|
Post by zyrobs on Mar 19, 2017 14:24:07 GMT
That eBay one looks fine too. You can't be serious. Look at the photo with the lid open, you can clearly see that the plastic under the lid is a different colour than the rest of the top - normal light grey, while the rest of the top is heavily yellowed. a mod chip can be risky due to the PSU overloading. The PSUs are problematic with and without the modchip. The ones with a TOP PWM can go faulty. This is true for both 110V and 220V units, and true on an unmodded console as well. Luckily, it can be fixed. Soldered the IC20 pin to the earth on the PSU pins, but it is now overclocking the system even when the sw4 pins are not connected. The display is distorted. Do I need to put a resistor in or find a different ground point? You shouldn't wire directly to the PSU, since then you bypass the filtering chokes and caps on the board. For the PLL, the easiest way is to connect the pin to the wide pads on middle of the chip, which are all ground - this requires a very small piece of cable, like half a centimetre. Also, you don't need such a heavy cable for that, I'd use thin kynar wire for such a mod, it's way easier to handle. Obviously, make sure that you only solder to pin 1. If you accidentally solder to pin 2 and ground it, the screen won't be able to switch to 352px mode (which most 3d games use). Anyway, if this causes you problems, leave the pin disconnected, and if it works fine like that, leave it like that.
|
|
nevermind
Saturn Player
Joined: March 2017
Posts: 91
Location:
|
Post by nevermind on Mar 19, 2017 17:02:53 GMT
Thanks Zyrobs. There really should be a guide to this model of Saturn out there. When I get round to moving this ground point, and if it works I'll compile all the photos I have of this. To be honest, this pin on the pll is smaller than the vdp pin. Why do you recommend this way of doing it considering it is probably just as tricky? Sorry for asking so many questions, but you seem to be the only person in the Internet who knows how to mod this Saturn version. Thanks again
|
|
|
Post by zyrobs on Mar 19, 2017 17:33:52 GMT
I use thin kyner wire so it's fairly easy to ground one or two pins on the PLL - cut the trace on the underside of the board, then patch in a small wire over the pins. And you only need to do it on this model, and only if you use the SW4 switch.
|
|
mattius
Advanced Saturn Gamer
Joined: March 2017
Posts: 384
Location:
PSN: Artabasdos
|
Post by mattius on Mar 19, 2017 20:37:47 GMT
That eBay one looks fine too. You can't be serious. Look at the photo with the lid open, you can clearly see that the plastic under the lid is a different colour than the rest of the top - normal light grey, while the rest of the top is heavily yellowed. a mod chip can be risky due to the PSU overloading. The PSUs are problematic with and without the modchip. The ones with a TOP PWM can go faulty. This is true for both 110V and 220V units, and true on an unmodded console as well. Luckily, it can be fixed. Soldered the IC20 pin to the earth on the PSU pins, but it is now overclocking the system even when the sw4 pins are not connected. The display is distorted. Do I need to put a resistor in or find a different ground point? You shouldn't wire directly to the PSU, since then you bypass the filtering chokes and caps on the board. For the PLL, the easiest way is to connect the pin to the wide pads on middle of the chip, which are all ground - this requires a very small piece of cable, like half a centimetre. Also, you don't need such a heavy cable for that, I'd use thin kynar wire for such a mod, it's way easier to handle. Obviously, make sure that you only solder to pin 1. If you accidentally solder to pin 2 and ground it, the screen won't be able to switch to 352px mode (which most 3d games use). Anyway, if this causes you problems, leave the pin disconnected, and if it works fine like that, leave it like that. Weird. My gray Saturn is the same color in the disc tray as outside. Wonder if it's a trick of the light. The PSU runs close to maximum draw IIRC. The added draw of a mod chip can significantly shorten the PSU's lifespan at best, and blow it at worst.
|
|
|
Post by zyrobs on Mar 19, 2017 23:12:08 GMT
Just because your grey Saturn is fine, does not mean that those units don't yellow. I have perfectly fine white units too, but we know that those may end up yellowed!
Do you have any numbers on how much power the unit uses on its own, and how much the PSU can handle? They have enough juice to handle various add-on cards like dual mpeg decoder ASICs and entire modems, so I don't think the modchips would tax them any more than what they are designed to handle.
|
|
mattius
Advanced Saturn Gamer
Joined: March 2017
Posts: 384
Location:
PSN: Artabasdos
|
Post by mattius on Mar 20, 2017 0:28:28 GMT
Just because your grey Saturn is fine, does not mean that those units don't yellow. I have perfectly fine white units too, but we know that those may end up yellowed! Do you have any numbers on how much power the unit uses on its own, and how much the PSU can handle? They have enough juice to handle various add-on cards like dual mpeg decoder ASICs and entire modems, so I don't think the modchips would tax them any more than what they are designed to handle. Fair point. I have a PS1 controller that yellowed horribly. Those are expected draws though. Trying to remember this stuff from a few years ago. IIRC, it's where the modchip gets wired up to that's the issue.
|
|
|
Post by zyrobs on Mar 20, 2017 2:31:41 GMT
Those are expected draws though. Trying to remember this stuff from a few years ago. IIRC, it's where the modchip gets wired up to that's the issue. This much is true, if you wire to the power supply directly, the modchip sometimes does not work. I've been soldering the power wire to the positive leg of the electrolytic capacitor in the front of the CD drive for a few years, and I never experience any problems that way.
|
|
nevermind
Saturn Player
Joined: March 2017
Posts: 91
Location:
|
Post by nevermind on Mar 20, 2017 10:41:39 GMT
I re-routed the cable from the PLL pin 1 from the PSU ground to the PLL ground pins. Still flickering image.
Removed the cable completely and found the picture doesn't work at all. The Saturn boots and the sound works, but no image. Think its dead. Maybe I fried the PLL chip connecting it to the PSU ground? I'll look into getting a Jap Saturn and maybe just soft modding the action replay cart instead.
|
|
|
Post by zyrobs on Mar 20, 2017 17:58:24 GMT
Did you accidentally cut or solder to pin 2 of the PLL, or any of the other pins? It looks like there's a solder ball between some pins on your image, it might be causing a short.
|
|
nevermind
Saturn Player
Joined: March 2017
Posts: 91
Location:
|
Post by nevermind on Mar 20, 2017 18:53:17 GMT
Not to my eyes it doesn't look like anything is wrong. I'll take a good hard look at it tomorrow and take lots of pictures. See if anyone can spot anything
|
|
mattius
Advanced Saturn Gamer
Joined: March 2017
Posts: 384
Location:
PSN: Artabasdos
|
Post by mattius on Mar 20, 2017 20:58:30 GMT
Hate to say it, but I warned ya...
|
|
nevermind
Saturn Player
Joined: March 2017
Posts: 91
Location:
|
Post by nevermind on Mar 21, 2017 5:18:43 GMT
Hate to say it, but I warned ya... EDIT: Problem solved in a post below, do not recommend lifting the VDP pinIt would have been easier for this model to lift the pin 79 on the VDP to be honest. The PLL chip is tiny. I've ordered a model 2 off ebay with 11 games and 2 controllers for £50 Not too bad. Street fighter alpha 2 and Sonic Jam were in the bundle and that is pretty valuable. So not all bad. At least I have spare CD drive and PSU I'll have a real dig around in my old model 1 and see if I can repair this.
|
|
nevermind
Saturn Player
Joined: March 2017
Posts: 91
Location:
|
Post by nevermind on Mar 21, 2017 10:10:04 GMT
It lives! Running a CDR of Dark Saviour, 60hz and Mod chip working Action Replay running Dead or Alive Jap release, 60hz Outrun running full screen 60hz from Sega Ages, although I did not know about the poor "optimisation" on the PAL versions, so I will be selling this and getting the JAP versions of these. What was the problem? I think it was microscopic Solder splatter. I could not see anything, but on top of the PLL was a very faint grey "dust", had to scrape it off with a screwdriver (I could only see it with my magnifiying glass), then I went around the chip very gently with a screwdriver gently making sure there wasn't any more left. Put it all back and it works! I did remove the PLL pin grounding though, and on my tests only 1 out of 10 powerups failed to boot. That's fine for me. Obviously if you are selling Saturns modded this won't be acceptable. Microscopic solder spatter managed to ground a few other pins on the PLL and cause the problem... And I ordered a new Saturn last night I was using lead free solder and I had been told in the past to find the lead version as it is far better. But Zyrobs guide works, and hopefully others can look at my mistakes and learn. My soldering is much better already Just look out for solder spatter
|
|
nevermind
Saturn Player
Joined: March 2017
Posts: 91
Location:
|
Post by nevermind on Mar 21, 2017 10:20:31 GMT
Also one thing that was annoying me, is that the Saturn would not boot if the metal RF shield was not screwed down. This made testing a pain in the ass. It looks like the RF shield covers some ground points on the board, so most likely its used as a ground. Do you have to put the shield on every time you want to test the motherboard? Or is there a way to get around this?
|
|
mattius
Advanced Saturn Gamer
Joined: March 2017
Posts: 384
Location:
PSN: Artabasdos
|
Post by mattius on Mar 21, 2017 10:53:11 GMT
Also one thing that was annoying me, is that the Saturn would not boot if the metal RF shield was not screwed down. This made testing a pain in the ass. It looks like the RF shield covers some ground points on the board, so most likely its used as a ground. Do you have to put the shield on every time you want to test the motherboard? Or is there a way to get around this? Good job on fixing it, but a pirated copy of Dark Saviour? Aren't you a little old for that shit? Stealing is for penniless kids.
|
|