SEGA Saturn PAL Model 2 Sanyo & 21pin Mod chip from Rob Webb

[retroborg]

Good day to all!
I have a EURO PAL SEGA Saturn Model 2 with a Sanyo Board, (Saturn assy cd unit sat sanyo +5v / 610-6185-30 kpc 4594v-0) (Not a 32-pin nor a 64-pin chip board)

This one:
imageshack.us/a/img24/4788/6yai.jpg

I have a lot of experience with electronics and have successfully modded countless systems, and I want to buy a 100% compatible mod chip to install on the above Saturn.

I found this 21pin modchip sold by Rob Webb at consolegoodds.co.uk:
www.robwebb1.plus.com/saturn/saturnchipguide_2.htm

Which is supposed to be compatible with all 21pin model Saturns, (the required ribbon cable is included with the modchip) and with the Sanyo board versions based on the installation guide at the bottom.

1. For anybody that has used this specific mod chip, can you verify that it will work 100% with my above Saturn Sanyo board?

2. Is this mod chip the PCB V3 (Universal) mentioned here?:
www.segastyle.com/saturnmod.html


3. And will this 21-pin mod chip truly work 100% with all the following Model 2 Saturn if I was to buy more?:
Oval power and reset buttons / 21 pin ribbon cable / 64 pin IC.
Round power and reset buttons / 21 pin ribbon cable / 64 pin IC.
Round power and reset buttons / 21 pin ribbon cable / 32 pin IC.
Round power and reset buttons / 21 pin ribbon cable / No IC (AKA Sanyo Board)
Thanks in advance.

4. Also will his 20-pin mod chip work 100% with a Model 1 Saturn:
Oval power and reset button / 20 pin ribbon cable?

Thanks in advance

[zyrobs]

The V3 Universal is the chip with Consolegoods written on it, V2 is the EMSIC 7-1 chip.

In my tests:
- EMSIC 7-1 in 0019 position worked on ENR-013A drives only
- EMSIC 7-1 in 0014 position worked on ENR-013A, ENR-011A and HQA-001A drives
- EMSIC 7-1 in the special position (join two lines and cut one as instructed) worked on ENR-013A, ENR-011A, HQA-001A, and Sanyo 610-6185-30. For the Sanyo drive, it only worked if power was taken from the disc drive or the trap board.

The V3 chip is odd.
When I tested the prototype:
- without jumpering, it worked on ENR-007x drives and no others
- in 0019 position it worked on ENR-007x drives and no others
- in 0014 position it worked on ENR-011A, ENR-013A, HQA-001A and Sanyo 610-6185-30, and you could take +5v power from the power supply directly.

Then when I tested the V3 production chip (which is slightly different):
- everything worked as with the prototype, except Sanyo 610-6185-30 drives, which refused to work at all.

Then I got another batch of V3 chips a year later, and this time they work with Sanyo 610-6185-30 drives... but they have to be jumpered to 0019 position now, and take power from the trap board.

I don't quite understand what's up with that... I guess I need another round of testing to confirm things.

In case you are wondering, ENR-007x are the 20pin drives, ENR-011A is the 64pin one, ENR-013A is the 32pin one, HQA-001A is the 32pin one with the white border and no oscillator, and Sanyo 610-6185-30 is a Sanyo equivalent of ENR-013A. There are Sanyo equivalents for the HQA-001A as well, two of them (610-6294-30 and 610-6473-30, they both have white borders and no oscillators) but I don't have either.

Also the consolegoods chips works on Hitachi drives too but I forgot to take notes when testing that, it probably works the same as any ENR-007x would.

So, no clue which one is 100% compatible with the Sanyo drive!

[zyrobs]

OK, tested the chips again, the Rob Webb V3 chip should work on your Saturn with the jumper set to 0019. I don't know why the first batch of V3 chips I got did not work, the 7404 on it was probably fried judging from how the thing is wired.

Also the EMSIC 7-1 chip that Rob sells as V2, it will also work with the special jumper settings (the one that says to solder 2 points and to cut one other).

[retroborg]

Thanks for all the feed-back
I would just like to point out that the mod-chip from robwebb
www.robwebb1.plus.com/saturn/saturnchipguide_2.htm
worked just fine with the Sanyo Drive, but I did encounter an issue when combining it with a 4-in-1 Cartridge used to unlock the regions, for some reason the mod-chip starts up after the cartridge and thus it was not possible to play copied imports. This was not an issue with the other 64-pin IC CD-ROM drives which I installed the mod-chip. Apparently the Sanyo drive has a different boot-sequence or something. I have yet to try it on a 32-pin IC drive and will let you know.