RF Mod in a Japanese Megadrive 1 - any ideas?

[Simon Carter]

Hi, 

   I've just picked up a Japanese Mega Drive 1, which was unusual as it had a built in RF cable sticking out the back. I popped it open to see what was going on inside (guessing it had been modded to work with UK televisions) and found this...

 

Mega Drives are not my area of expertise in the slightest but I'm hoping this would allow it to work with a UK PAL TV.

 

In addition, the Mega Drive power supply that came with it did not fit, would a universal adaptor be any good and if so what power supply settings would be ideal?

 

Thanks in advance, I appreciate some of these are simple questions

 

Si

[Steven Pendleton]

Are you sure that it's actually a Japanese Mega Drive? It might be an Asian Mega Drive. I examine Japanese Mega Drives quite frequently and I've never seen one with an RF cable coming out of the back. There are countries in Asia that do use 50Hz, so it's entirely possible that it's actually an Asian Mega Drive if it does have a 50Hz refresh rate.

 

As for the PSU, the Japanese MD comes with the SA-160A PSU. Is that the one that you have that doesn't fit? If it's the SA-190, that's for the Mega Drive 2, Super 32X, Mega Jet, and probably the Mega-CD 2 and Wondermega (never used a Mega-CD 2 or Wondermega, so I'm not sure about what PSU they need, but I would be surprised if it was something other than the SA-190) and does not fit in a Mega Drive. SA-190 also works on the Nomad, as well. Not sure what the NA and PAL model numbers for the PSUs are, though.

 

In any case, if it is in fact a Japanese Mega Drive and your PSU is something other than the SA-160A, the SA-160A is center negative and is labelled INPUT: AC100V 20VA 50/60Hz, OUTPUT DC9V 1.2A, so find something that matches that and has the proper barrel size and you'll be good... assuming that it is in fact a Japanese MD.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Steven Pendleton

[Simon Carter]

3 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Are you sure that it's actually a Japanese Mega Drive? It might be an Asian Mega Drive. I examine Japanese Mega Drives quite frequently and I've never seen one with an RF cable coming out of the back. There are countries in Asia that do use 50Hz, so it's entirely possible that it's actually an Asian Mega Drive if it does have a 50Hz refresh rate.

 

As for the PSU, the Japanese MD comes with the SA-160A PSU. Is that the one that you have that doesn't fit? If it's the SA-190, that's for the Mega Drive 2, Super 32X, Mega Jet, and probably the Mega-CD 2 and Wondermega (never used a Mega-CD 2 or Wondermega, so I'm not sure about what PSU they need, but I would be surprised if it was something other than the SA-190) and does not fit in a Mega Drive. SA-190 also works on the Nomad, as well. Not sure what the NA and PAL model numbers for the PSUs are, though.

 

In any case, if it is in fact a Japanese Mega Drive and your PSU is something other than the SA-160A, the SA-160A is center negative and is labelled INPUT: AC100V 20VA 50/60Hz, OUTPUT DC9V 1.2A, so find something that matches that and has the proper barrel size and you'll be good... assuming that it is in fact a Japanese MD.

Got the beastie working before I read your advice, just used a universal adaptor. 

 

Regarding that mod, the white RF cable pictured continues out the back of the machine to be attached to the TV, should have taken more pics, but have passed the machine on. Only reason I guessed it was a Japanese machine was that it had the red decals, wasn't aware there was a different Asian variation. Either way, I got it to work with a UK PAL TV so my mate was happy.

[Steven Pendleton]

18 minutes ago, Simon Carter said:

Got the beastie working before I read your advice, just used a universal adaptor. 

 

Regarding that mod, the white RF cable pictured continues out the back of the machine to be attached to the TV, should have taken more pics, but have passed the machine on. Only reason I guessed it was a Japanese machine was that it had the red decals, wasn't aware there was a different Asian variation. Either way, I got it to work with a UK PAL TV so my mate was happy.

So basically they look similar externally to the point where most people can't distinguish between the Japanese and the Asian ones. Apparently the Asian ones do not have the registered trademark symbol next to the Sega logo and that's pretty much the only visual difference aside from the missing "AV INTELLIGENT TERMINAL HIGH GRADE MULTIPURPOSE USE" text. I forget when they ditched that specific marking, but I believe that all of the ones that do not have that marking have TMSS. The actual Japanese MD was phased out sometime after the VA4 and replaced in Japan by the Asian Mega Drive, as my VA4 has the registered trademark thing and the AV INTELLIGENT TERMINAL HIGH GRADE MULTIPURPOSE USE text but my VA6 does not, which would indicate that it's the Asian Mega Drive, so I'm guessing that the last Japanese MD revision was either the VA4 or the VA5 and then they just used the Asian model. The ones that were sold outside of Japan would have had specs to suit the respective countries; I believe that Hong Kong used 50Hz, so if you found a Hong Kong MD, it'll run at 50Hz. I think. Probably.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Steven Pendleton

[ApolloBoy]

On 9/2/2021 at 8:28 AM, Steven Pendleton said:

So basically they look similar externally to the point where most people can't distinguish between the Japanese and the Asian ones. Apparently the Asian ones do not have the registered trademark symbol next to the Sega logo and that's pretty much the only visual difference aside from the missing "AV INTELLIGENT TERMINAL HIGH GRADE MULTIPURPOSE USE" text.

This isn't necessarily true, there are Japanese models which lack the "AV Intelligent Terminal" text as well. Conversely there are plenty of Asian Mega Drives which have said text.

 

The main differences between the two are that Asian models have a built-in RF modulator like US and European models and run at 50 Hz, whereas Japanese Mega Drives do not have an RF modulator and of course run at 60 Hz.

 

@Simon Carter you have a Japanese Mega Drive that's been modified to output PAL video. This was a common thing done to Mega Drives that were imported into Europe from Japan before the Mega Drive got an official release in PAL regions. Gray import PC Engines also received a similar treatment.