The Blog

Aiwa Mega-CD CSD-GM1 Unit-02 Mainboard Cross-Test with Both Game Units

Nix McRetro // 6th August 2013 // Categories: Repairs, Sega, YouTube

The revision 2 02-01 mainboard is the only one of my two Aiwa mainboards passing power through to the Game Unit section at the moment, so I’m using it to test both Game Units. That’s right, including the one I borrowed the Mega-CD BIOS chip from and previously fitted with... Continue reading

Aiwa Mega-CD CSD-GM1 02-01 Rev 2 Mainboard Recap

Nix McRetro // 6th August 2013 // Categories: Repairs, Sega, YouTube

Back to the revision 2 Aiwa mainboard, silkscreened 02-01. This is the one with some pretty serious damage and a whole collection of previous trace repairs running across the underside. At this point it’s the only one of my two CSD-GM1 mainboards passing power through to the Game Unit section,... Continue reading

Aiwa Sega Mega-CD CSD-GM1 Unit-01 Mainboard: More Capacitors

Nix McRetro // 6th August 2013 // Categories: Repairs, Sega, YouTube

Discovered I was shipped a wrong-value capacitor by Element14. Same physical size, but not the same electrical properties! Lucky I decided to use a 16 V-rated replacement or I may have never noticed. Would it have made a difference in the long term, who knows! This is the revision 1... Continue reading

x0xb0x 1.0 Adafruit Edition - Progress Report

Nix McRetro // 23rd July 2013 // Categories: YouTube

Back again with the x0xb0x! SuperNick (Nick) has been making some more progress on this rather interesting little synthesiser, so I thought I’d put together another quick video showing how things are coming along. We’ve been experimenting with the analogue circuitry, particularly the sawtooth waveform. There’s a temporary test arrangement... Continue reading

Aiwa Sega Mega-CD CSD-GM1 Part 4: Tracing the Missing 8 V Rail

Nix McRetro // 23rd July 2013 // Categories: Repairs, Sega, YouTube

What’s that? A transistor stopped my 8 V electricity flow? I’ve narrowed the missing rail down to the transistor stage, but that does not yet prove the transistor itself is the culprit. We’re getting around 7.7 V going into this particular area of the circuit, but only about 0.05 V... Continue reading