I have one of these Bandridge scart switcher boxes..... Great device and produced a nice clean signal, BUT i have notice a very strange problem with the device. I have my MegaDrive 2 console connected up to the AV5/VCR input (all the other inputs are just marked AV1-4 for eaxmaple), i have my NES (NESRGB) connected up to input AV1. If i change to AV1 (NES) and power of the system i notice that the power light on the Megadrive 2 console comes on, i can even remove the power cable from the rear of the console and the power light is still on, hitting the power button on and off does do anything. Its as if the Bandridge is sending power from the NES to the MegaDrive via the scart cables, surely this cant be good? Heres a vid showing the issue anyways....
yes i had similar problem with my retro corner setup. if i inserted my megadrive rgb scart cable into my 5 way scart adapter and then powered on either my master system or saturn i would get power to my megadrive. i tried the same thing as you and unplugged the megadrive but somwhow there was still power going to my megadrive i can only assume from the scart cable. i posted a thread about it over at krikzz's forum http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=1144.0
There is a power connection on the AV port. The switch is providing power through it. It is not enough power for the system to actually run. There are other systems that have power connections on the AV port. The switch may only maintain power to one of the switch positions like that. You could experiment if the same issue happens when the system is connected to a different switch position. If it bothers you, I'm sure the switch could be modded somehow.
I thought there was a way to cut a trace to prevent this from happening. It is something specific with the 5th port, though. I'm daisy chaining three of them, and I've actually been meaning to see if I can arrange my setup so that no 5th one is used because I've ran into the same issue as you
Yeah its defo only the 5 socket that seems to have this issue, its labeled as 'AV5/VCR' no other socket has 'VCR' so it must be something different on this socket thats related to the 'VCR' label? I even tried swapping around the NES and MD2, so the MD2 was on socket 1 and the NES was on socket 5 (AV5/VCR) but the NES power LED light didnt seem to light up however, so it just seem to be the way the MD2 scart socket is wired up!? Whats the reason behind the AV5/VCR outputing voltage and no other socket does?
I have one of these as well and never gave it a second thought as to port 5 being labeled as AV5/VCR. I would venture to guess that it would utilize the stand-by/sleep mode of some TVs. Electronics that use stand-by mode use very little electricity to maintain that mode. A TV that has this feature enabled; can be powered on by a device that you power on such as a VCR, DVD player, etc. It would make sense if that port is allowing electricity to flow through ... and labeled as AV/VCR - that it could be used in this manner. I took mine apart awhile back as port 5 no longer worked; after following the traces, I noticed some pins that had been poorly soldered (lack of solder). I added a little more to a few pins and that fixed it. I would advise against modding or cutting traces; the minimal amount of electricity flowing through, should not be problem.
I've also experienced the same issue with my Saturn on rare occasions... so that's what causes it, huh?
Depending on how the system is designed and the SCART cable wiring you may or may not notice an issue with voltage being supplied through the video cable. As Venatus said, the amount of electrical current that might be supplied through the video cable is very minimal. Though ideally for a cartridge based system you probably don't want it getting any power when inserting or removing carts. It may not really hurt anything, but personally I'd want to avoid that situation, even if it required modding the switch. But I don't use a switch anyway. If it's an option, I'd just avoid using that port that provides current through the cable.
