3 ms·

It seems like this person is incredibly intelligent and resourceful. Why not just design a new PCB for this instead of modding one? Surely the component cost of

by lukevp 3mo ago

It seems like this person is incredibly intelligent and resourceful. Why not just design a new PCB for this instead of modding one? Surely the component cost of 2 connectors and a little PCB could still be in the < $20 range and actually output good quality analog signals? $20 is the same as $3 if you’re also buying CRTs just to play Switch games. This is such a hobby level activity I’m sure people would love a kit + a guidebook, could even provide a 3d printed case.

actionfromafar 3mo ago
Maybe the chips aren't available, or maybe they just wanted to tinker.
- dylan604 3mo ago
  As long as it was done in a weekend. Otherwise, they'd suck as a hacker as that seems to be the qualifying time allotted to be cool
  - benj111 3mo ago
    Linux Torvalds?
waffleiron 3mo ago
To reduce e-waste? Not everything has to be optimised on time or money spend.
nomel 3mo ago
I think you misunderstand the obsessive, blissful, motivations of a nerd. :) I was like this when I was younger, where a goal like this would entirely consume me, regardless of practicality, and more of a "see if I can". Some of the best days of my life, where I was most alive, were those times of complete, detrimental, obsession. As I grew older, and patterned by employment, it slowly faded, and sometimes I miss it so much. https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/ (funny enough, I was once nerds sniped about a grids of resistors, to understand PCB trace resistance better, for high currents, because an EE said my intuition was wrong. I made a paint program where you could paint/paste an image, with red being + voltage sources, blue being negative, and greyscale being resistance, and it would show you the current flow through whatever you drew. I was able to prove that my intuition was actually correct!).
- dylan604 3mo ago
  > I think you misunderstand the obsessive, blissful, motivations of a nerd. :) Kind of the point of a board called Hacker News. Doing it yourself while someone else holds your beer is on a totally different level compared to someone buying something off the shelf at a fraction of the cost.
sowbug 3mo ago
Sometimes it's fun to mod something that other people can also easily buy and follow your mod recipe. It's more of a network effect than publishing Gerbers and a BOM. For example, there are (or maybe were) lots of cheap LED controllers that use proprietary phone apps, but if you crack them open, you find that they're ESP-8266-based, and if you can find the right locations on the PCB, you can reflash them with WLED.
nyanpasu64 3mo ago
> I'm not sure where to source straddle-mount VGA connectors. Alibaba has a product listing that describes the same part found in my DAC, but has no pictures of the actual product. > I also found straddle-mount VGA to break off the board easily > All of this is possible... but it's a lot of work for an incremental upgrade that doesn't resolve the jitter and audio dropout problems. Compare this to the HDMI2SCART which required more manufacturing effort, but fulfilled a previously unmet use case; even then the author stopped selling them himself because he couldn't find a better source for chips.

by lukevp 3mo ago

actionfromafar 3mo ago

Maybe the chips aren't available, or maybe they just wanted to tinker.

dylan604 3mo ago
As long as it was done in a weekend. Otherwise, they'd suck as a hacker as that seems to be the qualifying time allotted to be cool
- benj111 3mo ago
  Linux Torvalds?

waffleiron 3mo ago

To reduce e-waste? Not everything has to be optimised on time or money spend.

nomel 3mo ago

I think you misunderstand the obsessive, blissful, motivations of a nerd. :) I was like this when I was younger, where a goal like this would entirely consume me, regardless of practicality, and more of a "see if I can". Some of the best days of my life, where I was most alive, were those times of complete, detrimental, obsession. As I grew older, and patterned by employment, it slowly faded, and sometimes I miss it so much. https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/ (funny enough, I was once nerds sniped about a grids of resistors, to understand PCB trace resistance better, for high currents, because an EE said my intuition was wrong. I made a paint program where you could paint/paste an image, with red being + voltage sources, blue being negative, and greyscale being resistance, and it would show you the current flow through whatever you drew. I was able to prove that my intuition was actually correct!).

dylan604 3mo ago
> I think you misunderstand the obsessive, blissful, motivations of a nerd. :) Kind of the point of a board called Hacker News. Doing it yourself while someone else holds your beer is on a totally different level compared to someone buying something off the shelf at a fraction of the cost.

sowbug 3mo ago

Sometimes it's fun to mod something that other people can also easily buy and follow your mod recipe. It's more of a network effect than publishing Gerbers and a BOM. For example, there are (or maybe were) lots of cheap LED controllers that use proprietary phone apps, but if you crack them open, you find that they're ESP-8266-based, and if you can find the right locations on the PCB, you can reflash them with WLED.

nyanpasu64 3mo ago

> I'm not sure where to source straddle-mount VGA connectors. Alibaba has a product listing that describes the same part found in my DAC, but has no pictures of the actual product. > I also found straddle-mount VGA to break off the board easily > All of this is possible... but it's a lot of work for an incremental upgrade that doesn't resolve the jitter and audio dropout problems. Compare this to the HDMI2SCART which required more manufacturing effort, but fulfilled a previously unmet use case; even then the author stopped selling them himself because he couldn't find a better source for chips.