What is it with SEGA faulty products, especially PSUs

its starting to bug me to the point where now I would like to know why... Why do SEGA products die so soon.
I have gone through countless PSUs, one only the other day just stopped working for no reason. and you got the Caps that go on nearly all older sega consoles

what is going on, is there an explanation out there that outlines this, or even a SEGA statement from back in the days.

I was pretty lucky though that I managed to get a new PSU 3Amp 9V for £7.99 so I got 2 of them, 1 I will make into a 3 in 1 with fuse breakers

 

Snes Psus are always dead too. It's old electronics in general.

 

yeah true SNES was the worst for me back in the days, and then I was only young and I didn't know SNES was AC to AC so was always confused why a 10V DC adaptor didn't work

 

Dc adapters work fine on the snes, as the very first thing in a PAL snes is a rectifier to convert to DC.

I use a mega drive PSU on my test bench for snes and md.

Regarding caps, SMD caps seem to go more often in my experience. The snes and nes don't really have many (if any) of those

 

You mean to tell me that parts that have expiration dates eventually die? Color me shocked!

Transformers experience power spikes and thermal expansion/contraction, their cables break after 20 years, etc. Capacitors have much of the same combined with the fact the electrolyte will eventually expire based upon age and usage.

 

I eventually realised that when I was testing a snes to fault find and managed to power it from the G O line of the Regulator using a 5V DC input and 9V DC input in the G I Line

 

Only console that's ever died on me from normal usage was an SNES. Never had a SEGA product die on me though.

I guess it's just the SNES in general that dies the fastest hence the need for emulators.

 

Based upon what? Nobody has done any actual studies to see what console is dying sooner than another and all we have is pure speculation. Even sampling Google and sifting through results to find out what is failing for users isn't a remotely effective way to determine the rates of console failure.

 

I said I guessed, that doesn't mean it happens to most other people's consoles.

 

From my particular/personal experience, SEGA stuff had faults with capacitors more often than Nintendo stuff.

 

I was never under the impression that sega stuff was more failure prone than other stuff.
I have never even seen a failed SEGA power adapter. I buy "for parts" genesis consoles and they always work after a cart slot cleaning.
Maybe you just got unlucky?

I have had to recap several gamegears though, as the caps in those things are cursed.

 

It's not just the Game Gears, look the MEGA-CD units failing .... It's aways the caps. Being honest with you the other day my Super Famicom failed. It was the caps... I replaced ALL of them but then the SFC only had 7 e=caps... And only the ones related to video had leaked. I replaced all of them just for peace of mind.

 

same as above, never seen a faulty sega power supply. bought and sold 100+ megadrives/master systems/mcd etc and never had to get a replacement. Now Snes psu are a totally different breed, found loads to have failed and needed to be replaced.

 

Are you aware that Nintendo power supplies are actually equipped with fuses on the primary winding of their transformers ?

 

SNES PSUs can be opened, looks like Pas chucked away some good repairable PSUs

 

I do have a SNES psu that outputs no voltage, thanks for the fuse lead. I'll open it up and see if that's the problem.

 

^^^ never thrown any away just sold on as faulty.

.....goes to look through scrap box....

 

only issues with sega power wise i've had have been with game gears and it's been dodgy capacitors, other than that just a laser died in a saturn.

i'm sure they do have issues due to age, but its not soley SEGA hardware.

 

I repair offical sega psu's all the time.
i should make a youtube video.

 

now you tell me after I cut the cable and chucked 2 of them away