SEGA CANCELED this console in 1995, so I made one TODAY | SEGA Neptune

[Applause] the Genesis was the Pinnacle of Sega success as a video game Hardware manufacturer and with this beloved 16-bit Behemoth came an abundance of revisions add-ons and combo systems there was a Sega CD and 32x add-ons and combo systems like the CDX and XI but there was one com system we never got the Sega Neptune announced in 1995 the Neptune was a Sega Genesis with a 32x built in but it never saw the light of day so in today's episode we'll do what Sega never did and build one of our [Music] own [Music] hey everyone how's it going my name is Tito and welcome to another episode of retro renew today I'm really excited to show you a project that I've been planning to make a video on for a long time and that's building my very own Sega Neptune so just a brief history the Neptune was a console that Sega announced all all the way back in 1995 which was supposed to be released during the fall of that year at a bargain price of less than $200 the only problem is that this was so close to the introduction of sega's Next Generation console the Sega Saturn that it eventually led to it being scrapped alog together so the Neptune was never meant to be at least that's what we thought some very talented folks in the modding Community have been making Neptune builds for a while dating all the way back to 2011 with prominent modders like Longhorn engineer and infidelity NES who really pioneered these Neptune builds and up until recently these builds retained the Genesis model 2 shells which while still very cool looking is not as cool as this this thing of beauty that you see before you is a Neptune replica shell and it was created by a talented Moder named Dan from the UK who also goes by his online Alias dysic Dan worked with another modder by the name of PCB assembly 99 who helped him troubleshoot the design with measurements and fitment information to ensure that a Neptune mod will in fact fit inside Dan's replica shell you could say that Dan is a Sega Enthusiast and as you can imagine he was pretty bummed when Sega decided to cancel the Neptune so 27 years after the console's initial announcement Dan had decided he would make his own resulting in this masterpiece all right so in this video I'll go over all the parts I'll be using to build the Sega Neptune then I'll show you how to put it all together go over all of its unique features review the pros and cons and of course provide you with my overall thoughts so first and foremost you'll need a donor model 2 psychogenesis as well as a 32x now while any model 2 Genesis is compatible with this mod you'll want to look for a va3 or va4 model which has a shorter motherboard the smaller motherboard gives you more room inside the shell and makes the build quite a bit easier these models can be identified by looking for the shorter RF shielding as seen by looking through the bottom vents next you'll need to get a triple bypass board I'll be using this one from zachor who not only makes a quality triple bypass chip but other awesome mods as well that I've previously showcased on the channel definitely check this stuff out now while not completely necessary I'll be using these Den breakout boards for the model 2 Genesis and 32x AV Port this will make the internal wiring between the Genesis and 32x quite a be easier you'll need three of these this 90° cartridge slot will replace the original vertical one on the Genesis and enable us to mount the 32x horizontally inside the shell these four longer ribbon cables will give us more flexibility when it comes to positioning the two 32x boards inside the console and here we have a terminated cable that will allow us to power the 32x internally these here are rubber standoffs that I'll be using to adequately space the 32x board and the Genesis boards from each other which will become clear during the instulation portion of the video and these machine screws that have been cut to length will be used to cinch the 32x and Genesis boards together now the last thing you'll need are of course the Neptune shells themselves Dan listed these shells on a project page on PCB way there are quite a few pieces but Dan has neatly organized them on the PCB Way community hub for those that want to order one if you want to get the same ones that I have with the same finish on the PCB way website I ordered all the pieces using the standard white resin code utr 8360 I then had them painted with a matte finish in hexachrome Black U now the power and reset buttons and the LED bezel I use the same resin material as well as the same color but in a high gloss finish and to be honest the results look absolutely amazing definitely refer to the PCB Way project page for all the details on what you need to order and speaking of which let's talk about the sponsor of today's video video which just so happens to be PCB way if you have an idea for a mod or want to assemble an open source project PCB way provides you with the tools to make them a reality from 3D printing services in an array of materials all the way to other services like CNC Machining injection molding and of course PCB and flex ribbon fabrication so when it comes to taking your Retro Gaming mods the next level PCB way is the place to make that happen check out the link in the description for PCB way to get get $5 off your first order and again a huge thank you to PCB way for sponsoring this video all right with that out of the way let's put together the Sega Neptune all right to get started we need to completely disassemble both the Sega Genesis and 32x add-on we'll first start with the Genesis taking these apart is thankfully super easy and straightforward you'll want to make sure to keep all your screws since we will be reusing them to put our Neptune back together [Music] once we have the motherboard isolated we're going to have to desolder the cartridge connector to do this I highly recommend using a desoldering gun like this one that I have here you can find a link to my Amazon store in the video description which shows all the tools that I use for modding including this desoldering gun [Music] now you'll notice that we're still unable to remove the connector and that's because of these rivets on either side that we'll need to drill out you want to be extremely careful when doing this and you want to make sure that the drill doesn't jump off the rivet and damage the motherboard so please use caution once the rivets have been removed we can then lift off the connector now place our new 90° car connector in its place oriented as shown and then proceed to solder in just the four corner pins since we want to be able to test the fitment and make adjustments later on if necessary do not solder in all the pins just yet now let's disassemble the 32x [Music] [Music] with the board out of the shell go ahead and remove the two ribbon [Music] cables here you'll see three wires two Gra wires and one VCC wire we'll need to desolder these three wires and then reconnect them to the other side of the board using the same through holes that they came [Music] [Music] from here you can see that I reconnected each of the wires back to their same position but on the other side of the board this wire here I had to replace because the old one was a bit too short so I used a similar gauge of wire that was a bit longer now we need to attach our longer ribbon cables to do this take two ribbons and then place them back to back with the context of each ribbon facing outward and then insert the two cables into the connector as shown then repeat this process with the other connector and then connect the other ends of the ribbons to The Other Board as shown and here is how our two 32x boards should be looking like so far now moving our attention back over to the Genesis motherboard let's begin the process of prepping it for the triple bypass installation here I'm removing all the components necessary for the install please note that this won't be an in-depth explanation of the triple bypass install as your Genesis revision May be different from mine I have a link in the description to zor's GitHub which has fantastic instructions on how to install the triple bypass on pretty much every revision of Sega Genesis now this is just personal preference but for the surface mounted components that are removed you can actually reattach one lead to one of the pads so that you can replace them later on in the future if you ever wanted to this is just a technique that I learned from zachor and is not necessary to do at all so here all the components removed on the audio side of the board next I'll be tackling the video side of the house by lifting these three pins on the deck and then proceeding to removing the necessary components then once that's all done I'll go ahead and begin to make all the connections from the Sega Genesis motherboard to the triple bypass again be sure to refer to zachor guides for your specific model which has all the details you need to know and to keep things nice and tidy I'll be using this mesh wire loom and some shring tubing then I'll place the triple bypass board where I'd like it to be positioned in the Neptune shell and then cut the wires to length before soldering them in [Music] place [Music] [Music] [Music] now to power the triple bypass with 5 volts I'll tap this pin here on the voltage regulator and then connect it to to ground here next we'll need to bridge the two number two pads on the board to get it set properly for our particular setup then to prep each of the three Den breakout boards I'll be placing a piece of Capon tape to the back covering the through holes as to prevent any potential shorting later on next I'll start soldering in the wires I'll be adding them to rgmb sync and the left and right audio so six wires in total again I'll use some wire loom and heat rink tubing to keep the install [Music] tidy and then I'll go ahead and solder the other ends of the wire directly to the corresponding through holes on the triple bypass now I'm going to be making a wire harness which has the two remaining D breakout boards on either side this will be used to connect the 32x video out to the Genesis video out D connector and here's how the wire harness should look like when done unfortunately I didn't film the entire completed harness but here you can kind of see how it looks with the D breakout boards on either side of the harness anyway next we'll be taking our rubber spacers and cutting them to length we want them to be at a height that is about 1 to 2 mm above the 90° cartridge connector so go ahead and mark the spacer and begin to cut it to size [Music] once we're happy with the way it looks I cut the spacer roughly in half and then drilled a hole through it so that our long screw can pass through it now let's go ahead and test the spacers by connecting the 32x to the Genesis cartridge [Music] slot then place the whole assembly into the Neptune shell and we can see that we do indeed have adequate spacing between the Genesis and 32x boards and inserting a game feels solid so we can go ahead and proceed to The Next Step which is soldering in our terminated power cable for the 32x I'll be soldering it directly to the pins of the power connector on the Genesis just ensure that you do not mix up the polarity both the model 2 Genesis and 32x Barrel connectors are Center positive next let's move our tension to the D connector pins grab our D toin wire harness that we made and place it over the pins as shown then go ahead and solder it into [Music] place now we're going to connect the Genesis to both the input and output DS on the 32x the D harness coming from the triple bypass will connect to the D connector here which is the video input on the 32x the other Den harness coming from the Genesis will connect to the video output on the 32x so just a recap this here is coming from the triple bypass and this one here is coming from the Genesis now go ahead and solder them in [Music] place [Music] [Music] great now we can go ahead and solder in the cartridge connector since I'm happy with how everything is fitting [Music] together [Music] now before we put everything into the Neptune housing we need to pre-ap all the screw posts simply use the Genesis screws to do this by slowly screwing them in and out of the post you don't want to go too fast when doing this or you will risk snapping the posts it may take a few passes to get the posts fully tapped so just be patient and take your time and once you're done the post should look something like this now we can go ahead and drop in our boards into the Neptune [Music] [Music] shell here you'll want to fold and tape the ribbon cables as shown to keep them from interfering with the power and reset buttons now grab the top shell in order to allow the buttons to work well I put some grease on all the contact points before I installed them and then I use some super glue to attach the internal button extensions which enable us to actuate the power and reset buttons on the motherboard without having to relocate them now we can go ahead and drop the Top shell onto the system and then button it all [Music] up to install the CD port cover I actually used some Game Boy DMG screws which actually fit perfectly and then I transferred all the rubber feet as well as the bottom labels from my donor Genesis to the [Music] [Music] Neptune and lastly I installed 32x and Sega water slide decals to really add just that bit of authenticity to the build [Music] and folks there you have it the Sega Neptune I have to say that I am absolutely Blown Away with the results of this Neptune build it's honestly just incredible now I have to give a huge shout out to PCB assembly 99 and zachor PCB assembly 99 sent me all the miscellaneous parts to do this build and was very helpful in walking me through the entire build process and zachor came in clutch on all the aspects of the triple bypass install given the unique nature of its application in this build if it wasn't for these two this project would not have been possible anyway with the Neptune up and running let's go over all of its features firstly there aren't really any huge noteworthy features we essentially have a console that is able to play both Sega Genesis and 32x games in a neat elegant package however I really want to go over all the attention to detail that Dan made with the shell you can really tell that Dan put a lot of work into designing these shells all the markings from the controller ports in the front to the power and AV ports on the back to all the minute details on the top of the case as well as all the indents and placeholders for the rubber feet and labels on the bottom the attention to detail on this case is phenomenal and to be honest Dan didn't have a a lot to go off of when designing the 3D models for these shells there are only but a handful of photos online of this thing for him to reference he had to make some judgment calls on how he imagined Sega may have designed certain aspects of the Neptune while also taking into consideration the incorporation of a Neptune mod and honestly Dan pulled it off incredibly he even made a dust cover for the modular build to complete the look when the console is not in use and also has a modified dust cover flap system for those that want to do a more challenging Longhorn version of the build and lastly not really a feature but because now the console uses more power due to the 32x being Incorporated you can no longer use a standard model 2 Genesis power brick instead you'll need to use something like this Triad power supply with a model 2 Genesis attachment this has enough amperage to power the entire console through this single connection anyway now that we went over all the features of this thing let's go over the pros and cons starting with the pros the end result of this mod simp simply looks stunning and to go along with the good looks it works exactly as you would have expected a Neptune to perform if Sega didn't need release it back in 1995 additionally since I opted to do the modular version of The Mod the build is completely reversible not that I'm planning to do that or anything and really those are the major pros of the build we get a very nice working rendition of a console that Sega Never released all right now let's get into the cons and really the only cons I have are just minor grievances I mean at the end of the day this is a passion project done by a whole bunch of passionate people who have made the Sega Neptune a reality for everyone to enjoy which in and of itself is fantastic and with that I have to say that the first con has to do with the power and reset buttons they are a bit finicky get stuck on occasion and sometimes require you to jiggle them a bit to get them unstuck I really hope Dan can improve the design which I know is a tall order for the time being they do work fairly well but I did have to do a lot of tinkering with them off camera to get them working somewhat well another con is the difficulty of the mod while the soldering itself isn't too hard you definitely need the right tools like a dis soldering gun and a ton of patience there's a lot of wiring that needs to be done and it can be difficult to keep track of everything going on in this build and while the shells are fantastic quality they can be a bit difficult to work with one example is that every single screw post needs to be pre-tapped in order to allow for the screws to fasten securely without breaking the posts this is a pretty tedious task that I think can be fixed if the inner diameter of the screw post were a tad larger additionally because the 3D prints are quite large having them professionally printed using a service like PCB way can get expensive with the exact print material and painted finish that I got it was about $310 in total but if you plan to paint the shells yourself it is significantly cheaper I'm really hoping someone who sees this video can help Dan get a shell design in ection molded as it'll be much higher quality and a better insulation experience another super tiny con is that since I decided to go with the modular install I was not able to include the dust flaps like those found on a standard Genesis I believe that if you go with a longhorn version of the build which is more compact the flaps can be incorporated and the last con is that since the 32x is now integrated into the system we can no longer use the Sega CD function within the mega everdrive Pro which is is a bit of a bummer although both Genesis and 32x games run perfectly overall this is an amazing project and honestly the cons overall are pretty small if you're willing to put in the time to build a Neptune it's honestly one of the most rewarding projects that you can do well folks there you have it the Sega Neptune a console that Sega Never released but eventually saw the light of day thanks to the incredibly talented folks in the Retro modding community now if you enjoyed this video I really think you like this one here so check it out and as always thank you all so much for tuning in today and I'll catch you again next [Music] Thursday

Channel: Macho Nacho Productions

Views: 364,183

Keywords: cancelled consoles, sega 32x, sega neptune mod, sega neptune prototype, sega neptune, sega, project neptune, genesis 32x, gaming history, macho nacho productions, macho nacho, macho nacho tito, tito macho nacho, retro gaming, sega neptune console, how to make a sega neptune, Sega Neptune Build

Id: oz_8-sqxLjs

Length: 24min 19sec (1459 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 23 2023