Lynxman
.
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2026
- Messages
- 8
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- 8
After making the Game Man I wanted to have the SEGA rival but never got round to it. Then I started making the Mega Gear three weeks ago and finished painting the lens today. The lens was the hardest part because of the struggle with cutting tiny letters in my vinyl cutter. Finding the 3D scans in this forum three weeks kind of kicked off the project as it removed a big hurdle. I optimized them, removed all holes + the whole internal shape and made the parts printable. I used most of the main casing general shape from the scan and used them as reference for clean shapes where needed. It's printed from PLA. The front half in two pieces and the back in three pieces.
Inside it is a real SEGA Megadrive VA6,5 and an 8" 16:9 800x480 LCD running in 4:3 mode. It's the only screen that would give 640x480 at the right size for this. It runs on 6 or 12 AA batteries (6 works but is heavy on one side).
For power I removed the 7805 regulators on the Megadrive and use a single 5A buck voltage regulator to power everything inside. It can run from batteries or a 5-60 V adaptor. The power plug is center negative to use a standard Megadrive type power adaptor. Two schottky diodes prevent charging of the batteries or reversed polarity power adaptors. It draws 8 ,1 W total with Sonic running.
The video scaler is a cheap megadrive/genesis RGB-HDMI scaler which works very well. I wish it was possible to turn off the on screen messages on the PCB800099 LCD driver when Iit switches on. Stereo sound is from the stereo output on the front of the Megadrive board through a 2x3W amp and 40 mm speakers. There's a 1/4" stereo jack output in the same location as on the Game Gear which disables the amp if it's used. The sound is loud and clear.
I made controller ports in each battery bay so that a normal controllers can be used but the buttons and dpad on the unit are all fully functional. The big dpad is surprisingly good and the buttons feel nice since I used silicone buttons. The controller is made using a 74ls157. I used the schematic from this to make it on a prototype board: https://github.com/Ozzyboshi/Megadrivestick
I made an AV out in the same location as the EXT plug on the Game Gear and a custom RGB-SCART cable with stereo sound. Using this cable disables the screen, sound amp and buttons/dpad on the console itself so it basically works as a Megadrive when connected to a big screen and needs a separate controller connected to the controller port(s).
The cartridge slot is relocated on the back using ribbon cables. Soldering 128 joints with a ribbon cable is always fun.
I might make a short video to demonstrate it.
Inside it is a real SEGA Megadrive VA6,5 and an 8" 16:9 800x480 LCD running in 4:3 mode. It's the only screen that would give 640x480 at the right size for this. It runs on 6 or 12 AA batteries (6 works but is heavy on one side).
For power I removed the 7805 regulators on the Megadrive and use a single 5A buck voltage regulator to power everything inside. It can run from batteries or a 5-60 V adaptor. The power plug is center negative to use a standard Megadrive type power adaptor. Two schottky diodes prevent charging of the batteries or reversed polarity power adaptors. It draws 8 ,1 W total with Sonic running.
The video scaler is a cheap megadrive/genesis RGB-HDMI scaler which works very well. I wish it was possible to turn off the on screen messages on the PCB800099 LCD driver when Iit switches on. Stereo sound is from the stereo output on the front of the Megadrive board through a 2x3W amp and 40 mm speakers. There's a 1/4" stereo jack output in the same location as on the Game Gear which disables the amp if it's used. The sound is loud and clear.
I made controller ports in each battery bay so that a normal controllers can be used but the buttons and dpad on the unit are all fully functional. The big dpad is surprisingly good and the buttons feel nice since I used silicone buttons. The controller is made using a 74ls157. I used the schematic from this to make it on a prototype board: https://github.com/Ozzyboshi/Megadrivestick
I made an AV out in the same location as the EXT plug on the Game Gear and a custom RGB-SCART cable with stereo sound. Using this cable disables the screen, sound amp and buttons/dpad on the console itself so it basically works as a Megadrive when connected to a big screen and needs a separate controller connected to the controller port(s).
The cartridge slot is relocated on the back using ribbon cables. Soldering 128 joints with a ribbon cable is always fun.
I might make a short video to demonstrate it.
