Sega Mega Drive DONE!

I don't think I mentioned it, but I got a Japanese Mega Drive from a junk bin my friend had. It was kinda worked, missing screws, missing volume slider, and a broken power button (the nub of the slide switch broke off). I did test it, even with the broken power switch, and it worked just fine.

I did my usual thing with it (broke the case down, scrubbed it clean, dusted the main board off, cleaned the contacts, checked all the caps), then put it aside for about a month or so.

With all this lock down with COVID-19, I figured it's time to finish it up. I had to figure out what to do with the power switch.

I tried looking online for a switch that would work. There were a few, but the pitch wasn't correct, and there wasn't the correct grounding points on the switch to the board. I tried modifying a switch that I bought for a separate project, but it didn't work out well.

Here's the switches. The one on the left is the original switch that I desoldered from the main board. On the right is the exploded view switch that I had. The original switch is an SPDT switch, mine were DPDT. I trimmed the leads from the DPDT switch, but nothing I tried worked.

I took the original switch apart. There was a spring and ball in there that I took out. I also drilled a hole and used a M3 screw that I had from the left over parts from my 3D printer build. I cut it down a bit and also took the head off of it since it didn't fit properly into the power switch housing on the top cover.

I soldered the switch back in and did some initial testing. Turns out, the screw wasn't enough to move the switch to the on position. I did check to make sure the power LED was installed correctly, and without the case on, it works just fine.

It took some quick thinking (that is, I took a shortcut). So I ended up doing this.

I ended up putting an M3 nut on the screw that I originally cut. This also meant that I needed to modify the power switch housing as well.

 I bored out the housing so it'll fit the M3 nut to add some girth to the switch. It takes a little extra push to get the power to trigger. I figure that if I finally come around to finding a proper switch, or this hack finally give up the ghost, I can always 3D print another one.

Speaking of 3D printing, I printed the missing volume slider. This took some modifications after the print to get it to fit properly on the slider switch. There was a point where I thought I was gonna snap the slider, but with some filament digging, I got it to fit just right.

Here's a top-down look at the slider. I may look for a fine tip red paint pen to mark the volume line on the slider, but I don't think it's needed.

I also removed the cartridge lock, mainly so I can used my Mega Everdrive on it. I didn't have a modified cartridge that would work with it, so off it went.

That's another project (if you can call it that) done. I've always wanted to add a Mega Drive to my Sega console collection.

Oh, also one more thing.

We has a doggo. His name is Hershey. He's not too hyper, but he does command the belly rubs...a lot.