Mega Drive 2 Scart Lead
IMPORTANT UPDATE
Since starting this site, and making some RGB
cables, I found a newer, better site with info on how to wire the cables up, my
guides are missing some of the info such as capacitors in the Mega Drive cables
etc. Please visit
Tim's Projects 'n'
Stuff for the correct wiring -
thank you.
If you're having problems getting your Mega Drive to display properly on your HD TV, it might be a simple Sync problem.
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These diagrams show the pin numbering of both the 9 pin mini-din and Scart plugs, both are as viewed from inside the plugs, i.e. the side you solder the wires onto.
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| Signal | 9 Pin Mini-Din pin | Resistor | Scart Plug pin | Wire Colour |
| Ground | Metal Barrel | None | 4, 17 and 21 | Black |
| Composite Video | 4 | None | 20 | Yellow |
| Red | 7 | 75 ohm | 15 | Red |
| Green | 3 | 75 ohm | 11 | Green |
| Blue | 1 | 75 ohm | 7 | Blue |
| AV Switch | 2 | - | 8 | Brown |
| RGB Switch | - | 100 ohm | From 8 to 16 | - |
| Right Audio | 9 | None | 2 | Purple |
| Left Audio | 8 | - | 6 | Orange |
| Not Used | 5 | - | - | - |
| Not Used | 6 | - | - | - |
The Mega Drive 2 uses a different A/V socket to the Mega Drive 1, it's a 9 pin mini din. Before you start making this cable, make sure the connector you've bought fits the socket. Here's the parts of the min din plug that mmmonkey used.
If your plug is the same, the DON'T assemble it fully to test if it will fit, as it'll be very difficult to open it up again. Instead just use the following parts. Assemble them and see if it fits the socket properly on your Mega Drive 2.
This plug is too big to fit into the into the hole surrounding socket properly, the metal barrel is also too short to reach the socket, it just about reaches, but doesn't fit securely and could easily fall out.
We have quite a few options, if you can find somewhere selling moulded 9 pin mini din plugs with the cable already attached, then that would probably fit. If you can't, then you can either take the Mega Drive 2 apart, and make the hole bigger, so the plug will be able to reach the socket, or you can modify the plug so it will either fit or reach.
You could shorten the plastic part of the plug, so that the metal barrel will reach the socket, here's a comparison of the shortened barrel surround pieces (you will also have to do the other part of the plastic plug) and a partially assembled plug to show how long the barrel now sticks out.
mmmonkey thought that the easiest and tidiest solution would be to modify the metal barrel so that it stuck out further. This is actually very easy, look for the small round hole in the barrel, this is what the plastic plug secures onto, if a new hole was made in a different place, then the barrel could stick out further.
A dremel type drill was used to make a new hole on the other side of the barrel (mmmonkey didn't use the same side in case it weakened the barrel), when done drilling, file off any rough edges. You can also see how tidy it looks. The barrel on the left shows the original hole, the one on the right shows the new hole on the underside of the barrel.
This one test fitted much better than the un-modified one, it looked the tidiest so mmmonkey used this method.
