This is something i've spent all night looking into and still can't seem to find quite what I want. I want to mod a VGA cable so it's smaller. Currently, they're big and chunky. Not small enough to occupy the smallish round spaces I want (Back of a NES to be precise) So i'd like to know if anyone had any ideas if what I plan is possible. Would I be able to split the VGA cable into it's respective 15 wires, wire them into 2 smaller inputs (A completely blank input with enough terminals on the back, something like S-Video but with enough to make up the 15 over the 2 connectors) and then back again to the motherboard's VGA input? If that doesn't make much sense i'll try and post a diagram of what i'm trying to get at. It would involve making a custom adapter of sorts to plug onto any VGA connector from the monitor. But that's no real problem. Not sure if any of that makes sense. But my main worry is, can the VGA signal run through any form of connector, as long as it's obviously connected cleanly, and back again without signal issues or general problems arising? I would also like to know, would it just be easier to get a VGA to S-Video connector. Which obviously would solve a hell of a lot of hassle. Because I want the quality of the VGA connection. And from what I gather, is that the quality isn't as good through S-Vid, or definitely not composite. But then again, i've read through so many things I might have some wires crossed and be totally wrong.
The VGA signal CAN run through any kind of connector, whether it will do so without distortion is another matter. This is not just me being pedantic. With a VGA signal the frequency is dependant on the resolution of the display, a higher resolution requires a higher frequency. The higher the frequency of the signal the more picky it will be about the connector, and the wire for that matter. Only 9 of the pins in the 15pin VGA connector are really important, the others are low data rate digital connections for the computer to find out what kind of monitor it's talking to. If you look at this link, the pins called RED,GREEN and BLUE carry the colour information. RGND,GGND and BGND are the ground returns/ shields for the colour signals. HSYNC and VSYNC carry the synchronisation timing with their ground return SGND. To minimise the chance of you having problems I would suggest that you keep the signals and their grounds together on the same connector, youll probably be OK splitting up HSYNC,VSYNC and SGND from the colour signals. Where you put the other connections shouldn't matter much. Final point, when you cut up a VGA cable to make the custom adapter, try to strip as little as possible of the coaxial conductors; that is to say, try to keep the colour signals shielded as much as possible by their respective grounds/shields. Moriquendi
Perhaps a flat VGA cable like this: http://www.networktechinc.com/cgi-bin/keemux/vext-flt-3.html would work? One more thing: What resolution?
Wow that's pretty much perfect. That's everything I need to know really! Thank you very much indeed. I've have thanked you earlier but I lost my own thread... My plans have now evolved into something a bit more annoyingly complex, so i'm torn between several ideas now. But that's definitely going to help either way!
The 3 signals responsible for a lot of the bulk are the analog RGB lines. they each use a miniature piece of coax internally. the sync and serial lines are all pretty much just standard wires. Just keep the coax intact as close to the connector as you can, and it shouldn't be too bad. There should be some circular DIN connectors out there you can use. Way way back I had a Voodoo card called a Pure 3D. It used a 9 pin, circular DIN connector for the VGA pass though connector (picture here). The idea was it was supposed to prevent image degradation when the system was in 2D mode and the card was just passing the video signal through to its monitor connector.
