Golf
- Tommy Lasorda Baseball
- Super Real Basket Ball
- Sonic The Hedgehog
- Out Run
- Space Harrier II
- Tetris
- The Revenge Of Shinobi
- Golden Axe
- Altered Beast
- Ghouls 'N' Ghosts
I started dabbling in making carts too from ROMs... Moonwalk is very disappointing! I've got 3 carts I can burn ROMs to so will likely make Sonic II as well at some point.
- World Championship Soccer
- Great Golf
- Tommy Lasorda Baseball
- Super Real Basket Ball
- Sonic The Hedgehog
- Out Run
- Space Harrier II
- Tetris
- The Revenge Of Shinobi
- Golden Axe
- Altered Beast
- Ghouls 'N' Ghosts
I started dabbling in making carts too from ROMs... Moonwalk is very disappointing! I've got 3 carts I can burn ROMs to so will likely make Sonic II as well at some point.
Awesome. With the standard 4 Meg PCB you can totally make Sonic II, but with that bigger 42 pin ROM you need a patch wire for one of the address lines.
Hence me wanting to remake that rare 8 Meg PCB!
In today's update: a warning for people wanting to recap the Mega-Tech PCB.
I wanted to try a recap because my cab sounded like a smartphone. So I made the cap list here and got to work.
I own a decent soldering/desoldering station so usually it's a breeze, but not this time. This board got all the difficulties.. Multilayer ground planes, small through holes, bent leads and thin traces right next to cap pads.
After hours of soldering it does look nice though:
However this is what I was greeted with when I plugged it in. Crapp.. Back to debugging I guess.
NES4Life has a nice write up on this so I knew which area to look at. Finally found the issue:
I added one blue botch wire to the green factory botch wire seas:
But hey, we are back!
But... now the left speaker was dead. After a bunch of digging that was a 3mm track without a connection so a solder blob got it back.
And now I own a nicely recapped Mega-Tech that almost killed it...and still sounds like a smartphone. I guess it was 80's speaker quality all along
I wanted to try a recap because my cab sounded like a smartphone. So I made the cap list here and got to work.
I own a decent soldering/desoldering station so usually it's a breeze, but not this time. This board got all the difficulties.. Multilayer ground planes, small through holes, bent leads and thin traces right next to cap pads.
After hours of soldering it does look nice though:
However this is what I was greeted with when I plugged it in. Crapp.. Back to debugging I guess.
NES4Life has a nice write up on this so I knew which area to look at. Finally found the issue:
I added one blue botch wire to the green factory botch wire seas:
But hey, we are back!
But... now the left speaker was dead. After a bunch of digging that was a 3mm track without a connection so a solder blob got it back.
And now I own a nicely recapped Mega-Tech that almost killed it...and still sounds like a smartphone. I guess it was 80's speaker quality all along
Flyback2021
Active member
Crikey sounds like an intense day on the workbench !In today's update: a warning for people wanting to recap the Mega-Tech PCB.
I wanted to try a recap because my cab sounded like a smartphone. So I made the cap list here and got to work.
I own a decent soldering/desoldering station so usually it's a breeze, but not this time. This board got all the difficulties.. Multilayer ground planes, small through holes, bent leads and thin traces right next to cap pads.
After hours of soldering it does look nice though:
However this is what I was greeted with when I plugged it in. Crapp.. Back to debugging I guess.
NES4Life has a nice write up on this so I knew which area to look at. Finally found the issue:
I added one blue botch wire to the green factory botch wire seas:
But hey, we are back!
But... now the left speaker was dead. After a bunch of digging that was a 3mm track without a connection so a solder blob got it back.
And now I own a nicely recapped Mega-Tech that almost killed it...and still sounds like a smartphone. I guess it was 80's speaker quality all along
Well done on the Job!
Progress update on the homebrew. I want more games in my collection, but even sports ones are getting expensive now. There are some guys selling repro gamecart PCBs, but I want open source everything
For the whole library, we need both a Mega Drive and Master System based cart. The 171-5783 is the common 4M Mega Drive cart, and the 171-5782 is the common 1M/2M Master System cart.
To get both, these were the sport game victims of the day:
After taking them apart and removing every component, I made scans of both sides of both boards and lined them up in Photoshop.
Based on those master Photoshop files, I traced every track in Altium Designer software until I had an almost 1:1 reproduction of the layout and schematics to accompany.
After lots of tidying up I ordered 10 pieces each from JLCPB. This showed up yesterday:
For the whole library, we need both a Mega Drive and Master System based cart. The 171-5783 is the common 4M Mega Drive cart, and the 171-5782 is the common 1M/2M Master System cart.
To get both, these were the sport game victims of the day:
After taking them apart and removing every component, I made scans of both sides of both boards and lined them up in Photoshop.
Based on those master Photoshop files, I traced every track in Altium Designer software until I had an almost 1:1 reproduction of the layout and schematics to accompany.
After lots of tidying up I ordered 10 pieces each from JLCPB. This showed up yesterday:
Last edited:
The Sega Mega-Tech is pretty much a Mega Drive glued to an additional Master System that runs the menu screen. To make this duo work, the (same as home version) game rom is placed on a circuit board with an additional custom menu rom that contains the text to fill the menu pages.
The menu rom is a 27C256 that can be had from Aliexpress for cheap. So cheap even that my newly acquired T48 programmer freaked out because the Chip ID on them did not match the painted on manufacturer name.. But I got 3 out of 4 programmed in the end.
For the 4M Mega Drive games, a 27C400 EPROM fits in without modifications. But with me owning like 5 copies of Sonic 1, I just desoldered an original game cart chip.
I put it in the cab and was greeted with the following. YESSSSSSSS!!!!
The menu rom is a 27C256 that can be had from Aliexpress for cheap. So cheap even that my newly acquired T48 programmer freaked out because the Chip ID on them did not match the painted on manufacturer name.. But I got 3 out of 4 programmed in the end.
For the 4M Mega Drive games, a 27C400 EPROM fits in without modifications. But with me owning like 5 copies of Sonic 1, I just desoldered an original game cart chip.
I put it in the cab and was greeted with the following. YESSSSSSSS!!!!
Last edited: