..I blew up a 110V system. Damn. A friend of mine came around and we had an intense link-up battle (an entire championship of Formula 1). When we finished (roughly 1AM) we wanted to give our hands some rest (damn those crappy PS one pads and games that don't support analogue steering) and I hooked up the Saturn....with the PAL PSX cord. OH: So we were roughly 5-10 minutes into the game (!!) and 'poof', it went up in smoke. I moved places last week (so didn't had most consoles hooked up to the TV yet and had most stuff running on a beamer) and it was 1 AM ..a typical moment to make such an error. Worst of all is that out of 6 Saturns it just happened to be my beloved Derby Stallion edition :banghead: Thankfully apart from some brown goo (huh?) that splattered on the casing (which came off, thankfully) the rest -seems- undamaged. So, will I be able to buy a power-board from a Flash Saturn or so? The hardware inside isn't different from the white Saturn afaik (well apart from the bios maybe) so that would probably be my best bet. People; don't let it happen to you! (that goes for most Europeans).
WOW IT LASTED FOR 5-10 MINUTES!? just try changing PSU, but probably something else died. i have my jap saturn working at 220v by just taking the PSU from a pal saturn and reconnected it in the jap one. it took 5 mins and works like a charm. this is my suggestion.
Yeah I'm still surprised by that. Not sure why it didn't go up in smoke as soon as I turned it on. That PAL PSU could be an idea but 'junk saturns' from Japan could be another option.
trust me. a spare pal saturn will save you the trouble and risk of plugging it at the wrong voltage and get saddened for you precious ntsc derby stallion saturn (sorry, i couldn't resist guess i'm a little envious on people on this board )
Normally I have them all hooked up with step-downs so I never have to swap anything, like said it's just an unlike cross of events. I could insert a PAL PSU into my JPN system but that would be like inserting a Skoda engine into a Ferrari to me. It just doesn't feel right ;-)
the PSUs are EXACTLY the same, trust me and anyway skoda engines are made in juction with volkswagen, so they are perfectly fine also with such aerodinamics and low weight it would run like a lightning anyway
Err, you should have got a bang as soon as you put the lead in... never mind turning the console on, it shouldn't get that far! Quite often, it is a diode that goes. Basically, a component that is rated 120V in the mains section will bear the brunt. I'd always suggest permanently hooking up foreign consoles with the correct leads and step-down (or up!) transformers, preferably in a cabinet or some such thing. Fair enough, you have a good reason not to have.... but surely setting up your Saturn is the first thing you do when moving in? ;-) hehehe
Off topic but....am I the only one that thought "Oh another 360 got 3 red lights" when they read the topic title?
h: Yeah, I'm amazed it lasted that long, too! The only time I've done that (on an easily replaceable 120vac->5vdc transformer brick, it went *poof* the moment that I plugged it into 240vac (also at 1am, as it happens)... Moral(s) of the story: 1) Since I'm mostly now in 120v land, I mark all my 100v/240v boxes & cables with bright yellow stickers with the voltage written on them, so I'm less likely to mix them up. 2) I don't touch power cables at 1am. Ever. :nod:
I remember swapping innards between two PSX units (one JP and one PAL) with a friend... so at one point I ask him to plug in the power cable in the one I'm currenty holding (JPN)... POOF! White smoke comes out of one of the big caps, and we yell and instantly pull out the power cord. Guess what, the thing still works (I wasn't so lucky when I blew the USB chip on my 500e laptop with a home-made cable though :-( )
