ToToTEK.COM

[Thunderwing]

Hi all,

Being a total newbie I accidentally plugged in a AC power supply to my just bought GD, but I also have questions?

1) will a GD work on a pal unmodified snes I'm a little confused how you tell if your unit is NTSC or pal?

2) would I have caused damage to the GD cos I plugged in the wrong AC power?

3) should I get to the menu without any power to the GD ?

I know I'm a fool just in my excitement I plugged in the wrong thing and as it stands I get nothing from the unit at all!

Please any advise would be great

[MottZilla]

It's possible using an AC and not DC power supply caused damage. I'm not sure.

Without power to the unit, you will see no menu or anything at all.

As for PAL/NTSC, if the GDSF unit doesn't match your system, you can try putting a local game in the cartridge slot to see if it will boot. But you need a proper power supply. It tells you what this is on the bottom of the unit.

And that's assuming your using the wrong supply didn't damage it.

[madman]

An AC output adapter could've caused damage.

[Thunderwing]

Hi guys,

I have since tried a multi adapter 9v dc correct polarity but only 600ma the unit says 850ma - 1.5a would this make a difference? As when I plug in the unit with this supply I get nothing no floppy lights nada!

I know the main board is getting power and so is the floppy as I checked is there any on board fuses? Or is the issue the power supply being only 600ma?

Sorry for the stupid questions.

[MottZilla]

Using the correct power supply now may not do anything at all. You already ran AC through the device. Chances are that the device must be opened up and examined for damage. If you are lucky some sort of easily replaced component took the damage and can be replaced. I'm not certain what that might be, a power regulator or something like that perhaps.

You may need to contact someone that can repair electronics that have had AC run into them when they expect DC. Atleast in the future you will probably be more careful about what power adapters you use with any device. Just because it fits the plug doesn't mean it is ok. I think that is why the US SNES has a weird power plug to prevent anyone from using an original NES power adapter, which is AC and would damage a SNES.

[Thunderwing]

thanks for the reply.

I have opened up the unit and checked for damage, as it stands there is nothing visible that looks wrong. I have check with a multimeter the voltage in, which is correct and the voltage at the floppy power connector wich is also correct.

I have a good technical know how and fix arcade machines for a living which makes this so annoying as I messed up this because I didn't check in my excitement.

Is there any schematics or on board fuses? There is a large regulator very close to the power input could that have blown?

Any help would be great

edit:- closer inspection shows that there is indeed a protection diode and a power regulator in the voltage circuitry, the diode and regulator both test out fine. The regulator outputs 5v and the diodes is fine with 9v going through it.

[MottZilla]

If it seems ok, the next most likely issue is the NTSC/PAL difference. Most Game Doctor units are NTSC. If you are running it on a PAL system you need to replace the lockout chip in the Game Doctor with one from a PAL game cart or possible plug a PAL game cartridge in the cartridge port. Or disable the lockout chip in your console. Otherwise you will see nothing at all.

Judging by what you've said, the lockout chip is probably your issue.

[amptor]

It will probably work with 600ma but the floppy might not run. I would try plugging in an 850ma if you can find it or a 1amp or 1.2amp might be more common you could try and it won't ruin the copier (it will only draw as much current as it needs just making sure that you use the correct voltage, did you say it was 12V? don't plug in anything above the voltage rating it will fry it..so if it requires 12V don't put a 14V or 18V psu you'll definitely toast ICs inside the unit that way unless you're lucky and it burns out something else before it reaches them that you could replace)

At least we're only talking about a GDSF7 so you're in luck in case you ruined the unit, it won't cost you that much to replace the entire thing. Or if you want you could pop out the RAM and buy a unit that has no memory or just 32 meg and swap in your old RAM into it and it will probably still work.

I was using the recommended Sega Genesis Model I ac adapter which I still have with the GDSF7 when I owned it. It worked fine but I think that ac adapter was 12V core positive and 1.2 amps from what I can remember. I have further read that power supply can fry anything it is plugged into if there is a power surge because it will just throw all the extra power straight through it instead of filtering. So a Genesis Model I power supply is not the most ideal but it works and is recommended to either unplug after you're done playing or have a fuse in line with it inside the hardware (in this case, the gdsf7 which I doubt there is a fuse inside it but there might be). A lot of Sega Genesis consoles got fried apparantly from their own power supply due to power fluctuations in the dwelling but the Sega CD apparantly reconciled that because it had a short blow fuse inside it and people would leave their console plugged in and when they were sleeping if a power surge happened all the hardware would be fine but most people didn't know why their segacd no longer worked anyway and junked them.

I'm hoping that the ac didn't cause any problem in your copier. I don't remember if there are any devices for snes, sega, handheld backup units etc that use ac output. The only console I remember using AC was the NES at I believe something like 9 volts AC and of course the NES would have internal circuitry to convert it to DC. I have no idea why they chose AC for that system.

If you find that the copier is broken you can probably contact Tomy to see if he'll sell you a new circuit board or see if he has any spare units to sell.