I have had a 32X for a long time. It a warranty void sticker(the kind that spells out void when you peel it) on the side as if it has been refurbished. When I first got it, it would not start up when plugged in. I fiddled with it until i found that if i pulled the power cord out ever so slightly, it fired right up. I boxed it for several years and decided to pull it back out recently. Well i hook it all up, completely forgetting my "fix" from last time. So again I fiddle with it and I ended up doing the same, pulling the power cord out slightly, it fired right up. Well I went to change carts and as I hit the power button the power cord on the 32x fell out completely. Well to my surprise, it fired right up. Turns out it works without external power. Then it dawns on me that the warranty sticker on the side is not for reconditioning, but must be fore some sort of prior mod work. Has anyone heard of a mod like this before? All of this happened quite some time ago, so my house hasn't burned down, but I am curious if I need to document this for others.
Seems like a cool mod idea, but I can't imagine how safe/reliable it could be. If there was plenty of current available from the Genesis, why would Sega require and include an additional power supply at their expense? Did it come with a modded Genesis? I could see this working if you upgraded the voltage regulator and power supply for the Genesis.
Interesting, I wonder how much it all draws? Anyone got the specs on 32X and Mega Drive power adapters? You'd probably need more juice going in to prevent damage to the power adapter... and I wonder what the 7805 is rated at in the Mega Drive? So many questions!
Looks like a perfectly normal 32X to me. The wires are supposed to look like that http://www.fybertech.net/images/sega32x/sega32x_top_noshielding.jpg
Yeah posted that a while ago. That was on reddit before I found this community and the tread did not seem to go anywhere. I was told at the time that a lot of that was normal, but it was not a break down of what was done. Edit: I assure everyone that it functions without the external power supply, even if the pictures seem "normal". There is the high possibility that I had no idea where to look and the mod is underneath the main boards somewhere. The 32X came on it's own. It is hooked to a stock Genesis 2 and Sega CD combo.
First, is the power supply for 32x working properly? If you are using Genesis 2, the power plug can be swapped to check and rule out bad power supply. Second. the internal 5v regulator inside Genesis is limited to max 1A and using the 32x plus 32x game is probably going to overdraw that. It may be OK with only Genesis games as the 32x CPU are disabled for 16 bits mode.
I am using a Genny 2 and am able to effectively use either power supply on the genesis 2 to power both the genesis and the 32X at the same time. The 32X has run full mode for hours at a time without issue. I have played a number of 32x titles at length using this setup. Hours of Afterburner, Blackthorne, Virtua Racing, and Space Harrier have been played on this console. I have never seen or heard of this mod. Witnessing it first hand, it shouldn't work, but it does. At this point, I am willing to send the unit to a trusted forum member for review if there are any interested parties.
There can't be all that much to look at...can there? More than likely it just pulls the 5v from the cartridge slot and connects it to the 5v side of the 32x.
This seems dubious to me. I have accidentally powered on my Mega Drive with the 32X attached but without the power connected before, and it does work, but it takes a little longer for the picture to display so that leads me to believe that it is trying to draw up power from the Mega Drive itself, and might be over stressing the voltage regulator. I do have one of those triple adapter dealies that powers the MD, MCD and 32X from one plug that I got from retro game supply, and it works great. I wonder though as that adapter supplies enough current for all 3 devices, there's no reason why it wouldn't supply enough current through just one connected power supply.
I am getting some doubt to the claims in this thread, so I wanted to post a video of this thing running on a single power supply. Even though I barely use youtube, I took the following earlier today. I also realized after taking the video that I did not show the power supply. Just to prove I am not using some sort of trickery I took a picture of the power brick running the Model 2/32X setup posted in the video. http://imgur.com/WXUV7EA Again, neither the 32X, Model 2, or power supply has suffered any ill effect in 6 years of having this setup. I am not attempting to brag. I merely want to try to find out why this is possible and why no one seems to have tried this before. If this can be replicated with a simple modification, i believe it would be a great boon for the retro community.
That white / gray wire you are using is supplying 5v to the 32x from the model 2 Genesis via pin #2. Those cables come with all 9 pins attached where the official 32x to Genesis hook up wire only populated 8 pins. The 7805 in your model 2 Genesis is probably getting super hot. You should check to make sure this isn't happening. I pulled pin 2 from both ends of my cable and went back to using a power supply for the 32x.
I don't think (or know) if this inherently powers the 32x. If theres a bridge on the underside of the system then for sure. And of the power supply doesn't have enough amperage then this would not work.
What happened with my setup is that the 32x would power on with both AC bricks attached. When I powered off the system I had no picture but the model 2 left the red light on. So it wouldn't fully power off. I had to look it up years ago why this was happening and it was that pin 2 was providing 5v between the model 2 genesis and 32x.
