Convert European PAL Saturn to output NTSC signal

[linkr2]

Hey, new here!

I’ve been reading and I found that in this forum, several people achieved this, but the little info I can found is regarding brazilian tec toy models.

The desired outcome is to have the European PAL Saturn outputting proper NTSC 60Hz signal. I know that is managed by the speed of the crystal, which is diferent between models:

14.31818 MHz - NTSC
17.734475 MHz - PAL

Just swapping the crystal on an european Saturn would do the trick? Or are any more modifications needed? (a side from having the Saturn in 60Hz mode) Does it depens on the motherboard model/revision? I can’t found the specific name of the crystal, is extracting it from a NTSC Saturn the only option?

As you can see I’m pretty new to all this stuff haha

Any help will be appreciated!

I’ve read in an old post that zyrobs has achieved this conversion succesfully! Anyone else? Thanks!

[zyrobs]

It depends on motherboard and you can only do it with ones that use the Sega/Hitachi PLL (IC20 should be a 315-5746). On those machines you just swap the main oscillator, and swap JP1/2. Depending on board type however (for boards VA0 PAL, VA1 PAL, and VA SD PAL) you may need to swap some extra jumpers (some boards have extra ones assigned to the PLL, and the video encoder, some in pull-up/pull down configurations, I forgot which).

For VA7 and VA9 you just swap the crystal and JP1/2 around. For VA13 PAL, the PLL is incompatible and programmed internally for PAL crystals.

[patters]

I just discovered now that I finally have a Rad2x that my LG OLED TV doesn't play nicely with the off-spec refresh rate of my 60Hz modded PAL VA9 console. I get micro stutters in the audio every few seconds. Having read up on the DFO and a few other posts I decided to take my Saturn apart too look for the main crystal resonator. I had read that it was X1, but the pads for X1 are empty on a VA9 board. So which crystal is the master, and does anyone (zyrobs really) have candidate replacement part details? I see from eBay that they tend to have a pico farad rating.

[zyrobs]

On VA9 units, X1 is used for NTSC crystal and X2 is used for PAL crystal, but they only differ in the form factor, they are connected to the same trace so you can use either. Do not put a crystal on both though, only one.

At either rate, on every Saturn the main crystal is usually the one near IC20 with a speed of either 14.318MHz (NTSC), 17.734MHz (PAL), 14.308MHz (NTSC), or very rarely 14.302MHz on a very few PAL-M modded units sold by Tectoy.