How to mod a 21 pin Saturn

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Scared0o0Rabbit

Established Member
I don't know anyone who has tried, however if the voltage is right, you should be able to take your power from anywhere it's provided. As to it being on the bottom, is it the right voltage? if yes then it should work, is there a reason to try, not that I can think of. Now, don't be such a demanding asshole, and don't clutter this already extremely long thread with:

SOME1 PLEASE JUST ANSWER MY QUESTION!
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M

Matt

Just found this thread through a Google search on Saturn mods. Very useful indeed!

Anyways, I just got a bunch of chips from Xinga. It's the usual story - they run happily on the two 32-pin model 2 US Saturns I've tried, but no luck on my 64-pin white JP unit.

What's very interesting to me is that the missing components on the mod board are for an 8.467mhz oscillator circuit, the output of which goes to the same spot as solder pad A. It looks as though the board was designed to run without the external clock signal. The old Playthegames mod install page refers to "no blue wire mods", which are probably the usual chips with the extra parts fitted.

I really wish I had access to a 'scope right now - if I was able to take a look at the signal coming off of the 64 and 32 pin boards, it'd be easy to tell if that was the problem. If the 64-pin boards do indeed give something other than an 8.5mhz signal from pin #8, then that's sure to be it. Next time I order parts, I'm going to try picking up a 7404 chip and the proper crystal so I can try completing the oscillator circuit on one of the boards - perhaps that will help.

Oh, and Jandaman is absolutely right - Xinga packs their stuff like crap. Just thrown loose in a box, pretty much! But at least it all works and most of it was dirt cheap.
 
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mal

Established Member
If you find any 8.467MHz crystals, do let me know. It's something that I've been wanting to try for a long time.

I've never found any, but then I haven't tried that hard either. :rolleyes:
 
M

Matt

Yeah - after checking, it doesn't loo klike they're readily available at all. The closest I've found are 8.42 and 8.500 mhz - probably not good enough, but worth a shot just in case.

Fortunately, it is possible to get programmable CMOS oscillators, and I'm sure I could order one that's the right frequency. Attaching one of those would be a lot less work than attaching the SMT chip and other parts.
 
D

drk42

I really wish I had access to a 'scope right now - if I was able to take a look at the signal coming off of the 64 and 32 pin boards, it'd be easy to tell if that was the problem. If the 64-pin boards do indeed give something other than an 8.5mhz signal from pin #8, then that's sure to be it. Next time I order parts, I'm going to try picking up a 7404 chip and the proper crystal so I can try completing the oscillator circuit on one of the boards - perhaps that will help.
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I hooked up my scope to both a 32 pin Saturn and 64 pin Saturn to see what goings on with the clock signal.

The 32 pin Saturn had a clock of ~8.45mhz and it was 0-5V peak to peak (the bottom of the peaks was 0V and the top was 5V). The 64-pin Saturn had an ~8.45mhz clock also, but it had a DC offset of .8V and it only had a 2V peak to peak wave.

I doubt that had anything to do with the mod though,

I'm going to try using the clock signal from the 64-pin Saturn on the 32-pin one and see if it works.

Get back to you guys later.
 
D

drk42

Well,

I was able to boot the 32-pin Saturn using the 64-pin Saturns 8.4mhz clock signal, which pretty much rules out the problem being the clock signal.

I think its the way the mod works, how its programmed.

Its too bad we don't have the code to program PAL and small microcontroller....
 
C

Curtis

Established Member
No, but that sounds a bit like you've got a dodgy power supply. The mod is taking too much power (from a supply that is already flaky), and it's screwing up the CD Drive. Just a theory.
 
P

phorrest

I have a Saturn with a 32 pin chip and round buttons. I ordered and installed a modchip from Jandaman. Now whatever cd I put in, backup or not, it just goes to the cd player and plays all the music tracks on the cd but won't load a game. I removed the chip and left the blue wire soldered and it works fine, so I know the soldering isn't the problem. I've also tried twisting the ribbon and the cd doesn't spin up. I also put the lid on so I know it doesn't think it's open. Any other ideas?
 
P

patters98

Originally posted by phorrest@Nov 7, 2003 @ 08:49 PM

Little help please?
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Likely to be your soldering, or maybe the 0014 vs 0019 bridges - have you tried both positions. If the chip was dead it usually prevents the drive from spinning up at all.
 
S

Scared0o0Rabbit

Established Member
Isn't there a 21/32 saturn that doesn't have a timing crystal or something so mod chips don't work with it? I could just be talking out my ass, but I thought there was.
 
M

mal

Established Member
There is actually.

One of my Japanese Saturns has one. I found that you can mod it if you solder directly to the 32 pin IC, but not if you join 'A+B'.

I don't know why that is and I haven't had the time to follow it up.
 
F

Funzo

Just thought I'd add another success story. First I bought a PAL Model 2 21/32 pin Saturn and a mod from jandaman.com. I bridged points A+B and 0019 on the mod. My PSU has 5 unlabelled pins so I took a guess and soldered the red wire to the 2nd from the top.

When I first tested it, the Saturn booted as normal but would only play the audio from CDs. After reading a few more posts I realised that maybe I had pushed the mod too far in, so I pulled the mod out and pushed it part of the way back in and suddenly everything works perfectly! Thankyou to everyone who contributed to this extremely helpful thread. :)
 
A

AntiPasta

alright, I finally got myself a 21 pin Saturn (a white on at that :D). Since I used to have only 20 pin machines I never really looked into modding, so pardon my noobness :)

I checked and double-checked that my machine has a 21 pin cable, but what's this 'PC trap' I read about? And what IC exactly needs to be 32/64 pin? There's a small square chip on the laser PCB with 64 pins on it, is that the one?

And Lan-kwei states that their Saturn modchip is compatible with 'all 21 pin consoles'. So it should work with my machine, right? Anyone tried one of their chips?

Sorry for flooding you with questions :)
 
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mal

Established Member
I was going to advise you to give up hope of modding your Saturn, then this success story popped up.

Previously Mike G was the only person to mod a Saturn with the Sanyo CD player and PC Trap. Many others (including myself) had tried but all had failed. You might be lucky. :)
 
M

MiaBocca

OK, I'm gonna sound like a real idiot now (why break the habit of a lifetime huh!)

But, where is pin 1 of the ribbon cable?

I have instructions to install the chip - solder the top wire to the 2nd pin down on the power board in the white plastic thing (the red wire in the picture below (from the first page of this thread).

Then the other wire (the blue one) to the 19th leg on the 32pin chip on the CD board.

post-1-1061648499.jpg


BUT, this whole thread is about not doing that :)

Let me see if I have this correct - the blue cable folds back on itself to point B on the modchip - then where does the red wire go?

I think I'm confusing myself :confused
 
M

mal

Established Member
Sorry, I didn't see you'd posted.

All you have to do is join the points marked "A" and "B" (either with a wire or a blob of solder) and connect the red wire to the 5v pin on the PSU.
 
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MiaBocca

Thanks very much mal :cool:

I fitted the mod, my scart cable is a bit dodgy, so I had to fiddle with it, and I have an RGB cable that doesn't even give me a picture :huh

Anyway, I wiggled the scart cable, and put in a CD-R of Sexy Paradious, crossed my fingers, and hey-presto!

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:banana :banana

My soldering experience is diddly-squat other than burning a hole in the carpet when I was 14, so I really appreciate your thread here mal and your help AND crofts and everyone else's help on here, great forum! :cheers

Now off to Ebay to pick up some games and a new scart cable :thumbs-up:
 
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