Hantarex monitor connectors

I asked on UKVAC forum about replacement Hantarex connectors for a tube swap I am currently doing but didn't have much luck when it came to finding new stock. It seems most were under the impression that Hantarex used custom connectors not available to the public, it was pointed out there are compatible housings. The problem with the compatible housings is that they don't have the tabs to stopping you plugging them back to front.

This isn't good because if you plug in either the power or yoke connector back to front you are going to blow the chassis and maybe even the yoke also I am a bit of a perfectionist so back to the search :). Trying CPC first bought up nothing then on to RS, what a massive site! after about an hour of searching I found what I was looking for. They are made by Tyco Electronics (formerly AMP?) and still use the same part numbers used in the Hantarex manual, so why didn't a google bring up the RS page? arghh.

2way housing #280590 RS #509-1641 - used for the degaussing coil
4way housing #280591 RS #509-1657 - used for power
6way housing #280592 RS #509-1663 - used for video and yoke
crimper pins #280702-1 RS #668-9381 - used with all above

These connectors are used on MTC90/900/900e/9000 and 9110 after that came Polo which changed the power and degaussing coil connectors to molex but kept the video and yoke Tyco.

Naomi / Triforce / Chihiro Compact Flash

Here is the CF to Sega CF guide as promised. It doesn't have as many pictures as I would have liked or go into as much detail as I had planned. I will most likely update it in future but it has all the infomation you need to make your own. Also remember you can use any IDE CF reader, I just chose the Unitek as it came in a nice case. :)

download
Happy modding.

Naomi / Triforce / Chihiro Compact Flash

Sega recently released a Compact Flash device compatible with Naomi 1 & 2 / Triforce (Type 3) and Chihiro (Type 3). The idea is to replace the very unreliable and no longer supported GDROM drives with something a lot more reliable. It uses a custom Compact Flash reader which is pretty basic and a 512MB CF card to store the game(s).

Seeing how basic the reader was I decided to see if I could make my own using a PC CF reader. I wanted my version to be in a drop in replacement for the GDROM drive just like Sega's version. This means I had to add a SCSI-2 port for the data to go to the DIMM board and a 6 pin power connector to attach to the power splitter.

The project took about 3 days, 2 days to document everything and another day modding and soldering 40 odd wires to complete.

Here you can see my CF reader hooked up to a Triforce (Type 3).

I picked this Unitek CF reader even though it is sold as a SATA CF reader because it is about the only one that comes in a case that isn't USB. Also it has an unused IDE connector on the PCB which is ideal to solder the SCSI-2 connector to.

I have written a guide for this project and will be uploading it here once I have the time to finish it. Keep in mind you will need a official CF card for Triforce / Chihiro games to work. Naomi on the other hand does have a hacked DIMM firmware floating about which allows other CF cards to work.

Mega-Tech

Fantasy Zone for the Sega Mega-Tech a direct copy of the Sega Master System game. This is one of the last (if not the last?) Mega-Tech games that needs to be dumped for Mame.

Here are some pictures showing the process of dumping the game files.

Maskrom and EPROM desoldered.

A basic adaptor needed to be made for dumping the maskrom
Thanks to alien_mame and Charles McD for the pinout info.

Region changing (Triforce / Chihiro)

I found this spanish post while doing a google search. http://www.retrovicio.com/foro/showthread.php?t=9901

Google doesn't do a great job of translating it but basically all you have to do is turn on the triforce or chihiro motherboard with nothing connected except for a satellite / netboot pic security chip. Then go into the test menu using the test button go down to system information and press the service button 30 times.

For Chihiro you have to press service button 15 times until GAMEID appears. Then press service a further 30 times.

Thanks goes to Android for the original post.

TransferGame (Naomi / Triforce / Chihiro)

This little app has been hoarded long enough so here it is. It's basically the exe version of triforcetools.py without having to mess about installing python.

download

Naomi

Club Kart mystery solved, thanks to dknute.