I have decided to hack eMac's CRT (To work with any standard motherboard)

[AlphaFox]

You guys are awesome, great work!

 

[patriciooholegu]

You guys are awesome, great work!

Thanks dude. I have heard that a few US schools STILL have rooms full of the eMac as a dead weight. It will be a interesting "Science Project" to hack this lovely machine for being used again (But don't think that will happen: Imagine the teacher saying "Oh, and don't touch the CRT: You will be electroshocked until carbonization")

 

[Rockyill]

You guys are awesome, great work!

Thanks,
just having fun!

 

[Jmarmack]

Thanks,
just having fun!

I love what you've done here Rocky and have begun to also do something similar (Albeit with a Dreamcast). I have run into a little issue though and was hoping you'd be able to help.

Following the pinout guide on Headless Mac I have pinned my own VGA connector but left some of the wires attached to the original plug (I2C) which is still connected to the mainboard which I was hoping would still init the CRT but unfortunately does not.

Yellow = Still connected to the main motherboard header.
Red = pinned into my VGA connector which is connected to a Dreamcast.

Any idea as to why the CRT is not initializing? The system itself powers on.

Thanks in advance.

[EDIT]

Further thoughts - The monitor is initiated via the mainboard during standard boot but it's possible that the system has detected that the VGA is no longer connected and in turn is not sending the initiate signal.

 

[patriciooholegu]

Today, the eMac CRT showed EL Capitan, sharp clear and beautiful, for the first time in history (And i´m not able to upload the picture from my smartphone).
The original logic board is on a side of this room, on the floor (No need for it anymore).
The setup runs a Mini-Itx mobo Asrock H81M-VG4 r2.0, 8gb ram, Celeron 1820 processor (Can´t pay much more, sorry), and dedicated Pci- express Ati graphics Card, all of this well fitted inside the eMac Chasis.
I promise pictures, videos and tutorial for this.

 

[AlphaFox]

thats awesome!! cant wait to see pics!

 

[patriciooholegu]

I think with a little work everything can be done with one arduino using the same i2c lines. I'll have to sit down and merge the
master and slave code so that the CRT is turned on and then the edid info is provided all in the same sketch.

I'll let you know when I get it working.

Rockyill, after a few months i have time in my hands for this project.
The sketch you provided worked like a Charm and after a very successfull approach yesterday, I'm with the soldering iron in my hand and i have a question for you: Do you know what happen if Arduino nano are powered by 5v trough Vin pin (And ground, of course) using a standard atx Psu, instead of mini-usb? (My concern is mostly because of the high amp load carrying trough that 5v line. The arduino will take ONLY the amp needed or will burn to the hell?). What do you think?

Answering the question myself: After a google research about the topic, seems to be just fine to use 5v and ground from a ATX PSU to powerup the arduino Nano trough Vin pin. The device will grabb only the few miliamps needed.

 

[patriciooholegu]

My hackintosh before putting the white cover:

Working on updates:

 

[konp]

Thanks,
just having fun!

Hey man, just wondering, did you make any progress integrating the EDID spoof code into the lvad board initialisation code, so that only one arduino is needed instead of two?

I've got an emac sitting in the back room and have basically been waiting for a project like this to come along.

 

[superlions16]

My hackintosh before putting the white cover:

Working on updates:

That is awesome! I am doing an eMac mod with a 17" LCD panel (cut the bezel so I can see the entire screen), a 350W ATX power supply, an optical drive, and soon a mini ITX board (Intel i5-2400s) and macOS High Sierra. I may put my 1050Ti in there, but I am not sure yet. The inside does look cheap as heck (used Duct tape to hold in some parts, especially the LCD) but it does work without any issues. So far I have wired up the fan to the PSU (it may run too slow when plugged in to a 3-pin port from my experience on low-power boards) and I have painted the case to look sorta like a ruby iMac DV.