Hey all hopefully this fits the subreddit since it's technically a genesis variant and the Sega nomad sub seems dead. I recently won a Sega genesis nomad (untested) at auction for a good price. Upon my testing everything works as it should except the screen contrast is always off regardless of how I turn the dial. (Image shown is the closest I can get it) Any ideas on what to try first to fix this? Thank you!
This thing needs a new polarizer on the screen. It doesn't involve soldering, which is nice, but it's still really hard; you need to have very steady hands
The old one is attached with very strong adhesive, and you need a blade to get it peeled off, but you better not let that blade slip or else it's game over for this screen
There are aftermarket screens available, so if you do damage this screen the whole system won't be toast, but it's nice to keep the original screen because it's cool seeing it in action... as outdated and maybe not so great as it is
I've done a polarizer on a wonderswan once, but I was lucky enough that it's polarizer had just fallen off already after all those years. I'll definitely shoot for replacing the polarizer first. Otherwise, I'll just do a whole screen swap if I can't pull it off right. Thank you!
Oh that's got very common burn-in. That screen is done and there's nothing really you can do to get it anywhere near like it was when it was new. LCDDRV is the way to go unless you can find a RGBDRV for a decent price.
All the work you'd put into replacing the polarizer you could instead put into a modern screen, with a modern backlight, sharper and that is much more power efficient.
I'm going to shoot for the polarizer first but if I can't pull it off quite right I'll just swap the screen. I've only ever seen the lcddrv still for sale, is the rgbdrv still being sold? Or has it been discontinued? I don't think I've ever heard of that one
I see a RGBDRV board pop up every once in awhile. I don't think they're being made anymore. The LCDDRV are all Chinese knock offs these days, but I've installed about 5 of them now in Nomads and TurboExpress's with no issues.
Well that's good to know, of the polarizer doesn't work I'll hold off a bit to see if I can find one for a decent price. Speaking of what would a fair price be for an rgbdrv kit?
The RGBDRV I almost only ever see the board itself for sale on eBay, occasionally on Mercari too. Expect to pay no less than $175 for just the board. Recently I saw one sell for $155 I was watching on eBay, but that was the best I've seen in a long time.
Ouch that's quite the pretty penny, still I'll keep an eye out for one. Thank you!
Someone did a post only yesterday or the day before on this. Check that out first. Theirs had a bit of a red tinge to it after and they thought that maybe they could have rotated it a bit more.
My theory is, they used cheap polariser off Amazon (I think they said) and I wonder if a GBC or GBA polariser might have worked better.