I’ve installed dozens and dozens of NESRGB kits but until now hadn’t seen a V5 kit before, so jumped at the chance to install one and see the updates/changes.
TBH, left mostly underwhelmed. The menu is a bit too basic and I’ve heard reports of compatibility issues with some cables in Automatic mode, but otherwise if you want the best image quality from your NES/Famicom its still a great choice.
Customer had me order the Laserbear parts and since they wanted it cleaned, started with a full teardown, wash and retrobright of the shell. It wasnt terribly yellowed but just a slight tinge off so I figured why not!
Nothing much to say about the NESRGB install itself. Once you do as many as I have you could practically do them in your sleep. For some reason this frontloaders PPU pins were a bit harder to clear than some others even after a reflow, the rest was all straightforward. Since recap was selected before installed the socket I removed all caps from AV/Power block and mainboard, cleaned the boards thoroughly and installed all new caps from Console5 throughout
I do appreciate that the new NESRGB accounts for the caps in the lower right and you no longer have to bend them over when installing, the board has a cutout so they can stand up nice and straight!
Customer wanted expansion audio which I also have buddy boards for but I learned after talking to George at 1UpRestorations that with the v5 kit the expansion audio components (resistors) are built into the board and you simply need to wire in the audio to pad 46, no more in line components or buddy boards needed. You also dont need to wire up the dummy audio out from pin 45 so its quite easy to do. I later confirmed expansion audio sounded good and even cooler you can easily toggle it on and off via the menu for any games that might have issues with it enabled!
You still have to wire up Audio A and B from CPU pins and the 4 wires for in-game reset and palette switching (these are also used for the menu control) but still, 7 wires total is a breeze, thanks to the customer electing to use the flat flex install from Laserbear.
Apparently some of these early v5 kits have bad/faulty flex header connectors on the board so were sold at a discount meant for wiring or using with laserbears kit. Any V5 I get in the future with issues resolved should be a snap!
Got the wires all routed nice and neat and soldered to the NESRGB board, confirmed that for the modern mode with menu you only need 1 single jumper soldered on the NESRGB, compared to 4-5 on older boards
With the NESRGB install done (minus multiout) I took this chance to replace the aging 7805 regulator with a new one and fresh thermal paste, then re-attach and solder the AV/Power block to the mainboard.
I used the handy template from LaserBear, drilled and carved and filed a nice tight opening for the multiout, snapped that in and connected the flex from the NESRGB. For some reason LaserBear doesnt seem to offer the dark gray multiouts anymore but honestly the black looks pretty good considering the console has black accents on the shell anyways!
Before reassembling I did a quick blast and cleaning of the cart slot pins as customer mentioned they were flakey. Even after the quick cleaning, it read a bit better on OEM games but still did the blinking light on my everdrive. Gave the customer the choice and ultimately since I stock Nintendrawers in the shop he elected to upgrade that which instantly made it read every single cart I have including everdrive, honestly an essential upgrade for the frontloader!
With the Nintendrawer installed and console all buttoned up, I messed around with the menu, settings and IGR/Palette swapping to make sure all wiring was done correctly.
I had recently acquired a Retro Access Fortraflex SNES Scart cable and since Im a scart fan, used that to test out the NESRGB and get all my 4K captures, it looked amazing! Customer plans to use HDRetroVision so I did quickly fire it up with those and confirm it worked properly as well (especially in automatic mode)
Below are the captures taken from my RetroAccess cable into the RetroTink 4K and Elgato 4KX. Please note that for now, they are small thumbnails (im working on this) but the full size 4K shots will be shared when I post the job on socials!
Since everything tested out perfect I gave the shell a final quick wipe and applied some UV protectant spray to restore some shine and got it packed up to head home, another order done!
