wow, GREAT board

[NR Pickle]

A few years ago I bought a used Saturn and every cool game I could find for it. Unfortunatley I only found like 5 games, lol. I was also excited about modding it but I couldn't find any info anywhere about modding a saturn. Three years later with the Saturn in the closet I have stumbled across this board and it's reignited my interest.

I've been reading through the threads and I'm feeling pretty confident now with so many people offering up advice left and right.

But...

I've never done anything like this ever. Thanks to existing threads I've narrowed all of this down to two questions.

1. 32 and 64 pin? I haven't opened my saturn yet b/c none of my screwdrivers will fit in those godforsaken screws but I plan on fixing that with a trip to the store tomorrow. Will it be obvious when I open it what I'm looking for to see if I have 32 or 64 pin? And 32 pin means it's a go right?

2. Soldering... I've never soldered anything and from the posted pics the solder points look extremely tiny. I don't consider myself an idiot however and you guys make it sound really easy. I also have no option but to do this myself as no one that I know would be able to help me. Should I stop now or go ahead and order the chip assuming my saturn is 32 pin and 21 pin ribbon? And if I accidentally get solder in a bad place is it easy to simply "scrape it up"? I'm terrified of ruining my system since saturns are very very very rare where I live and I like the games I have.

*crosses fingers and prays to saturn god*

 

[mal]

It should be fairly obvious whether the Saturn is 32 pin or 64 pin.

If you can do the "A+B" mod then there is no really tricky soldering to be done.

 

[NR Pickle]

Ok, now you've got me really excited. Jandaman here I come.

Would you mind double checking my plan for me? Seriously, I have no electronics experience what so ever. Reading that thread is confusing. So many comments it's hard to tell fact from theory.

1. put solder connecting 14 on the mod board to the point between it and 19. Do this whether I have 32 or 64 pin, it doesn't matter.

2. put solder connecting a and b on the mod board, don't need to use a wire???

3. connect red wire to 5v on the power supply.

4. then just slap the chip in between the ribbon and ribbon connector

I've read about a type of solder that is like a putty and doesn't need to be heated by a soldering iron to use it. I'm thinking that since it looks like the only actual wire needing connected is the red one to the power supply, and that there is a lot of room to work with there I could get away with using it even though it's supposed to suck. (thinking that electrical tape would keep the wire from moving enough to jar it loose)

#1 is my biggest concern. I'm afraid if I do the wrong thing, (14 or 19) the operation is done for.

I can not thank you enough for advice, I have literally wanted to do this for years.

 

[NR Pickle]

Oh yea, I live in the US so my saturn is ntsc, I notice that a lot of you live in europe. Just want to make sure there aren't any differences between pal and ntsc mod.

 

[mal]

The 0014 bridge should already be in place.

You can use wire on A+B if you want. It's just neater without it.

Everything else sounds fine.

 

[racketboy]

BTW, welcome!

You'll find this place to be a wealth of Sega info.

The more you get into your systems, the more you'll be addicted to finding more info

 

[NR Pickle]

Thanks and I think you're right about the growing curiousity. I've got my saturn opened in front of me right now. (64 pin processor 21 pin ribbon, non sanyo) It's pretty interesting looking around in it. I'm probably going to end up busting into some of my other systems now, lol.

 

[AntiPasta]

well watch out with your Saturn, it's innards are pretty complicated, more than any console I ever opened! I put my Saturn back together in the wrong way lately and I blew a fuse in the power supply

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

While the innards of teh saturn are more complicated than the innards of systems of the 16bit era and before, it's nowhere near as complex as the innards of the new systems, my xbox, ps2, and gamecube are all infintely more complicated.

 

[KuKzz]

Yeah, especially Xbox - motherboard, pc-type dvd-rom, pc-type hdd and a psu, very complicated