Repair Jap Sega Saturn PSU?

[Andrew McCall]

Hi Folks,

I plugged my Japanese Sega Saturn into what I though was a step down
convertor in to a UK power socket, only to be horribly shocked when I
turned the thing on

I have opened the case, and I can see a few components on the PSU that
are damaged. These consist of:

1) A little green disc with legs, o5 220NA 53 is written on it, labeled
VR1 on the board. This has cracked open.

2) A resistor with red, purple, yellow red colours on it, labeled R63
on the board. This may not be damaged, it might just be scorching from
the little disc.

3) A fuse thats soldered onto the board, I can't really read the
markings as I cant rotate the fuse, its a glass one and what I can see
is V 1.6 - I presume this will be AC125V 1.6A which, is what the PSU
expects to be plugged into.

Sorry for my non-technical working, but its been years since I did any
electronics!

So - here are my questions!

Can anyone confirm what the parts are?

Does anyone think that anything else will be broken?

Can anyone in the UK supply me with the parts to fix this, or can
anyone reading this in the UK fix this for me?

I have money/PayPal funds waiting.

Thanks for the help in advance!

Andrew McCall

 

[Electric dabbler]

Hi Folks,

I plugged my Japanese Sega Saturn into what I though was a step down
convertor in to a UK power socket, only to be horribly shocked when I
turned the thing on

I have opened the case, and I can see a few components on the PSU that
are damaged. These consist of:

1) A little green disc with legs, o5 220NA 53 is written on it, labeled
VR1 on the board. This has cracked open.

2) A resistor with red, purple, yellow red colours on it, labeled R63
on the board. This may not be damaged, it might just be scorching from
the little disc.

3) A fuse thats soldered onto the board, I can't really read the
markings as I cant rotate the fuse, its a glass one and what I can see
is V 1.6 - I presume this will be AC125V 1.6A which, is what the PSU
expects to be plugged into.

Sorry for my non-technical working, but its been years since I did any
electronics!

So - here are my questions!

Can anyone confirm what the parts are?

Does anyone think that anything else will be broken?

Can anyone in the UK supply me with the parts to fix this, or can
anyone reading this in the UK fix this for me?

I have money/PayPal funds waiting.

Thanks for the help in advance!

Andrew McCall

Hi Andrew,

I have never worked on a Sega Saturn, but have seen other things that have
been blown up in a similar way. Sometimes very little is blown other times
lots!

If you are lucky the green disc is connected across the mains supply, used
to prevent mains surges from damaging the unit - in a similar way to the
'surge protector' mains sockets. These surges normally last microseconds
during which time it absorbs the excess energy, something it can't do with a
permanent 240V supply connected to it so quite rightly it explodes! Because
this device is used to prevent surges it is non-essential therefore can be
removed (start flame war) , and if luck is very much on your side the unit
will work with just a new 1.6A fuse and VR1 removed from the circuit board..
The resistor is probably OK, its value sounds like 470K from your
description, use a cotton bud lightly moistened with mehtalated sprits to
clean it - if it looks perfect underneath the black soot it probably is OK.

The other possibility for the green disc is that it is used to limit the
switch on surge of the unit, if it does this job and has failed then there
will be other devices faulty but probably nothing visible.

The fuse should be easily obtainable from any stockist of electronic
components (Maplin) look at the old one, usually it will be marked something
like 1.6AT or 1.6T this denotes anti surge (which is normal for this kind of
fuse) and is what you should be asking for. Don't worry about the voltage
rating, this is the maximum voltage that the fuse can safely interrupt, any
available here will be 250V but that will be perfectly fine.

An even better option might be to buy a faulty but not dead (UK) Sega Saturn
from Ebay and transplant the power supply unit complete - perhaps a Google
on this subject will tell if this is likely to work.

Of course this advice is given as is, with an assumption of electrical
knowledge and regard for safety, if you are any way unsure please DONT DO
IT! I will not be held responsible for any loss of life/limbs/major body
organs/anything else....

Philip

 

[Andrew McCall]

Hi Andrew,

I have never worked on a Sega Saturn, but have seen other things that have
been blown up in a similar way. Sometimes very little is blown other times
lots!

If you are lucky the green disc is connected across the mains supply, used
to prevent mains surges from damaging the unit - in a similar way to the
'surge protector' mains sockets. These surges normally last microseconds
during which time it absorbs the excess energy, something it can't do with a
permanent 240V supply connected to it so quite rightly it explodes! Because
this device is used to prevent surges it is non-essential therefore can be
removed (start flame war) , and if luck is very much on your side the unit
will work with just a new 1.6A fuse and VR1 removed from the circuit board..
The resistor is probably OK, its value sounds like 470K from your
description, use a cotton bud lightly moistened with mehtalated sprits to
clean it - if it looks perfect underneath the black soot it probably is OK.

The other possibility for the green disc is that it is used to limit the
switch on surge of the unit, if it does this job and has failed then there
will be other devices faulty but probably nothing visible.

The fuse should be easily obtainable from any stockist of electronic
components (Maplin) look at the old one, usually it will be marked something
like 1.6AT or 1.6T this denotes anti surge (which is normal for this kind of
fuse) and is what you should be asking for. Don't worry about the voltage
rating, this is the maximum voltage that the fuse can safely interrupt, any
available here will be 250V but that will be perfectly fine.

An even better option might be to buy a faulty but not dead (UK) Sega Saturn
from Ebay and transplant the power supply unit complete - perhaps a Google
on this subject will tell if this is likely to work.

Of course this advice is given as is, with an assumption of electrical
knowledge and regard for safety, if you are any way unsure please DONT DO
IT! I will not be held responsible for any loss of life/limbs/major body
organs/anything else....

I have run a few tests, and it started out good, then went bad, and
then went good again

Basially, I already had a UK Sega Saturn, but it was a MK2 version. I
took the PSU out and tried it in the Jap MK1 Saturn. The UK MK2 PSU
is a slightly different shape, so it didn' fit in the case right, but
when powered on the Saturn chimed to life!

However... on further investigation I found that as soon as the CD
started to spin up the Saturn crashed. I am presuming because the UK
MK2 PSU gives slightly different power than the Jap one, or becuase
the motherboard is also fried. So I was still worried all was lost at
this point :-/

I ended up buying another Jap MK1 Sega Saturn, which I tested the new
working Jap MK1 PSU in the broken Saturn - and it does indeed all
work!

I have bought a cheap MK1 UK Sega Saturn, which I will test the PSU in
the Kap MK1 Sega Saturn - if this works I will just put label over the
110V on the back of the unit.

If it doesn't, I am going to swap the fuse and VR1.... however - how
can I find out what to replace VR1 with? Is there anyway I can
identify this part?

Thanks,

Andrew McCall

 

[Electric dabbler]

I have run a few tests, and it started out good, then went bad, and
then went good again

Basially, I already had a UK Sega Saturn, but it was a MK2 version. I
took the PSU out and tried it in the Jap MK1 Saturn. The UK MK2 PSU
is a slightly different shape, so it didn' fit in the case right, but
when powered on the Saturn chimed to life!

However... on further investigation I found that as soon as the CD
started to spin up the Saturn crashed. I am presuming because the UK
MK2 PSU gives slightly different power than the Jap one, or becuase
the motherboard is also fried. So I was still worried all was lost at
this point :-/

I ended up buying another Jap MK1 Sega Saturn, which I tested the new
working Jap MK1 PSU in the broken Saturn - and it does indeed all
work!

I have bought a cheap MK1 UK Sega Saturn, which I will test the PSU in
the Kap MK1 Sega Saturn - if this works I will just put label over the
110V on the back of the unit.

If it doesn't, I am going to swap the fuse and VR1.... however - how
can I find out what to replace VR1 with? Is there anyway I can
identify this part?

Thanks,

Andrew McCall

Hi Andrew,

As I said in my previous post, you might not need to, VR1 is either just to
protect against mains spikes (so you can live whithout it). If it were me I
would remove VR1, replace the fuse and switch on. If VR1 is to protect
against spikes and is the only thing fried then the unit will work. If VR1
has a differnt role then it won't work but I would put money on other
components being faulty in a less obvious way.

if you can take a good digital photo of both sides of the circuit board and
email it to me - I might be able to say more.

(email is spam-trapped - multiply the number in the address by 2)

[email protected]

Philip

 

[Ken Weitzel]

<snip>

Hi...

Probably makes little difference, but sounds like
closer to 270k to me

Ken

 

[petercrapsody]

I know this thread is age-old, ancient history.

But that dude was right. I had the same problem. Although my components were labeled differently, I basically had to remove the 'surge protector' component and replace the $00.20 cent fuse with a new one from the electrical shop on the corner of the block. Nice one.