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Sega Saturn Switchless Guide

Based on VA13 motheboard

We start on the rear off the board where you will be making four connections but you need to prepare them first

Remove the jumper links from JP6, JP10 & JP12

The links are are removed in the picture above, use your soldering iron, just heat them up with fresh solder and they usually just come of on the solder tip but you can use tweezers if they dont. Be careful not to lift any pads.

Next job on the rear is to cut the track that controls the 50hz/60hz

Cut the track shown below. You will be soldering on to the bottom via near where it is marked TP103 (lightly scrape away the solder mask to make it easy)

On the front of the motherboard cut the track between the reset button and the surface mount capacitor C122. Now be very careful as there is another track that runs at an angle just above where you will be cutting

To locate the new PCB just peel off the backing from the double sided tape and stick it down. I usually place the chip to the bottom right as shown below

For power there is conveniently some non populated pads on heavy tracks. If they are not on your board you can also take power directly from the main power pins. For ground you can also solder to the dots around the edge of the board.

The reset wire connects directly to the capacitor, don't keep the heat on it too long as you do not want to accidental lift it off. For the button wire connect to one of the top pins of the button

On the rear, connect the wires from the JP6, 10 &12 to the pads on the PCB then from the pad near TP103 to the 50/60 pad on the PCB

To remove the original LED, grip the LED with pliers then heat the two pads on the rear of the board and pull gently. It should just pop out. Once out stick a small square of electrical tape over the led holes to avoid any shorts

Now to prepare the new LED. The long leg on the LED is ground, leave it just now. Cut the two shorter legs down to about 10mm as they do not need to be long.

You will then need to connect a wire to each of the short legs of the LED. Make sure the wires are long enough to make it back to where your new chip will be fitted. Once you have soldered the wires to the legs, slip the heatshrink up the wires to insulate the legs. Use a heat gun to shrink the heatshink

When fitting the LED we can take ground from the the solder dots around the edge of the board, shown below. This also keep the LED in the correct location. Try and get it in the centre of the circle marked on the board. Once you are happy with the position trim down the ground leg

When fitting the board back in the base i line up the cables from the bottom of the board with a convenient gap on the bottom heatsheild