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How to use SCART for our hobby
Zebidee:
--- Quote from: wilch on July 30, 2010, 09:02:55 pm ---thanks for the reply Zebidee. im familiar with testing continuity but not the ohms setting. what would i be looking for when testing the cable?
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Set the multimeter to ohms (Look for the Omega symbol, like an upside down U with feet), select the range (you are looking for very low levels, tenths of an ohm or single digits, several ohms resistance could cause problems).
--- Quote ---the vga pins 6,7,8 and 10 were all linked to the shielding/casing so i bridged scart pins 17, 13, 9 and 5 to the scart casing which is linked to the vga casing. so all ground pins vga & scart are common
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Unusual way to do it. If it were me, I'd hook up the ends of all your VGA ground wires to SCART 17, and leave it at that. I'm a little concerned about where VGA 5 has gone.
--- Quote ---well i tried it out and got a black screen. if i set vertical sync to + then i get a rolling image... i think maybe i should double check all links for continuity and reinstall drivers... any other suggestions?
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Agreed, check your cabling. What is connected to SCART 16 to activate RGB switching? You should not play with the sync polarity, leave it negative.
wilch:
ok the lowest ohm setting is 200, but it is picking up tiny amounts, not sure of the accuracy though as it only cost £2! the resistance fluctuated when testing VGA 1 to SCART 15, first it reported 2.0 then 1.4 then 1.6 then 2.0 again so i think i need a better multimeter and will test all future cables before soldering.
so if i connect the vga grounds to scart 17, will the other scart ground pins automatically share a common grounding with pin 17?
i bridged scart 20 to 16, this worked fine with the last cable so i'm sure my TV is ok with this
UPDATE: i secured the wires better, but didnt change the schematics. i reinstalled catalyst 6.5 and the cable works exactly as the last one did; meaning nice clear picture, but green dominates the screen with half the resolutions, the other half are fine, yet i still have no 321x240 or any other 321x??? resolutions.... so im back where i started.
sailorsat recommended soldering 100ohm resistors to vga pins 13&14 on my previous cable, but i cannot open the vga side as its secured with glue. instead, i cut the wires on the scart side, then joined them back together using the resistors, but this just gave me a black screen, im guessing they need to be attached directly to the pins.
after all the trial & error i can live with too much green on my display, but i really want 321x240
Oracle:
You can buy a VGA to SCART cable for use to connect your PC installed with either an Ultimarc ArcadeVGA card or virtually any ATI or NVIDIA card using Soft 15KHZ to a regular CRT TV so that it can be used as an arcade monitor for a MAME project. This cable is a great buy and works perfect. You can find it on ebay. The seller is (m)(g)(w). You can find it by searching MAME SCART/VGA to SCART Cable compatible with ArcadeVGA or similar. This is one essential bit of kit if you want the real thing.
Zebidee:
@oracle - Nicely spotted. Are you the seller of that cable, and/or have you ever used it?
That all seems fine, so long as all you want is the most basic VGA-SCART cable AND have an arcadeVGA or ATI Radeon card. However:
- That cable will not work with video cards that do not output 5v on pin 9, which is most other cards.
- That cable will not allow auto-switching your TV to A/V mode. Aside from saving hassle, some TVs need this.
- That cable will still require you to output a 15khz signal from the video card (like any VGA-SCART cable).
Oracle:
--- Quote from: Zebidee on August 10, 2010, 11:10:53 pm ---@oracle - Nicely spotted. Are you the seller of that cable, and/or have you ever used it?
That all seems fine, so long as all you want is the most basic VGA-SCART cable AND have an arcadeVGA or ATI Radeon card. However:
- That cable will not work with video cards that do not output 5v on pin 9, which is most other cards.
- That cable will not allow auto-switching your TV to A/V mode. Aside from saving hassle, some TVs need this.
- That cable will still require you to output a 15khz signal from the video card (like any VGA-SCART cable).
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I have used this cable yes. I have used it with an ArcadeVGA card and also an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro without any issues. I believe it will work on any 9xxx series ATI Radeon card.
This cable has a bridge between 20 => 16 and pin 9 on the VGA is not wired. Never had any issues with it and it works great.
This works perfectly with an ArcadeVGA card or virtually any ATI or NVIDIA card using Soft 15KHz. For info on Soft 15KHz click the link >>> http://community.arcadeinfo.de/showthread.php?t=8170
The seller is happy to wire it as requested and can add the Molex 12v => SCART pin 8 and the Molex 5v + 100 ohm resistor => 2v => SCART pin 16 for auto switching and mode selection if required as not all TV's need this.