PC Engine RGB Amplifier
The RGB signal from a modded PC Engine can be too dark. It's simple to make an amp that will fit in the scart plug. You only need 3 transistors, these are 2SC1815GR (could be called a number of things such as C1815GR or 2SC1815 GR etc, alternatives listed at the end of this page)
UPDATE
I just modded another PCE but decided to fit
the amp in the console. The following photo shows how I wired it up on the
underside of the motherboard.
The three legs of the transistors used are as follows:
B - Base, this is the Video
Input
C - Collector, the 5v power supply
E - Emitter, this is the Video Ouput
Using a pair of needle nosed pliers, you can see how I've bent the input and output legs.
Take 2 of the transistors and bend the middle leg outwards
With the final transistor, just bent the middle leg to one side a bit - and test fitted it to a Scart plug. We want the middle leg to goto Scart pin 8, and the output leg to go to Scart Pin 7.
It's time to solder it into place, you can see I've shortened the transistor legs in the following photo, I've also tinned them (melted a small amount of solder to the transistor legs).
Start with the transistor for Scart pin 15 (Red)
Now we need to add the second one to Scart pin 11 (Green), and line it up so that the middle legs line up exactly. Once you have it soldered to the Scart plug, heat up the middle legs of the 2 transistors so that they join together
Now, we add the last resistor, we've already test fitted it earlier to make sure the legs were bent correctly. Just make sure that you can solder the middle leg to the middle legs of the other transistors, without accidently joining it to any of the adjacent legs! You can also see how I bent the end of the middle leg of the second transistor upwards (this is to solder the 5v wire onto).
That's the amp complete, here's how I added the 75 ohm resistor
Now you can solder the rest of the wires into place as per the RGB guide.
Just like the RGB guide, Saurian did supply me with a similar RGB amp, but I couldn't get it to work, it looked like the Collector leg of the transistor was swapped with a Base leg so nothing would display on the screen. All I've done is look up the Specification of the C1815 GR transistor and research what Base, Collector and Emitter meant, then arranged them to fit into a Scart plug!
Summary of Components needed
3 x Transistors, I used C1815 GR, I have read that you can use C945 (or 2SC945, I don't know why the 2S bit sometimes gets left off the part number!). I've also seen here that you can use BC107, BC337 or BC546 (check which leg is E C B before soldering into place!)
