Weird 60Hz switch problem

[Silanda]

This is my first post so hi everyone.

I tried to fit a 50/60Hz switch to my saturn today and have had a bit of a weird result. My board rev is VA13 so the layout is slightly different to most of the guides, and I was a bit worried about the power pins not being the same. Anyway I wired the thing up, cut the trace etc, and then fired it up.

What's happening is kind of strange though: In the 50Hz position it goes to 50 Hz as usual, but in 60Hz it only works if I am touching the switch or if the switch body is connected to something screwed into the wall. Would I be right in thinking that this is some kind of grounding problem, and if so, why the hell is it happening? My electrics knowledge is very rusty so excuse me if I've missed something blindingly obvious.

 

[lordofduct]

You must have it on the wrong side of the splice...

As it works wence grounded, ground the thing instead of locating another way of doing it that might screw things up worse.

I guess you are using a 2way 3post switch. just hook a wire to the center post and ground it on the shielding plate of the saturn and everything should work fine.

This is why I do the mod that requires you to take the second to last pin on the north side of the VDP. You can find a guide for this mod at I think it is www.mmmonkey.uk

 

[Silanda]

Thanks for the help, but in the end the problem turned out not to be related to the ground at all. I tried to fix the switch to the metal shielding and the screen would just roll, but it kept rolling when I put everything back as it was. So I did some poking around with my multimeter and found that the 5V was not being supplied to the switch (I'm not sure why, perhaps bad soldering). I'm a bit puzzled about why it ever worked at all.

Anyway, in the end I couldn't be bothered to totally disassemble my saturn again so I just stuffed some wire down by the 5V pin on the power supply, connected it to the appropriate switch leg, and now everything works. I probably even won't bother trying to resolder, the wires are quite secure as they are.