Sega Saturn Composite AV Mod

Had a Quick search on here and it didnt seem to be posted, its good General info.

Q. Why bother? Why only composite/RCA?
A. many reasons, 1. Because i can, 2. Because the AV port on the saturn can become unreliable with use and age wear and tear etc.
3. allows for output of audio through a hi-fi or other audo systems, and video source eaier to capture if you want to make a video?
4. If you dont want to buy one of thoes cheap cables off the internet or spend on a converter box.
5. i was bored.

you can also easily do RGB and S/Video but that requires extra work and i dont have a Svideo cable to test it with so i didnt bother.

This is on a UK Pal version VA9 board.

Disclaimer:
I do not claim that this mod is mine, this is just a compliation of the information i found through various sources scattered all over the net, and my own attempt and experience.
Do at your own risk! as always.

Items needed:

Sega Saturn
Soldering Iron
Solder
Wire
RCA phone jacks (you can buy these, or canabalise them from something else)
Drill + Drill Bit (to make holes to mount RCA jacks on saturn case)
Screw Driver

All of these items you can get cheap on internet auction sites or local hardware stores i got the RCA phono jacks for under £2 for 10 on ebay, just got standard black ones, as im doing this on a budget you could use gold ones with colour coding if you like. the wire i canabalised from various sources mainly an old scart cable and old computer molex connectors.

i like these as they are easy to fit to the case



There are Other guids on this, but they're spread all over the internet so, heres my spin on it.

1. Strip down the saturn, This is easy enough although some people seem to have had problems with it, similar design to dreamcast just take all the screws out from the bottom, lift top off take screws out of back where then power cable connects. then one screw holds the power supply in place near the front of the saturn. this will then lift upwards 2 screw hold the power switch in place. the CD drive board is held on by 2 cables and 1 screw via a strip to the motherboard underneath it. be careful with the ribbon cable! i have the JVC cd board which is green and says JVC on it, the Sanyo board is a Browny colour and is different but same principle.
Next remove the shield plate off the motherboard, unscrew all the screws then lift out and thats it. the saturn mainboard will come out lift it from the back first.


2. Making the holes to mount the RCA phono Jacks:

Theres room to fit these under the Saturn power supply board, i recommend here as its easy to run the wires and there's a piece of plastic inbetween the power supply and the motherboard shield to help avoid any shorts.

If You want you're RCA / Phono Jacks lined up nice and neat, make a template i used some card from a cerial box line up the holes with some ruled lines and tape it to the side of saturn case before drilling
i cut a strip of card off the cerial box and pressed it against the saturn side so it forms around the lines of the case,then trimmed down.

The Saturn case is Strong ABS plastic so dont worry the drilling is easy and shouldnt crack your case, but be careful!

My 1st attempt at holes, not 100% lined up but i didnt used a template and still got them half decent.


2nd attempt:

much better!



if you dont want to put holes in your case you could run wires out the back of the saturn where the memory battery goes but i dont think this option is very secure. or you could use 1 hole and thread an av cable through that tying a knott in it behind the case so it cannot be pulled through. but this means the cable is perminently attached.


3. Find the points to Connect the Audio Left, Audio right, Comp video, and Ground wires. A-La pic below:

you can either solder your wires directly to the pins from the Saturns existing AV connector, but this can be a bit fidly to accomplish cleanly, or Solder your new wires to the "TP" points which are located below the AV connector pins which is cleaner and makes it easier i think to run wires and cleaner to solder to.

TP3 - Audio Out Left
TP2 - Audio Out Right
TP8 - Comp video Out

Ground for a ground point you can use any you find i use either TP11 or the Ground pin from the AV connector.


3. Connect wires and solder everything up - run wires, Audo L, Audio R, and Video all need to be grounded so i just daisy chained them then ran a wire from the daisychain to the ground point on the motherboard.



then one wire each to the RCA jacks from the corresponding points on the motherboard, TP3 > Audo Left, TP2 > Audio Right, and TP8 > Video out.

i ran the wires from the bottom of the motherboard up inbetween the existing saturn AV connector and the Ext Port as there is a gap here and then along behind the AV connector off the side of the motherboard.
i found this to be the easiest way to run the wires without messing with the metal shields above and below the motherboard and avoiding any screw holes etc. its a good idea to secure the wires to the board with some electrical tape, glue or masking tape.

remember to secure the rca jacks to the case or they'll wobble about when you try and hook them up to use.

pic shows where i ran the wires:


i forgot to take pics of everything wired up sorry i'll get some next time i open the saturn up.

4. Put everything back together and test! should work great


5. Conclusion

Worked great for me i've done this with both of my saturns, and also plan to do it with a MK1 MegaDrive(waiting on it arriving)

Things i'd do better: i'd add some kind of connector/clip between the RCA jacks and the Motherboard so as to make things easier to take the board out in the future.

maybe throw a S/video and RGB out in there too just incase and i'd use colour coded / gold RCA jacks.


To Do:

Add region Free bios and video signal change and maybe a mod chip

 

x

 

Scart is an option but its not as easy to fit in the case, drilling holes for comp out was easy but hacking a hole for scart out i didnt fancy trying my luck with that. although it could be added via a d-sub or similar connecter.

just a cheap and cheerful mod, i may still add the s-video or scart if brave enough

 

Not bad. Get all options covered in case rgb cables somehow disappear. Not that you'd want to regularly use anything else with a scart tv.

i've heard digital audio is also possible.

 

I would like to see the s-video mod, I love the saturn and how it looks with the s-video cable.

 

this mod was a big help to me because I was getting audio buzz with scart audio, but tapping the audio in this fashion pretty much eliminated the buzz. @Lum, digital audio is indeed possible. I highly regret selling my s/pdif modded saturn, it sounded beautiful.

 

I'll get to that. Saturn work could be a ways off, dunno yet. Gamecube in progress comes first.

 

@Lum, think this is what you're talking about http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=av:saturn_sp_dif over on gamesx. i'd also like to try this.

out of curiosity what are you doing with your Gamecube?

@Gunderson, thats another reason i decided to do this, i was gettin issues via scart with the video distorting sometimes which was weird. which doesnt happen with the composite.

 

Crappy cables do that. No shielding. My genuine sega rgb works just fine.

 

x

 

Like so:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SEGA-SATU...nd_Adaptors&hash=item3cc88b568a#ht_500wt_1203

 

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Indeed, I have another too which is the one I use - but I am unsure if its genuine or not. If not, its very well made. However, I wouldnt want to guess and spread misinformation.

However, the genuine one works well and theres no crazy audio interference like the cheapy cables.

 

To follow up..

I get my cables in bundles with cheap machines I get.


The cable I am talking about can be seen in these auctions:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Black-SEG...meConsoles&hash=item5ae7e22856#ht_6410wt_1186

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sega-Satu...GameConsoles&hash=item3cc011f52d#ht_822wt_952


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SEGA-SATU...onsoles_VideoGameConsoles&hash=item25727fa3f8


Which is why I think they could be genuine - same cables, came bundled with the model 1s I bought (which came with RGB scart leads over here).

But as I said, wouldnt like to go on record saying they are genuine sega.

 

x

 

I must have crappy luck when it comes to scart cables, because I also get buzzing audio on my snes and PS1. I live in the US so it's a little bit harder to find good cables since I usually have to import them and hope for the best.

 

had a notion today about doing the s/video out as i found some s-video cables, but then realised i dont have any tv's that have s-video input on them, also my megadrive mk1 arrived on saturday, hacked a mk2 power supply to power it and also done the RCA mod on it(didnt have a mk1 power supply or mk1 AV cable/rf, very pleased with it. think the mk1 just looks "cooler" and more "badass" then the mk2.

 

isn't the mk2 power supply weaker? i thought like 850ma instead of mk1's 1.2A

 

yeah its 850mah but it works just fine, i just thought why not try as i wanted to confirm the console was working, before i went n ordered an ac adapter for it, which is a bit weird as with the gamegear adapter it powered on but i just got a black blank screen which is also rated 850mah(but has the matching connector), i assume running for long periods on the mk2 adapter is probably a bad idea,

 

gamegear is confusing. i'm pretty sure at some point sega either switched polarity, or it varies by system region. most if not all american gamegears i've seen use positive.