Can this saturn be saved ?

i recently bought a lot of broken consoles and controllers for € 30 incl shipping.

10 atari and genesis controllers, 1 nes game (goal), 1 lynx bag ,1 nes and1 snes(without cables) and a sega saturn with 2 controllers and power cable.

I got 7 out of 10 controllers working again. (dirt inside)
The lynx bag was in good condition.
The nes game was dirty . So cleaned it and works again.
The nes was blinking. (cleaned it and bent some pins and it is working again)
The snes had a broken fuse i repaired

So i'm going to make my money back and some little profit.

I want to put the profit money in the saturn repair project.
But is it worth it ?

Because it looks abused.
I never had a saturn before so i don't know whats wrong with it.
The saturn won't power on and seems to be missing some parts. (ribbon cable,reset button,memory battery) maybe even more.
So could somebody take a look at the picture and tell me if it is worth it or not.







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This is from a post on sega 16 forum.
I already checked the fuse. It is busted.
It might have been modded because it has some tape inside ?
Anyway i was directed here and look for a guy called druidd .

 

The location of the brown packing tape (not a great insulator BTW) definitely indicates a maodchip was once installed. There should be a ribbon coming up through that slot from the main board and connecting to the laser. the little swatch of tape over by the power supply probably held the 5v wire in place - sloppy work.

You might be lucky and the console is fine other than the power supply - possibly when it died its former owner stripped everything useful and ditched it - can't believe someone bothered to pull the CR2032 memory battery though!

I'd start with trying to fix the PSU, but please be careful, there are dangerous voltages there, both to the console and you.

If you can get it to power on your next purchase should be a laser ribbon.

Good luck!

 

And it looks like an American Saturn with a 110V PSU, which might well be why the fuse is blown, since I guess the OP is in Europe where they use 230V mains.

 

A little bit off topic:
Are you selling the NES?

Now back to the topic:
Most times a blown fuse is the villain, but there can be still more problems.
Try checking if there is a modchip and verify the wires/connections.

 

If the modchip is still in there, remove it, something tells me that a person who uses gaffa tape as insulation probably botched a modchip install.

 

Took the saturn apart some more pictures.

 

OH OH just took a look at he fuse that was blown E 1.6 A/250 V That can't be good. What for fuse is needed in a sega saturn?

 

Thanks for the help so far guys. And the nes is already gone.
I'm going to buy a fuse for the saturn (if i know the correct voltages for the usa version) and work from there.
Or is the other damage to much (brown spots)

 

1.6A 250V sounds about right - the line voltage in the US is nominally 120V, but they still tend to use 250V rated fuses.

Those brown marks just look like soldering flux, and shouldn't be anything to worry about. The only thing that does look strange is that in one of those photos it looks like there is a solder blob on the CD power connector shorting two pins together.

 

Which picture ?

 

Second from last in your post - the blob is just below R189 on the the board.

 

My Hi-Saturn has those two pins connected as well. According to schematics, they are both ground pins.

It is best to do a continuity check before powering the unit however.

 

So replace the fuse and check with a multimeter. What for fuses can the saturn handle or only the E 1.6 A / 250 V ?

 

Btw i checked for schematics and saw there are many different versions ?

 

Use whatever is written on the power supply board! Almost all of them have the fuse values clearly marked on the board.

From the picture that power supply looks like a Yamaha 35M10U which has a 1.6A 250V fuse. But I could be wrong, so check what is written on the board for yourself.

edit: we have schematics for VA0, VA0 PAL, and VA13 machines, yours looks like a VA8, so the schematics will be of little help.

 

I replaced the fuse. Plugged the saturn on (with step down converter) and i saw a GREEN light !! for 2 seconds.
After that the fuse blew up !

I took another look at the power supply and can't imagine how i missed this !!



OMG so imbarrassing . Took a look at old pictures and this was old damage that was hidden because it was only on the right side against the console side.

Can this be fixed and can i use snes or megadrive parts ?

 

PS . Does somebody has an idea how this damage happend ? Because of the old mod or 250 volt ? Looks like those big things melted !?

The green light was a good sign for the rest of the console. I think ?
Is there a way to test the laser of the saturn ?

 

That's just glue/insulation on the caps. If they were damaged, there would be ugly corrosion everywhere.

If the fuse blew like that, I imagine something is wrong with the power supply (or maybe the motherboard is shorted out somehow).

 

Found iT ! The varistor is busted ! Look and zoom AT my last picture again iT meldde away. Looks more and more like somebody put this console in 220 main withouten stepdown converter