General News | Downing's Basement

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New vacuum former slowly coming into existence

Posted: 07/07/2012 in Current Project, General News
Tags: Build, Complex Mold & Machine, cool, Downings Basement, Modded by Bacteria, Professional, Vacuum Former

It’s probably been about 7 or 8 months of off-and-on planning, but the first part of my new vacuum former is now built!

Working with John Seik of Complex Mold & Machine of Holderness, NH we have the outer portion of the “Clamping Frame” completed. This frame has been precision cut and welded and now just in need of another length of aluminum tubing so we can make the cross mounts. The cross mounts will allow for up to 4 sizes of plastic to be used, reducing waste and allowing for short runs of multiple casings or projects at once.

It’s been very cool to see this take shape and more details can be found HERE at the MBB Forums.

I’ll be meeting with John again on Thursday and hopefully finishing off this clamp frame. More updates as they get built!

My Most Beautiful Fail

Posted: 07/01/2012 in Current Project, General News
Tags: Battery Hack, Custom GBA, custom paint job, Downings Basement, handheld hacks, LED Mod, Made By Bacteria, Modretro, Nintendo

Sure she’s pretty, but make-up doesn’t change her personality. What was supposed to be a simple LED and extended battery mod for this unit turned into merely a nice new custom paint job. Though normally this wouldn’t be a bad thing, I don’t like abandoning any project I start, much less one that got this far into. But then again, the project was never meant to take long in the first place and now I have several other projects/commissions that now need my attention.

So here it is, looks nice and plays just as well, but again without the advancements I was hoping for. Have a peek at the video below learn all about it, that is unless you’re ashamed with my apparent apathy towards project commitment!

Small side project underway

Posted: 06/29/2012 in Current Project, General News
Tags: cool, Custom GBA, DIY, Downing, Downings Basement, Game Boy Advance, Hack, Handheld, LED Hack, Made-By-Bacteria Forums, Mod, portable

Now that the SNES-001 Advance’s fire is slowly burning down, it was time to start up a new project. Well this isn’t it, in fact this wasn’t even really meant to be a project in itself, but of course once I get an idea in my head, I have a nasty habit of letting it take me over.

With that said, this project was supposed to just be replacing the main screens protection cover as this Game Boy Advance was a bit roughed up. Bought from a friend of mine in a bulk deal, this unit was one of the first portable gaming units I owned outside of the original 1989 DMG version of the Game Boy. As it was first released in 2000, the technology was far superior to the Game Boy on it’s own, including having more power than the SNES which came out in 1992.

There was just one thing I did not care for with this unit though and that’s the fact that even after 11 years, Nintendo did not see the need to install a back light for the screen, a problem they hastily corrected with the Game Boy Advance SP. This of course led to the idea of adding a light to the screen of this unit to help with the issue.

Deciding to take the system a part and find out how much room I actually had to work with in the case seemed like the next logical step after deciding that 4 – 3mm bright white LED’s could light the screen up a bit. But of course this led to another problem as these units were powered only by 2 AA batteries. The addition of 4 LED’s at 3V and 20mAh each would greatly decrease the life of the batteries, so a new battery source would be required. And when a new source is added, a new method on how to replenish that source is needed. So taking apart an old Black Berry for the Mini-USB jack was quite fun and provided that medium for getting power from the charger to the battery.

So everything is now cut, spaced, painted and ready to get put into place, but I’m waiting on the right size resistors to arrive as for the 5V/3mm LED’s I did not have the correct rating on hand. Now I only hope that once all the wiring is in place, I’ll have enough room to close up the unit. It’s looking good so far, but I’ll keep you up to date and as always, check the MBB forums for more info!

The final solutions to this project include:
4- 3mm Bright White LED’s
1- 7.4v 2000mAh Li-Ion Camcorder battery with a 7805 linear regulator
1- Custom Red, White and Black paint job
1- New Screen Protector
1- Mini USB jack for battery recharge.

My thanks and looking forward

Posted: 06/27/2012 in General News
Tags: Awesome, cool, Downing, Downings Basement, Engadget, Hack-a-day, Hacks, Mods, Nintendo, Slash Gear, SNES-001 Advance

The SNES-001 Advance was a huge success! I’d like to thank all who took a look and helped tip off the main sites like Engadget, Hack-A-Day and PC World! All three of these major news sites ran some pretty good press about the unit and I’m quite happy with the end result! Though the unit is still on eBay and no bids as of yet, it still has a day and there have been over 1600 views on the page and that in it’s own right has been amazing! So I’ll keep you up to date with that as more info become available.

But, no good triumph comes without consequence. Over the past three weeks I’ve managed to loose my job of nearly 5 years and have had one of my dogs (a Boston Terrier) fall ill with an eye ulcer which ended up costing my wife and I a cool $2500 to fix…yeah, ouch and a “WTF!!!” kind of ouch. So needless to say, the penny pinching is now upon us as our savings have been drained and I won’t be bringing in the same cash as I used to. But with that said, I do have a new job lined up to start on the 16th of July. So I’ve got some free time in between, but still won’t be taking the vacations we thought we would be.

But enough of that, this is a modding blog, real life is for the day time! I’ve got a couple more projects going that hopefully will hopefully add to the list of completed mods shortly, including a GameBoy Advance mod and finally going to finish up my computer desk with a few major adjustments from what it was supposed to be initially. I’ll be making posts about these in the future, but of course, the work logs can be found over at made-by-bacteria.com.

Again, I thank everyone who helped make the SNES-001 Advance such a success and we’ll see where these next projects go.

The SNES-001 Advance is ready to launch!

Posted: 06/18/2012 in Current Project, General News
Tags: Amazing, case making, case mod, case mold, Custom Hacks, Custom SNES, Downing, Downings Basement, eBay, gaming, Hack-a-day, LED's, Made By Bacteria, Modretro, Nintendo, racketboy forums, SNES-001 Advance, super nintendo, technology, Vacuum Forming

Just shy of 12 weeks in the making, the SNES-001 Advance is complete and ready to find it’s new home! This has been one of the most fun projects that I’ve completed, mainly because it was a concept that solved an over 20 year old problem. Though of course these days, playing consoles this old on a TV via original hardware is a rarity, but I think back to the times I was 11 or 12 years old and always having to fight for TV time because someone else with more influence than I had was using it! So enter the SNES-001 Advance, which has two custom controllers that allow for up to two players sharing the same point of view in the palm of their hands!

This was a rather simple mod by design and theory, but took a great deal of time to get correct. Honestly the wiring was the easiest part of this, but getting the controllers to function correctly via the tact switches or the D-pad was the most frustrating part of the whole build! But these issue were over come, leaving a solid and fun system to play with. The wooden, LED encasement of the system I think adds a nice touch as a collectors item, combining rustic with a modern flair which I guess pretty much sums up the reason for a lot of console based mods.

This will also be for sale on eBay and when I have that up and listed, I’ll make another post! Should be interesting to see where this goes!

But as always, check out the video below as well as the links to the forums for more info on the build! Thanks for watching!

Made By Bacteria Work Log Link

And Here is the Link to Ebay! Happy Bidding! Current Starting Bid of $499.99

Lighted wooden case completed for the SNES-001 Advance

Posted: 06/10/2012 in Current Project, General News
Tags: Awesome, Ben Heck Forums, case mod, case mold, Custom SNES, Downing, Downings Basement, LED Mod, Lexan, Made By Bacteria, Mod Retro, Mods, Nintendo, racketboy forums, SNES-001 Advance, Woodworking

The SNES-001 Advance has a new crib to crash at! Build details can be found over on my thread at MBB, but basically we have pine box, lined with black acrylic felt, a clear sheet of LEXAN plastic, brass hinges, 4 blue LEDs and 2 White, running from an external 12V power supply. This box took probably about 8 hours or so from start to finish, but I still need to find some kind of clasp to keep the cover closed so it will hold tight. Pretty happy with this though and if you’d like to see more pics, again the build log on MBB, as well as ModRetro, Ben Heck and Racket Boy all have them for your viewing pleasure!

Downing's Basement