Mega Neo DIY Kit Q's

Hey. If anyone can help that has experience modding neos that'd be great!
I'm thinking about picking up on of these kits to mod my neo. I read through the online instructions and had a couple questions. I tried searching, but the search.php is breaking ( at line 815).

1) The directions said to solder the ground lead to the stereo rca jack ground ring, but it didn't show where to soldier the other end on pcb to get (the best location for) ground. Where should that be connected?

2) What gauge wire should I use for this? The wire I have left over from my supergun seems too thick to easily soldier to the locations on the pcb.

3) My only soldering iron that works is either 30W or 40W. I've only used it on wires and connectors...will that be too hot for the electrical components on the pcb?

Thanks in advance!

Bob

NeoBob said:

Hey. If anyone can help that has experience modding neos that'd be great!
I'm thinking about picking up on of these kits to mod my neo. I read through the online instructions and had a couple questions. I tried searching, but the search.php is breaking ( at line 815).

1) The directions said to solder the ground lead to the stereo rca jack ground ring, but it didn't show where to soldier the other end on pcb to get (the best location for) ground. Where should that be connected?

Click to expand...

"You will attach this other wire soon" and never got back to it LOL. Well you have plenty of ground points to choose from. My suggestion is to use the wire that holds the crystal down.

NeoBob said:

2) What gauge wire should I use for this? The wire I have left over from my supergun seems too thick to easily soldier to the locations on the pcb.

Click to expand...

You could use around 22awg.

NeoBob said:

3) My only soldering iron that works is either 30W or 40W. I've only used it on wires and connectors...will that be too hot for the electrical components on the pcb?

Click to expand...

It'll be OK, just don't keep the iron tip on components for too long (2-4 seconds will be fine).


Anyway I have a couple of remarks on that guide:

1) http://www.neostore.com/megamods/figures/figure04-01.png
"NOTE: The RIGHT channel is the bottom left pad of the headphone jack and the LEFT channel is the top right pad. In Figure 4-1, the RED wire is soldered to the RIGHT channel and the WHITE wire is soldered to the LEFT channel"

This is correct in theory, however the left and right channels are often inverted (go figure why) so I suggest playing some game where you have unambiguous right and left sounds (e.g. 1st level bosses in Nam-1975) and hooking up a stereo cable in the headphone socket to figure out which is right and which is left before doing the mod. Of course you could always invert the plugs but I think it's worth paying attention also to little details.

2) There is a piece of plastic under the cart slot:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v65/nassivera/stuff/aesshell.jpg

and the board rests on it. Now If you run wires under the cart slot as showed here they will be pressed between the PCB and that thin piece of plastic, a sort of guillotine effect. Note that when you insert a cart you will make a strong pressure on the wires. I suggest either going around the cart slots or cutting a short segment of that piece of plastic so that the wires can pass through more easily.

Thanks for the reply and the tips. I'm going to attempt the mods that come in the kit, down the road I may attempt to swap out the bios, but that seems a lot scarier.
I opened my AES to look around and I never even thought about that guillotine effect....good call.

Bob

Piggy backing the BIOS is one thing, putting in a socket is not for the newby.

I just bought a desoldering station to do it right. Easy to bust a Neo with the BIOS mod.