Replace the battery on the Medela Freestyle Hands-free breast pump

The Medela Freestyle Hands-free breast pump is a really good product which has helped my wife remain mobile while nursing our young children. When new, it’s not a bad price however you can find good value deals on the second hand market with a slightly dodgy battery.

The battery on the Medela unit isn’t bad, in fact as we will see in a moment, it’s a good quality one. However any Li-ion battery used for a energy intensive task like a pump will start to lose charge after a while.

The good news is the battery is VERY easy to replace and requires NO soldering, it’s a total slot in.

In fact, if your Medela handsfree unit has totally lost power, the first thing you can try is just re-seating the battery.… Read the rest

Categories DIY

Exporting Game Boy Camera Pictures with an N64, Everdrive & Transfer Pak

Admittedly this is a pretty niche solution to exporting your Game Boy Camera pictures from the camera cart and onto your computer.

There is actually a whole bunch of ways to export pics from the cart. Pictures are basically stored as save game files and if you can find a way to dump the saves, you can export pictures. You can also export pictures by creating a device which connects to the Game Boy using the same port and cable as the Game Boy Printer. You connect the device, select print on the Game Boy Camera and the device takes that output and saves it for you. This page has a really great summary of many different ways of exporting pictures.… Read the rest

Categories CRT

Replacing the Rumble Motor in a Pokemon Pinball Gameboy Cart

It’s hard to believe but there was a time when rumble was not a standard feature of controllers. The N64 made some of the first steps with it’s “rumble pak” in 1997, then a few years later in 1999, Nintendo tried to add rumble to it’s GameBoy lineup by including a rumble motor in certain game carts.

One of those games was Pokemon Pinball, which gives you a little feedback when you hit a bumper. When I got my cart out of storage the rumble was not working at all, which is to be expected in a 25 year old motor. My first step was to open the cart up and manually rotate the motor: often they get stuck in place and need some help to spin freely.… Read the rest

Categories CRT

Always Discharge Your CRT Tube Several Times!

This is a short video to remind y’all to take precautions when working on a CRT TV.

High voltages can build up underneath the anode cap and you need to ensure you discharge the tube in a safe way before you work on it.

In this clip, Steve from RetroTechUSA is discharging a tube live on stream and we see it spark 3 times before the charge was eventually drained.

If you would like more information about how to safely discharge a CRT tube, please watch this classic video from Steve. In fact, this is the video which taught me how to build a discharge tool before he and I had even met. He really is the master of CRT repair.… Read the rest

Categories CRT

Repairing the Nintendo Super Famicom RGB JP21 SHVC-010 & Creating a JP21 to SCART Adapter

In this article I will take you through repairing the OEM Nintendo Super Famicom RGB JP21 cable and then I’ll make my own JP21 to EURO SCART adapter so I can use this cable in my setup.

SHVC-010

This is the official OEM RGB cable for the Super Famicom in Japan. It was produced in limited quantities which gives us some indication about how popular the JP21 standard was in Japan back in the day.

While JP21 carried RGBs (as EURO SCART did), the Japanese had their own special plug for component video. When a system supported component, it was regular to see the typical 3 x RCA plugs, however what was even more common was a plug they called “D-Terminal”.… Read the rest

Categories CRT

Tinting BVMs & the German CRT wizard w/ John Linneman

In this episode Steve and I are joined by John Linneman from Digital Foundry & Eurogamer to discuss CRTs.

A few weeks ago John posted a picture of his project to apply tinting (like a car window) to the screen of his BVM to reduce glare. John tells us the story behind this mission and we find out this latest successful effort has only come after years of trial and error.

We also talk about issues involving European CRTs: just what is an 100hz CRT anyway and how living in the East or West back in the day very much determined what TV you were watching.

I apologize for the bad video of John. Our filming app Riverside screwed up his footage and it was out of sync.… Read the rest

Latest MiSTer S-Video & Composite Update w/ Lu’s Retro Source

Big news this week that the S-Video MiSTer FPGA framework from Mike Simone has been integrated into the main MiSTer core. This means you can access EXCELLENT S-Video and Composite analog output using a fairly inexpensive adapter.

In this video I talk with Lu from Lu’s Retro Source and I have a long form discussion about the framework and explain the ins and outs. Lu is also producing his own short, sharp, only-the-facts video coming very soon if you need to understand quickly.

Topics include

  • Background on the S-Video MiSTer project
  • Do you NEED an adapter at all?
  • Explanation of the new vga_mode setting in the mister.ini
  • Difference between Active and Passive YC adapters
  • Whats up PAL / NTSC?
  • Vendors selling adapters (full list below)

Follow Lu’s weekly MiSTer updates on his channel: https://www.youtube.com/@LusRetroSource… Read the rest

The business case for buying 25 HUGE CRTs – Cathode Ray Podcast #44

Last week a lot of 25 x new old stock 27″ JVC CRTs went up for gov auction in DC. This sounds like a great chance to pickup a rare find, however dealing with TWENTY FIVE VERY BIG screens is more work than it seems.

In this podcast Steve breaks down the total cost of picking up this lot including everything from transport, storage, inspection and buyers fees. The final cost will surprise you!

This is the deal in question: https://www.govdeals.com/index.cfm?fa=Main.Item&itemid=72&acctid=12180&mibextid=S66gvF

We also have a talk about official video cables. Are first party officially licensed original cables always the best? Did any console vendors ever pack in crappy cables? Tell us in the comments!

0:00 Start
1:30 Steve got an MRI
8:30 Shipping CRTs is a nightmare!… Read the rest

Upgrade your light gun trigger with this mod

If the trigger on your retro light gun is feeling mushy, here is a mod kit to help.

An eBay seller by the name of MagicTrashman is selling a (almost) drop in replacement micro switch and 3D printed bracket for a range of light guns. I bought a kit for the Sega Saturn Stunner and in this video I install it and give you my thoughts after a play through of Virtua Cop 2.

MagicTrashman on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/usr/magictrashman

They have replacement microswitches for

Sega Saturn Stunner
Sony Playstation 1 Guncon 1
Sony Playstation 2 Guncon 2
Sony Playstation 3 Guncon 3
Nintendo NES Zapper
Sega Dreamcast Starfire
Sega Dreamcast MadCatz
Sega Dreamcast HKT-7800
SNES / Mega Drive Konami Justifier (the blue and pink guns)
Sony Playstation 1 Konami Hyper Blaster

Tunes in this video are from Adam Silady Music.… Read the rest

Categories CRT

LaserDisc primer, many N64 emotions & PVM spare parts – Cathode Ray Podcast #43

Steve is back after his trip to the hospital!

0:00 Start
02:00 Basketball and Jordan were huge when we were kids
06:00 Laserdisc – how does it look?
18:00 Steve weighs in on the N64
29:00 Story of Steve’s first PVM
32:00 A HUGE collection of PVM parts for the shop
42:00 Steve opens up about his health
46:00 Visit to Brooklyn Video Games!
52:00 Quick room tour from Steve
53:00 CRT delivery horror stories
56:00 Louis will rebuild his 14 inch PVM

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Please keep in mind that very technical CRT questions are really difficult to diagnose online. If you are interested in Steve’s professional CRT repair services please head over to his patreon page
https://www.patreon.com/retrotechUSA… Read the rest