Argh! My mate left his Japanese Saturn over mine a few weeks ago with a decent selection of games. It's been great. Today I plugged it in, fired it up and sssss... realised I'd plugged a 240V power cable instead of the step-down 120V converter in... Unsurprisingly, it won't turn on. Help! Have I fucked it completely, or is it just the PSU that's blown?
Quick response, cheers. There was that Godawful smell of burning electronics afterwards. I'll have to open it up, anyway. Any more input greatly appreciated. If it's just the PSU, does anyone close to the UK have a dead Saturn they'd be looking to shift?
Fuse. If not the fuse, then the power board, which is easily replaced or fixed. It has several components designed to burn up if the fuse does not react in time. It sounds like fuse + several resistors have gone up in smoke.
Dunno I never had that kind of problem with my saturn, but during a trip to spain I had the same problem that you did with my DC, and it blew the PSU:-( I send it to repairs and and still working today:icon_bigg
You'll probably need a new PSU. Obviously I guess you'll want to get a Japanese one, although you may be lucky and find a third party dual-range unit. Oh, you'll usually find some diodes blown on the PSU, by the way.... if you're feeling adventurous! Expect it to blow again if you do replace them, though.
I have a spare white Saturn PSU if you want it. All you'll have to do is pay the shipping for the board (6 pounds) Yakumo
Good advice, GP. I was neither intoxicated nor hungover when the incident occurred, though, it was just idiocy. Anyway, onto the next problem. Yakumo sent me his spare power board (at a very cheap price - a tribute to the generosity of the people here), but unfortunately it's got a different mobo power connector with 5 pins instead of 4. I'd blag it and ghetto mod the thing to fit, but the amperage on one of the lines is different and anyway, it's not mine. So, back to square one: anyone got a spare (4-pin!) Saturn PSU? Alternatively, I was wondering about replacing the blown transformer. The blown one doesn't have any identification on it, are they likely to be functionally identical? All the other components look fine. I know that caps are easy to identify when they've popped, I can't remember about all the other components, though - is it worth my while swapping the transformers over to check, or is something else bound to have blown? Obviously the fuse has gone, and it's the irritatingly-soldered-on variety, so I'd have to mess with that too. My multimeter's at home, so I can't test things individually, and anyway I wouldn't know how to check the power regulators or whatever.
I thought UK plugs were physically different from those used in Japan? Or do you have a plug from a playstation or something and used it on there?
What type of Saturn did you blow up? The board I sent you was from a Japanese white model. I can get a grey model power board if needed but I don't know how many pins they have. Yakumo
It's a white Saturn. I know there's some rounded/oval button distinctions between some Saturns, this one's got the round buttons. I seem to recall all J Saturns being that way, though? Long time since I read up on it. Yakumo, if you've got the Saturn power board handy, turn it over and look for holes. There will be either 5 or 4 small holes in a row. The board I need is the 4-hole one. APE, the power plug on the Saturn end is the usual 2-hole affair which gets used a lot, the Dreamcast uses it also. The original power supply wouldn't have been a UK one, but my mate bought a step-down converter. Which I conveniently forgot to use.
All white Saturns have round buttons. Hmm, there muist be two versions of it which I never knew about THis would also explain why some people say they can't play Out Run on a white Saturn while it worked perfectly on mine. Yakumo
Go by board revision, not by which buttons it has. Interesting point, Yakumo. I'll have to see if I can find out from anyone which board revisions do and don't work.
Yakumo, can I hassle you to check the PSU board you have? My mate's coming up to visit in a couple of weeks or so and I'd really like to be able to give him a working Saturn back...
Hi, new member here. The white jap saturns do have 2 power board types. The white japanese saturns with 32pin cddrive boards run off 2x5v 2xground psus...only 4 pins The white saturns with 64pin ic chips have the more standard psus with 5 voltage pins. Anyway if its still needed I have a load of psus from white saturns.. and can send a couple no probs.
Is your friend in the UK or Japan? If so, you could get a action replay for the Saturn (Which allows you to play Imports from any region) and a PAL Saturn.
