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Sega Saturn Switchless Guide

Based on VA9 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 marked in red above, they can be removed using a soldering iron to heat and use tweezers to lift, they may just come of on the solder tip without the tweezers. Be careful not to lift any pads. The pads marked in yellow are where you will be linking the wires to the new pcb board.

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

Cut the track in-between the the vias, marked in yellow. You will be soldering on to the bottom via near where it is marked TP103 (in blue circle below)

You may need to carefully scrape away some of the solder mask from the via so there is a good connection

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

The reset wire will be connected 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

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.

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 (alterativly carefully use a lighter or you can use the edge of your soldering iron but it could leave black marks)

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

To locate the new PCB just peel off the backing from the double sided tape and stick it down. Before you stick down the PCD I normally sit the metal shield over the top of the board to make sure it is not fouling. I usually place the chip to the bottom right as shown below

Now use the quick reference supplied with the kit to connect all the solder points I have showed you to wire up the new PCB