NTSC Game Cube RGB Cable
PAL Game Cubes have an official RGB lead which connect to the analogue port, NTSC Game Cubes do not output RGB through the analogue port (instead they support S-Vid which PAL Cubes do not). It is possible to make an RGB cable for NTSC Cubes, you will need the official Nintendo Digital Video cable (part number DOL-009), a Nintendo composite video cable and a Scart plug (you could just use a cheap PAL RGB cable), a 10K resistor and a 75Ohm resistor and a very short piece of thin wire (Kynar is best). If you're making a cable for a Panasonic Q, it's very similar, check the end of this guide for some notes.
A downloadable PDF of this guide can be found in our Downloads section.
| Signal | Scart Plug pin |
| Blue Ground | 5 |
| Blue | 7 |
| Green Ground | 9 |
| Green | 11 |
| Red Ground | 13 |
| Red | 15 |
| Right Audio | 2 |
| Left Audio | 6 |
| Audio Ground | 4 |
| A/V switch (12v) | 8 |
| RGB switch | 75 Ohm resistor from pin 8 to pin 16 |
| Ground | 21 |
Some people use the official Nintendo Component Cable - this cable is okay as it carries the RGB signal. mmmonkey prefers to use the Digital Video Cable for a couple of reasons - it includes some extra wires (we use one to carry 12 volts to the Scart plug to switch the TV channel), and this cable is usually cheaper than the Component cable as well!
Right, the first thing to do is cut the smaller end off of the Digital cable, while you're at it - cut the analogue cable as well so that they are both the same length. BEFORE you do anything else, get the screw bit of your Scart plug and put it other both the digital and analogue cables, there's nothing worse than soldering a cable up to release you've forgotten to put this bit on and you can't hold your Scart plug together!
Now strip the end of the digital cable, you want to strip quite a bit off exposing the shielding wires. Once you've stripped the cable, fray the shielding wires, mmmonkey usually starts at the tip and pulls at the wires with a fine screwdriver.
Now gather up about half of the frayed shielding wires and twist them up neatly, cut the other half away. This will expose the paper wrapping and weird string! Cut away the paper and string, you should be left with some thin wires (black, white and grey) as well as three fat shielded wires (the Red, Green and Blue wires). Cut the white and grey wires as we don't need them, then cut the RGB wires to the lengths shown. The Red wire needs to be the longest of the three, followed by the Green with the Blue being the shortest (you'll have to carefully inspect the ends to get find which wire is which colour). We cut the wires different lengths so that it fits the Scart plug neatly.
You've nearly finished preparing the digital wires, you need to strip about 1cm of shielding away from each of the RGB wires. mmmonkey finds it easiest to run a sharp blade around the shielding and then unwraps it. Twist up the grounding wires and strip a small bit away of the actual RGB wires. Once you've trimmed them all, melt a small bit of solder to each of the bare wires.
Right, it's time to work with the analogue cable, this is used for sound and for the Video Sync signal. Again we cut them so that they are different lengths, leaving the video wire (usually yellow) as the longest, whilst leaving the left and right audio the same length as each other. Strip back about 1cm from each wire, twist the video ground wires together and strip back a small bit from the video wire. Strip back a small bit from each of the audio wires, and twist both sets of the audio ground wires together. Once you've trimmed them all, melt a small bit of solder to each of the bare wires.
Now get your Scart plug and prepare the necessary pins by melting a small bit of solder onto each of the pins that we'll be using (check the table at the beginning of the guide for a definition, we use pins 2, 4, 6, 8, 16, 20, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 21), then grab your 75 Ohm resister and bend so that it reaches between pins 8 and 16, and insulate it (mmmonkey uses heat shrink tubing, it looks nice!)
Solder the 75 Ohm resistor between pins 8 and 16 (it doesn't matter which way around it goes), and we can now solder the wires into place. Start with the analogue wires, and solder the composite video wire to pin 20, the grounding wires for this go to pin 17. To solder all of these into place just heat up the solder that's on the pin and push the necessary wire into it, then let it cool down - resist the urge to pull it!
The right audio piece of wire should be soldered to pin 2, the left audio wire to pin 6 and the ground wires go to pin 4. That's the analogue cable finished.
