As anyone in the various PAL lands will tell you one of the more annoying things about importing some consoles is those silly voltage differences. Now im fully aware of stepdown/stepup convertors (have a few plugged in now) and swapping out the psu (already done with my JP Dreamcast) or simply buying replacement transformers (Megadrive,Snes etc) but im wondering about how difficult and/or dangerous it would be to modify the existing PSU to except local voltages? Any thoughts Assembler types?
Depends on the PSU type. I know for a fact that most if not all PC models are capable of the Japan/ US standard of 100 to 125 volts range as well as the Euro spec of 220 to 250 volts. They simply have a switch on then to change it. For lower voltage modes theres a built in step up system that takes the power to the Euro spec of 220 volts. In the 220 mode this section is simply bypassed.
@sonicdude10 I was thinking more inline with consoles like the saturn or dreamcast where traditionally us Pal types would yank the ntsc psu out and replace it with a local one. Getting a 240v dreamcast psu for example is an real pain as they very rarely if ever show up on there own.
Mostly these psu have different transformers, but I think it's much more difficult to find same transformer type than just to get another psu board.
I wouldn't even bother finding a factory board for your voltage. Just find a good model that will fit the space, has voltage and wattage you need, and either solder it in or use connectors and jumper wires to hook it all up. Might get lucky and find a more efficient model this way.
A lot of the time the transformers will have a different pinout, thus the actual board layout is different.. Well thats what I have seen in most cases anyway... (if you just want to swap all the 110V components to 240v ones) BUT seeing as most PSu PCB's seem to be single sided, you could in theory, get the plans for a 240v board and have one made (using one of those Chinese company's). Then just source all the parts and solder them in...
