Sega Megadrive 1 Region/Display with a Cable Kit & A Problem

Myrddin

I've already documented this mod, I'll just brush over this one as there are two differences. The owner, Pyongyang, aka The Pyongster/Mountain Lodge Man [He had a mountain Lodge] bought a cool little kit from Retro Gaming Cables, which has the two switches, with the wire pre-cut, tinned & soldered onto them. Essentially, cut the holes using the supplied template & wire the kit in.

Sega Megadrive



The Switch Kit



The switches go here, as its the only place with a large enough empty space to house them



The supplied template. I cut this out of the instructions to make placing it easier



Placed on the console



Holes cut & switches attached







Ok the other difference. I could not for the life of me, break the continuity between the jumpers. I dug quite deeply into the pcb & yet the continuity meter still showed a connection



Now, I figured they had to be joined elsewhere so, likely on the underside of the motherboard. I removed the board & sure enough they were connected in a way I'd never seen before. Because this is a PAL Asian Megadrive, I suppose its possible Sega left region setting until post production & this is an official job. Or else some A-Hole decided it'd be easier to hardwire the console at 60Hz & do so from underneath the motherboard.

Either way, I desoldered & broke the connections accordingly





You can see the kits wiring is the perfect lenght, & keeps everything nice & neat. Everything is as it should be at the jumpers now, so time to close up



50Hz & 60Hz accordingly. The camera just cannot take pics of a tv screen, but you get the idea

Pyongyang

BRILLIANT! Top notch stuff sir, I look forward to collecting it. Alas you've somewhat tainted the console though by plugging a non-SHMUP game in there *shakes fist* but logically Sonic really is the ultimate testing tool for this modification.

Agree, the cables and switches are lovely. Robert at Retro Gaming Cables is a gent. I purchased a solid stereo RGB SCART from them too. Top build quality, sound prices, highly recommended.

Myrddin

Pyongyang wrote: »

but logically Sonic really is the ultimate testing tool for this modification

It really is, the difference in speed is very noticeable with Sonic

witnessmenow

It super neat and nice looking. Good job.

I kinda like the non kit methods though, personally I used to like scowring ebay finding parts that would work for the job (or even better if i could harvest them somewhere), and i always enjoying seeing other peoples creativity for the same. I never was very artistic so i guess it was my main creative outlet :P

Pyongyang

@witnessmenow: I'd have gone a similar route when I asked EnterNow to take a look at the mod for me. But I found the kit all sorted for £5 and free postage. Can't really grumble at that.

When I received the kit and gave the switches a quick once over, turns out they are really good, solid build quality so should last pretty much forever hopefully.

Well worth it for £5 and the services of EnterNow. Can't wait to collect my console now and give a few of my SHMUPS a bash.

Myrddin

Pyongyang wrote: »

But I found the kit all sorted for £5 and free postage. Can't really grumble at that

You certainly can't, provided the contacts in the switches are of a good quality, the price is a no brainer. Two DPDT switches, wire cut to lenght, soldered & heat shrinked at the switch end, stripped & thinned at the other end...well worth it.

Joe Musashi

Nice one. I have a MD1 here that I plan on modding. I think I'll get that kit and save myself a bit of trouble.

What did you use for cutting the case? A standard dremel/rotary tool? Was the cutting hard to do right, like very precise?

Myrddin

Joe Musashi wrote: »

Nice one. I have a MD1 here that I plan on modding. I think I'll get that kit and save myself a bit of trouble.

What did you use for cutting the case? A standard dremel/rotary tool? Was the cutting hard to do right, like very precise?

For the switch holes I used a rotary tool yeah. It's not to bad once you have a template. I drilled the four corners & then a hole at top & bottom middle. That meant six holes, just joined them up then & used a fine bit to get the finished result.

For the screw holes I just simply drilled through, again using the template

KeRbDoG

Nice'n'neat mod - makes me want to get a Megadrive

Reamer Fanny

Nice job you really went to town on those traces EN

a5y

EnterNow wrote: »

Now, I figured they had to be joined elsewhere so, likely on the underside of the motherboard. I removed the board & sure enough they were connected in a way I'd never seen before. Because this is a PAL Asian Megadrive, I suppose its possible Sega left region setting until post production & this is an official job. Or else some A-Hole decided it'd be easier to hardwire the console at 60Hz & do so from underneath the motherboard.

I'm confused.

Did some parts of Asia (Hong Kong?) use PAL instead of NTSC? Or is Pyongyang's MD1 a combination of a pristine Asian casing (no widened cartridge slot) with PAL motherboard & power supply (for reasons that escape me)?

Myrddin

KeRbDoG wrote: »

Nice'n'neat mod - makes me want to get a Megadrive

You don't have one? Tut tut, wait till Ciderman hears this!

justryan wrote: »

Nice job you really went to town on those traces EN

I know! I couldn't break the continuity for the life of me, I thought there was a sliver of a connection left so I kept going. All well, there won't be any cross talk there thats for sure

a5y wrote: »

I'm confused.

Did some parts of Asia (Hong Kong?) use PAL instead of NTSC?

Yes, certain Asian MD's, the later ones I think, were in fact PAL

a5y

EnterNow wrote: »

Yes, certain Asian MD's, the later ones I think, were in fact PAL

... OK, one more question, because my mind is boggled.

- These PAL Asian MDs: were the cart slots & their doors sized to fit Japan's slightly-larger-than-PAL-region carts, or PAL one's?

If they made no changes to the moulds, leaving the slot sized for the larger Japanese carts they'd get a bunch of complaints from customers complaining that their games won't start - those carts would have been abundant and incompatible, right? But new moulds or retooling the console casing moulds that late in a console's lifecycle makes no financial sense. Its lose-lose.

Changing from NTSC to PAL has no benefit at all that I can see and makes a bunch of problems. Sega were totally nuts.

Myrddin

a5y wrote: »

... OK, one more question, because my mind is boggled.

- These PAL Asian MDs: were the cart slots & their doors sized to fit Japan's slightly-larger-than-PAL-region carts, or PAL one's?

If they made no changes to the moulds, leaving the slot sized for the larger Japanese carts they'd get a bunch of complaints from customers complaining that their games won't start - those carts would have been abundant and incompatible, right? But new moulds or retooling the console casing moulds that late in a console's lifecycle makes no financial sense. Its lose-lose.

Changing from NTSC to PAL has no benefit at all that I can see and makes a bunch of problems. Sega were totally nuts.

The cart slots are squared off, there's no obstruction to fitting in an NTSC cart.

As to why they are PAL, some info on that here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bfXsDYmv6A

a5y

Ah. This explains a lot. Thanks EnterNow.

Myrddin

Yeah so basically,they left the factory as JAP models, & were afterwards modified for use on the Asian market. That explains the way the tracks were joined in the way they were above. I've done some PAL Asians before, but never modified like this one. Also, I've never seen that loose RF box in any of them.

I guess the method they used isn't consistent.