Nintoaster (alternate version) (2023)

Anyone who has seen AVGN is familiar with Nintoaster. I decided to make mine, as a final project for an engineering class.

Nintoaster wasnomy idea, as all credit goes to vomitsaw on Youtube, along with DoctorWoo's Nintoaster Instructable. I've added some original design aspects, but the idea and name goes straight to vomitsaw.

If you have NO experience with circuits, soldering and electronics, this is probably averydifficult project for you. That's generally how it went, but with a lot of help from YouTube, Reddit, and my very patient and helpful teacher, I was able to finish it in about 3 months. But honestly, who wouldn't want to walk around with a toaster oven, hook it up to a TV, and play Mario in front of their history teacher?

Note: Do this project at your own risk. There is always a risk of electrocution when handling electronic products. Take care.

(Provisional) Parts list:

• Toaster
• Fully functional NES system
• cabos jumper
• transistor 2n4401
• resistor de 33 ohms
• resistor de 220 ohms
• Random pieces of wood that can be cut
• Power button (momentary is what I used)
• Adapter AC > 7V
• drill plate
• Fine solder (desoldering wick or solder sucker)
• hot glue
• Soldering Iron
• Heat gun
• pliers
• string (optional)
• insulating tape
• Acrylic
• OF ports
• dremmel drill
• spray paint (optional)
• foam board
• NES controllers and games
• Extension cable (optional)

• Sheet metal (but you can find enough in the toaster oven and there are ways to use it)

(You may have missed some, so I recommend reading the entire instructable before starting the project)

Get yourself a working NES game system (if it doesn't work now, it probably won't after you tinker with it). It's not a bad idea to try it out with your favorite game and see if its controls work.

Once you have your working system in hand, open it up by unscrewing the bottom 6 screws on the gray plastic case. Once open, unscrew the metal plate screws. Also disconnect the power and reset switches and controller ports. Generally unscrew and disconnect everything until you only have the game board (with the black 72-pin cartridge reader attached) in hand. We won't need the metal plates or the black plastic game tray mechanism (as seen in the photo).

Set aside the 2 disconnected ports for later. Keep the black cartridge reader connected to the game board.

After removing the original system game board, you need to remove the gray box protruding in the lower right corner. This is the RF modulator and has video/audio signals along with a voltage regulator and whatnot. Now is the time to begin the tedious desoldering process. Using a high temp soldering iron (I used a 480 degree iron and it was hard at times). Melt the solder and, using a solder sucker or wick, unsolder the gray metal box from the game board. There should be 5 solder holes exposed on the game board after removal. This is a difficult process and please be patient.

After removing the modulator from the game board, unsolder (from the loose modulator) the voltage regulator from the inside. This will be needed later to convert the 12V wall to 5V (which the game board can handle). Set it aside for now.

Then cut the "fourth from the left to the nearest side" pin on the nintendo lock chip (as pictured). Disabling this pin will allow you to play unlicensed games (which Nintendo tried to stop you from playing). This will also fix the flashing red light issue that many people experience with their regular NES.

Since we removed the RF Modulator from the game board, we essentially needed to replace and amplify the output video signal (which the RF Modulator did originally). To do this, we need to build a fairly simple circuit consisting of a 2n4401 transistor, a 33 ohm resistor, a 220 ohm resistor, and several jumper wires on the breadboard. The schematic is above (credit to vomitsaw on his nintoaster review). Be sure to be careful with solder connections and the orientation of your transistor. The package must inform which pin is emitter, base, collector, etc. Also, be sure to ground it back to the NES board (whose other vomit saw diagram is shown above). The third diagram shows which are the 5 solder points on the board (previously used by the RF modulator). The video point is where the "NES video input" should start and go to the base pin of the transistor.

your circuitit is notit needs to match mine physically, but make sure yours matches the schematic.

Attach it to the board as seen. We'll be removing an AV port from a VHS later on, so leave these connections alone for now.

Now the fun part. Go to a local thrift store, buy a toaster oven with rotten jam in the bottom, and pop it open.

Try to keep the outer covering intact. However, if you really need to dissect it like I did, make sure you keep all the screws and tools that came with it.

Also, it might be a good idea to see how the spring locking mechanism works (i.e. the order of the metal plates on the shaft, where the spring attaches, etc.)

Don't expect the inside of your toaster oven to be identical to mine; it probably isn't.

I chose a 4-slot toaster oven to allow for more space and 2 game storage slots. A 2 slot is perfectly fine, but you might have more pressure for space.

Remove all heating elements, but be sure not to completely destroy the toaster base. I found a lot of parts and sheets useful for putting things together later. But essentially, all we need from the toaster oven is the sheet metal base and sliding latch mechanism.

If you like, you can spray paint your toaster box (I made mine black).

Take an old VHS or DVD and unsolder the AV port (red, yellow, white). This is where you'll connect the "Video to TV Out" and audio jumpers. The video signal will come from your video amplifier circuit. The audio will bounce directly from the second solder point (from the RF modulation area) on the board.

When you connect the video amplifier to the AV port, send the video to the yellow video. Then the audio to white, and then I passed the audio from white to the audio from red (so you can play either white or red audio, but it won't be stereo).

A simple toaster-mounted on/off switch would be much easier, but I decided to keep the power mechanism on the toaster by sliding the lever down. To do this, I cut a notch into the toaster's plastic housing so that when you push the lever down and slide it to the left, it will be in the notch. I then mounted the momentary push to an angled piece of sheet metal. When the lever wants to slide up into the notch due to the force of the spring, a little arm outside the lever presses the button (it's probably easier to see the pictures and YouTube video).

I also had to cut the gray part on the left side a bit so it could rotate.

With all of that said, you can style yours however you like. I just decided this way. You only need to press the button when the stick is down and not press it when the stick is fully up.

If you want you can make 2 storage shelves if you are using a 4 slot toaster oven. I saved 4 metal racks from the original toaster oven and used them to create a space to put the NES cartridges.

Cut 4 identical pieces of thin wood (the base will do, or whatever you have in your basement), cut them to the proper length of a toaster slot and the width of an NES game. Then hot glue them parallel to each other between two toasters. The second piece is to make sure the metal pieces stay together and avoid inventing a simple lever :)

Be sure to glue the top piece of wood at the correct height so that when a game cartridge rests on it, it sticks out enough for you to grab.

You can then place these newly created slots in the original toaster oven.

(again, pictures can explain better than my writing)

For those 2 controller ports you reserved at the beginning, we will contact them finally.

Cut a piece of plexiglass to fit inside one of the toaster oven openings. In the plexiglass, cut two small rectangular holes to the dimensions of the black ports on the controller. (As seen in the picture).

You will need to splice/lengthen the shorter controller port that came with the system. It's a little tedious, but join the 7 strands at both ends to make them longer. Keeping the colors the same will help you know which yarn is which. When finished, be sure to use heat shrink tubing to reduce any crossing or shorting of the wires (use a heat gun). Soon you will be connecting the controller ports to the ports in the upper right corner of the game board.

You are probably already exhausted and never want to see the system again. This is exactly how I feel right now. But you MUST FINALIZE.

All toaster oven interiors are unique, but here's how I fixed it.

Finish all the missing welds (the hardware-hardware), following the diagrams. I would recommend having the AV connectors on the back of the toaster and the electrical wiring circuit on the front near the on/off switch. Assemble the game board in the center. I used lots of foam board and electricity to make sure none of the metal from the toaster was touching the game board (be careful with this). I secured my game board with string so that it would stay upright even when a game was placed.

Make sure the game portion of the game connector is exposed and ready to accept a game in the second slot.

I glued my video amplifier circuit directly to the game board, with a foam board in the middle.

It's also optional, but I ran an extension cord inside the toaster to connect the brick; I just wish I had a small plug that sticks out a decent distance.

Drill holes in the back of the toaster cabinet to accommodate the AV connectors.

When everything is complete, put the wrapper back.

You may notice that when you put the game on, it's very loose (and not really connected to the pegs). You can get around this, as awkward as it sounds, by fitting something into the toaster so the appliance is straight. It should be almost parallel to the game board.

Plug the system into a TV, plug in your controllers and play some NES games.

(note: my Nintoaster has a slight hum during playback. Not sure if this is unique to my system or a glitch in my setup/process. The video and audio are fine, and it's just a little annoying)