what supergun should I buy?

Joined
May 11, 2020
Posts
5
Yeah, I think I'm just going to have to fully embrace the idea of building my own controllers, rather than doing it begrudgingly. No getting away from getting your hands dirty with arcade stuff! :D

And yeah I've seen multiple references to their customer service being completely awful, just a total stonewall. If they won't even discuss a return, I paid by paypal so perhaps I could ship it back to them and do a chargeback or something. I dunno, I was tempted to keep it as a test/backup, but I'm more interested in buying the more up to date Minigun V2.5 if I do want a second device. We'll see what happens.
 
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Joined
May 11, 2020
Posts
5
Ok so I got my DB15 Brook converter today, and I haven't even used it, I'm extremely disappointed. I did say that I didn't think it was really meant for supergun usage, and the connector is designed specifically for the NeoGeo.

But I did not expect it to break the DB15 connector on my Minigun. It pushed the inside of the connector backward and out of the housing just trying to get it in, it's so ridiculously tight. So I won't even be trying to use this, I'm just going to try and return it.

I've wired up a Mayflash F500 to use quickly instead, even the bulky cable I got doesn't push on the pins so hard.

edit:

Not gonna triple post this, but I got a little further.

The Minigun supergun I bought off ebay is here. It sort of works. Couple caveats.

1. The ONLY mini-din 8-pin to Scart I could find in the UK (supposedly this connector is easy to find but that's just not true in europe, and the arcade projects threads are just filled with people being told to make their own) was Retro Gaming Cables adapter designed for input to the XRGB Mini from Euroscart. Which of course means all the scart outputs aren't wired up.

So this was the only thing I could find, and I still had to open it up and do some soldering based on this article from Jasen's Customs https://jasenscustoms.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003708211-ADCAP-Mini-Din-RGB-Output-to-SCART

Retro Gaming Cables does have a direct scart lead for this: https://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/combo-av-supergun-rgb-av-scart-cable-tv-lead-cord-for-sale but it's out of stock, and I have no idea when or if it'll be in stock again.

Without doing this, you'll get no image at all. And even with it, there's no 1-3v coming down pin 16 to tell your TV its an RGB signal. Which means chances are you'll get a black and white image on a CRT (like I did)

I uh... don't have a solution for this one. Beyond wiring a freakin' 3v battery into the cable which... That's got bad idea written all over it.

So I plugged it into the OSSC instead which brings us to point 2.

2. The picture is extremely yellow.

This could easily be a problem on my part with the scart connector, let's get that one out first. I'm no expert and my soldering is crappy. However, I have noticed that if I adjust the pots on the Minigun board until they are nearly perfect (perfect doesn't seem possible, it's very yellowed and the blue signal is very noisy) after a few minutes... it's yellow again. So my best guess is something is up with the board or my scart connector, or the cheap scart cable I'm hooking it up with. But given the tendency to drift toward yellow, I'm thinking the Minigun.

I've contacted the seller for more information.

The Retroelectronik hasn't even shown up yet, I ordered it over 2 weeks ago and they only posted it Friday, despite me asking them via email to cancel it and refund instead...

So yeah. I'm coming to the opinion that right now is a bad time to be buying superguns, if you've got one that works hold onto it for dear life, if you don't then hopefully somebody capable of producing a quality product in quantities of more than a few per year will show up. I get that this is a very DIY hobby, but given the number of options on the market the level of difficulty to actually get an image on the screen blew me away.

I didn't expect buying a supergun to be 100% plug and play but, well. Like I said, I think right now is actually a terrible time to get into buying a first time supergun given how difficult it's been. Maybe it's easier and you have more options with cables and stuff in the US, I dunno.

update:

Conversing with Frank over at Arcade-Projects (The creator of the Minigun) he's suggested the yellowing is probably the fault of the cable I'm using. But given it was literally the only option because hand-making one because 8 Pin Mini din is extremely rare in the UK, it was my only choice. He's offered me one of his own scart adapters but I don't know how readily available they are to recommend to others. Retro Gaming Cables still haven't refreshed stock of their cable. So it'll take weeks either way to get any further, either Frank ships me an adapter from the US, or Retro Gaming Cables gets stock in and they take 2 weeks to arrive in my experience as well.
 
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