Using US AC adapter with Japanese Mega Drive

Am I correct in assuming that you can use a US AC adapter with a Japanese Mega Drive? It would make sense since the units internally should take the same voltage and it is up to the adapter to provide it. The reason that I ask is that I have a Korean Mega Drive that will not play Mega Drive carts, however, it will play carts with Master System ROMs. I also found in my man-cave the other day a Japanese Mega Drive. I am not sure if this one even works, but if it does, I would love to pull the board and put it in my Korean case since I doubt that I will ever get the Korean board fixed.

 

The AC adapter won't be a problem.

Japanese or Korean makes no difference to games. Mega Drive has no specific Korea region detection.

 

Thanks for the confirmation. I will try out my Japanese Mega Drive later this week and if it works, I will move it over to the Korean case. One funny thing that I have found about the Korean model concerns the RF adapter that I have for it. I had read about the Famicom and that if you use the Japanese RF adapter, it comes out on a channel somewhere in the high 80s if I remember correctly. However, when trying out the Korean RF unit, the signal came out on channels 3 & 4, just like US RF boxes. Any ideas why?

 

South Korea didn't use Japanese TV broadcast frequencies.

Japanese Mega Drive 1 has no RF support however. If a modulator of any form exists in the console, it's modified or a non-Japan Asian model.

 

Thanks for that bit of information. Now I guess I have to find where I put my Genesis AV cable.

 

FYI, an ASIA model with RF modulator do exist. It just did not sell in Japan.

Edit2:


Seems like it's for ASIA PAL areas... No shielding but board says PAL. It looks like a Japanese Mega Drive and has blue reset button. Default setting is Domestic/PAL: "For Hong Kong and Southern Asia".

 

Well, since I couldn't find my Genesis AV cable, I ordered a couple on line. Of course, then I found my original cable and tried out my Japanese unit. It would not power on. After opening it up, there is a large crack through the motherboard in the corner between the power switch and the row of caps like you see in the above picture.